In the past if anyone had asked me if it were possible to reload aluminum-case autoloading pistol rounds I would have said no. Is it possible? Yes and no is my answer now. It’s not a good idea though, in my opinion.
In the milder seasons of the year we do a lot of pistol shooting. Recently, at a spot that at least three generations of shooters use I noticed a pile of spent aluminum .45 ACP cases. I knew the ammunition existed but had never seen any for sale in this area. Examining one, I noticed that it had a small pistol primer. I had recently gotten a good deal on small pistol primers and had stocked up. My press was currently set up for reloading .45 ACP. If there was any aluminum cased ammo you could reload it would be the low-pressure 21,000 psi .45 ACP and not the more common 35,000 psi aluminum cased standard pressure 9mm and .40 S&W was my reasoning. Just because everyone says it’s not possible, did that mean anyone had actually tried doing it? Grabbing a handful, I took them home.
They resized and de-primed normally. The problem came when running them through the expanding die to open the case mouth wide enough to accept the .452″ diameter projectile. A crack in the case mouth would immediately form. The cases could be compressed slightly to their original dimensions but not expanded at all. No matter how gently I attempted to run them through the expander die. a split formed at the case mouth. Soon, only three cases were left.
The land diameter of my 45 barrel at the muzzle is .442 inches. The bullet is compressed as it travels down the barrel. Well into handloading and shooting the fourth 500 projectile box of Berry’s 185 grain round nose hollow-based plated projectiles this summer, I had recovered almost two dozen previously-fired projectiles still in good shape measuring the same inside barrel diameter. After seating the primer on my remaining three cartridges three of the formerly fired projectiles were seated and gently taper crimped over my standard range load of 5.2 grains of W231 without problems.
Wearing eye protection over a pair of ballistic sunglasses I fired at 3 of the water filled plastic bottle targets. The first two rounds fired and cycled normally. The last one fired with reduced recoil hitting the bottle and knocking it over. The slide failed to open enough to extract the cartridge case. Clearing the pistol, I saw that the case had cracked. The bullet had penetrated the water-filled 16-ounce bottle but not continued to the other side and was lying on the bottom in a couple of inches of water.
Examining the other two cases I saw that one had developed a short crack at the case mouth. I don’t recommend reloading aluminum cartridge cases; however, it is possible if anyone asks. Obviously, reloading aluminum-cased ammo is not a good idea, especially a higher-pressure one like 9mm. To summarize: You should recycle the fired cases with your beverage cans. Do not reload them!
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