I'm new to this whole reloading thing and have a question. Can you reload those nickle casings from the cheaper Blazer rounds? If so, any special treatment required?

Thanks in advance.

The Blazer cases are aluminum and are not recommended for reloading.

Nickle plated brass cases are reloadable and treated same as regular brass.

Thanks for the info...I didn't realize they were aluminum.

Blazer also makes Blazer BRASS which is regular re loadable brass, but as mentioned the silver kind is aluminum.

Nickle plated brass is not only heavier but shines more than the aluminum. Once you put them side by side you can tell the difference.

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Still Running Against the Wind

The Blazer ammo with aluminum cases is Berdan primed and not reloadable at all. The brass cases, even if they happen to be nickle plated they are still brass, are boxer primed and fine for reloading.

You can reload Berdan primed brass if you want to go the extra effort. I'm not sure why aluminum is non reloadable though.

The aluminum, Berdan-primed cases can be reloaded, but trust me -- it is a PITA and nowhere near being worth the trouble. They were designed to be one-use throwaways.

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Pisgah

Blazers were loaded with Berdan primers, but now they are using boxer primers too.

As others pointed out, you can reload them, but it isn't worth it. The reason you should not reload them is because aluminum is not as malleable as the brass alloys and will fail very quickly if fired, stretched and fired again. I had performed a test years ago using 50 cases with relatively mild loads and lost over half of them on the first reload firing. After the second reload firing there were only about six of them left.

I have reloaded some Boxer primed .45 ACP Blazer with good results. The .45 ACP is a relatively low pressure cartridge and I encountered few problems. A few split when the case was belled or the bullet was seated, but I lost fewer than I expected. I wanted to see if it can be done in an emergency, and I'm satisfied that I can load standard velocity .45 ACP ammo in aluminum cases. I would not want to attempt this with a high velocity revolver cartridge.

Dave Sinko