Steel case

[AlbertaSheepdog]

I'm sure this has been beaten to death... But can you reload steel case ammo? I've always believed you can't, but lately I've been seeing pictures of reloaded ammo that appears to be steel cased. Granted they have been pistol caliber.

I sure hope not... Because I've thrown out Upwards of 5000 steel cases... Both rifle and pistol.

 

[Avalonthas]

Yes you can but there are a number of considerations

1) Steel is a hard metal vs. Brass. Thus you run the risk of damaging your dies as its steel on steel. Whereas brass is softer then a steel die so you can live a lifetime with a good set of dies
2) Steel rusts and corrodes, again not something I want to put in my dies
3) Steel is tougher to size and trim but its possible (again hardness)
4) You won't be able to continually load it much as it stresses / cracks easier then brass (again hardness)

Note the silver pistol cases you see reloaded are most likely Nickel. They are in the middle of steel and brass in terms of reload-ability. Manufacturers use it as its cheaper then brass (and also forces you to buy retail again versus reload it).

Dont bother keeping your steel stuff. Brass is a keeper if you reload. I personally do not keep Nickel but for pistol might be worth saving if you shoot a lot of it

 

[Spawn-Inc]

guess you've seen some of my pictures with 45acp?

you can reload steel or aluminum if you really want to, but it's not always easy. i started doing it just to see if it can be done, then kept doing it because sunray seems to think it's not at all possible.

most steel case or aluminum cased stuff is berdan primed and makes it very time consuming to reload. i've used water to hydraulically deprime some 357mag CCI aluminum cases (only took them because i thought they were boxer primed) once. i toss them after reloading them once as it takes to long to deprime them. with the steel case stuff i've never seen boxer primed cases accept for the tula stuff, 9mm is berdan. from my experience the aluminum cases (9mm, 45acp) will get loose primer pockets after 3-5 reloads with moderate powder charges. the tula steel cased stuff is on it's 6th reload and going strong. i lube the steel cased stuff, but not the aluminum cases.

to sum up, yes it can be done but brass is generally so easy to get that it's not worth it unless you like being different.


you can see the berdan vs boxer primed CCI aluminum cases below. also note that it say's "N R" which i can only assume means not reloadable.

http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo304/Spawn-Inc/Reloading/2014-01-26203234_zps0488367b.jpg

http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo304/Spawn-Inc/20140503_023207_zpszitcei8g.jpg

http://i386.photobucket.com/albums/oo304/Spawn-Inc/2013-08-21000932_zps95638360.png

 

[sawzall]

Note the silver pistol cases you see reloaded are most likely Nickel. They are in the middle of steel and brass in terms of reload-ability. Manufacturers use it as its cheaper then brass (and also forces you to buy retail again versus reload it).

Nickel brass is just that, nickel plated brass cases. It's done for corrosion resistance. It's actually more expensive than yellow brass. The problem with reloading it is the nickel flakes and peels off. It's very hard and can scratch the crap out of your dies.

And yes you can reload steel casings. Make sure they're clean, deprime with what ever means you choose and lube them well before full length sizing. You may only get 2 or 3 reloads from them before the case mouths crack but you can anneal them if you so choose. I suppose if it's all you can find, you can make it work. Oh, and don't try cleaning them with wet stainless tumbling, it makes one hell of a mess. I accidentally put some steel 7.62x39 lacquered cases in my tumbler and it turned everything black. Took about 12 hours of tumbling doing water changes every 2 hours to get the media and tumbler chamber clean. It would turn the brass black without cleaning. The steel cases also rusted virtually instantly after removing them from the tumbler lol.