Aluminum Cases

[Blakenzy]

So, if reloading is not a factor, what are the deal-breaking disadvantages of aluminum cased ammo as compared to brass or steel counterparts?

I wonder because there is a substantial weight diffence between brass and aluminum cased cartridges. It is very easy to percieve the difference by just picking up a magazine loaded with one or the other. If you had to carry a few hundred rounds the weight savings would be important. You would think that the military would have picked up on this but apparently there is something wrong with aluminum (or military procurement and innovation). Is it that aluminum cases don't handle centerfire rifle pressures very well?

 

[Sediment]

Never heard of aluminum being used instead of brass. Only ones I know of are brass, nickle-plated brass and steel. Steel looks like a dulled grey metal, the nickle-plated looks like it's chrome. Of course I'm new to reloading and haven't shot anything but brass in a long time.

 

[gunnutery]

Well, for one, I guess the military sells a lot of brass casses to the market, so I suppose if they switched to a non reloadable casing they'd lose more money. I for one have tried to use only brass when possible, I don't really care for the rough feel of the aluminum and I'd like to get into reloading someday.

 

[Yo Mama]

Blazer makes aluminum cased ammo, they also make brass. I've never experienced any problems from them, and the aluminum ones seem to be a bit cheaper than other ammo.

I'd posit that the military wants smooth feeding that is reliable, and brass does this just fine.

Well, for one, I guess the military sells a lot of brass casses to the market

Not anymore. It's sad, but they stopped selling to us, and only added to the ammo shortage.

 

[Armed Accountant]

Blazers

I use the aluminum Blazers all the time in semi-auto with no trouble. The casings don't fly off as far after you shoot compared to brass casing, but I've never had a problem with them in a semi-auto. My father-in-law has a Taurus 9mm revolver and I tried using the aluminum Blazers in there. They worked just fine until we tried to reload. The aluminum casings must have expanded after having been fired because they went in fine but literally had to be pried out.

 

[heron]

I saw a post (elsewhere, I think) about someone using aluminum-cased ammo in their Hi-point carbine . . . the gun ran fine for a while, but eventually began to malfunction, and it was then noted that there were lots of little aluminum shavings in the action. Perhaps it depends on the design of the extractors; some may be more gentle than others.

 

[ny32182]

If it runs in your gun, and you don't care about reloading it, fire away. Especially in pistols.

For rifle, steel cased ammo is generally built to a lower performance standard in general (not neccessarily having to do with the case material specifically). If you want match grade ammo for instance, there likely isn't any steel case stuff out there that will do it for you, but that probably has as much or more to do with the powder and bullet consistency as it does the case. Once again, if you are happy with the performance on target and it runs in your gun, fire away.

For the "it wears the extractor" crowd, you can buy a bunch of extractors with the cost savings from a single 1k round case.

 

[Manco]

So, if reloading is not a factor, what are the deal-breaking disadvantages of aluminum cased ammo as compared to brass or steel counterparts?

I wonder because there is a substantial weight diffence between brass and aluminum cased cartridges. It is very easy to percieve the difference by just picking up a magazine loaded with one or the other. If you had to carry a few hundred rounds the weight savings would be important. You would think that the military would have picked up on this but apparently there is something wrong with aluminum (or military procurement and innovation).

These are excellent observations and questions. I wish I had the answers, but we can go over some pros and cons. Now that the US military are apparently no longer going to sell their cases for reloading, there would indeed be a substantial advantage in the weight saved from the loadouts of our soldiers, if not other parts of the logistics chain. A standard loadout these days is what? Probably something like 150-210 rounds of 5.56x45mm in magazines plus another 100-200 round belt of 5.56x45mm or 7.62x51mm for the machine guns (correct me if I'm wrong). I think they'd definitely feel the difference, and even more so with actual loadouts of 600+ rounds that some soldiers sometimes carry (not sure how common this is myself, but it doesn't seem all that rare depending on the mission). Some other advantages are cost, once they're set up for volume production, and possibly the availability of materials.

One potential disadvantage of aluminum cases is feeding reliability with the type of aluminum cases I've seen, but if that can be fixed through some manufacturing process, then there should be no problem. Another disadvantage may be for us rather than the military, if lower volumes of brass are produced it may affect the prices we pay for ammo, but I can't be sure of that, as maybe the decreased demand for brass will lower the price of the raw materials in the commodities market. Honestly, unlike steel cases, which have their own advantages, it's kind of difficult to come up with any cons regarding military use of aluminum cases. Anybody?

Is it that aluminum cases don't handle centerfire rifle pressures very well?

It depends on the aluminum being used and the design of the cartridge. In the worst imaginable scenario, an aluminum case design may end up being heavier, costlier, and smaller in internal volume than its brass counterpart, but I don't see that happening based on everything else I've seen regarding aluminum cases. If there is somebody who knows better, then please set us straight on this.

Never heard of aluminum being used instead of brass. Only ones I know of are brass, nickle-plated brass and steel. Steel looks like a dulled grey metal, the nickle-plated looks like it's chrome. Of course I'm new to reloading and haven't shot anything but brass in a long time.

Aside from there being standard CCI Blazer ammo in the civilian market, the US Air Force uses aluminum cases in the ammo for the 30mm GAU-8 Avenger autocannon carried by the A-10 close air support aircraft. There are possibly other examples of which I'm unaware.

 

[The Lone Haranguer]

Never heard of aluminum being used instead of brass.

CCI Blazer handgun ammo with aluminum cases has been around for close to 30 years. It is not reloadable and is Berdan primed to help ensure that you don't try to. Otherwise it is great target/range ammo at a low price. I've never had any trouble with it in revolvers or autoloaders in 25 years of shooting it, save for poor case ejection in my CZ.

 

[Sediment]

I've heard of Berdan priming before, but a bit unsure as to what it is. Are those the primers that are 2 flash holes instead of just 1?

 

[highorder]

I've heard of Berdan priming before, but a bit unsure as to what it is. Are those the primers that are 2 flash holes instead of just 1?

Correct.

The anvil is part of the case as opposed to being part of the primer (ala Boxer primed cases.)

 

[CoRoMo]

I've heard/read of guys' guns that didn't function well with aluminum rounds, but I've only had good performance.

 

[Sediment]

Forgive my mistake, I meant 2 flash holes on the brass, not the primer. I have loaded but yet to shoot some .45 ACP rounds using aluminum (maybe, it's shiny and silver colored) and it deprimed, primed, resized and loaded the bullets just fine. I inspected the cases and didn't spot any defects. Crossing fingers for good bang bangs

 

[Blakenzy]

the US Air Force uses aluminum cases in the ammo for the 30mm GAU-8 Avenger autocannon carried by the A-10 close air support aircraft.

Well, that's a heavy duty use of aluminum cases! So I guess we could conclude that aluminum should be up to the task of withstanding NATO rifle pressures.

One thing I have noticed of aluminum is that if uncoated it is somewhat rough. Blazer coats their aluminum cases with an almost unperceptible coat of polymer that makes them very smooth to the touch. After repeated chamberings(several loads and unloads of the same rounds), this coat begins to wear off and you can feel the difference a little bit, at least when manually dropping rounds into revolver cylinders. They kind of slide in slower. Yet I have not been able to notice any malfunction in the extraction of these worn cases once spent in the revolver. In semiautos I never noticed any difference in any circumstance..

 

[average_shooter]

I have loaded but yet to shoot some .45 ACP rounds using aluminum (maybe, it's shiny and silver colored) and it deprimed, primed, resized and loaded the bullets just fine.

If it is "shiny and silver colored" then it's most likely nickel-plated brass. The nickel plating can lessen the reloadability of the case as compared to regular brass.

 

[Manco]

I have loaded but yet to shoot some .45 ACP rounds using aluminum (maybe, it's shiny and silver colored)

You're not sure of what type of case you're using? Hopefully it's nickel-plated brass like you'll find in many premium self-defense cartridges (prevents oxidation and has less friction than plain brass).

 

[Sediment]

I thought it was nickle plated brass but from reading this I started to doubt myself. That's what I get for mixing reasoning, internet a tad bit of alcohol. I'll get ready for bed now.

 

[Blakenzy]

So why don't militaries use aluminum? Tradition?

 

[Curator]

A friend gave me a couple of 1000 CCI .45ACP alluminum cases. I was going to pitch them but noticed they were primed with what looked like small pistol primers. Curious as ever, I ran them through my .45ACP setup. They worked fine--no problems. They shot fine too. On close inspection I did notice a small amount of leakage around the primers on the fired cases. It appears these newer "Blazer" cases can be reloaded at least once--possibly more if brass is in short supply

 

[Detritus]

Not anymore. It's sad, but they stopped selling to us, and only added to the ammo shortage.

Umm, unless there has been another development that i am unaware of...

the whole "no more surplus brass" thing has been resolved and the flow of surplus once-fired cases has resumed. there was a thread about that particular SNAFU and it's resolution.
the whole thing turned out to be a over-zealous civil servant making a declaration he wasn't authorized to. sales of brass have resumed.
the difference in PROFIT between selling to the likes of Georgia Arms etc, as compared to selling to scrap dealers, is too large for the feds, DoD, whoever actually gets the money, to pass up.

So why don't militaries use aluminum? Tradition?

Numerous reasons, some inter-related. from what i understand the following are the leading two.

• to the greatest extent, for small arms ammo there is no real reason or need change case material, and doing so would be a headache from a maunfacturing standpoint.
• our current arms are designed to function with brass cases, any material change opens up the possibility of function problems.
  any material used in place of brass in current generation military arms would, like Blazer Aluminum and Wolf/russian steel case, have to be externally treated/plated to mimic the "slickness" of brass to feed and extract to spec and would have to have the same or more "memory" (ie spring back toward it's original dimensions) as brass for the same reasons plus reliability.