revolver trivia questions

[Chriznak]

Is there such thing as fireforming brass in the revolver world? On the flip side of that, is there a big downside to competing with steel/aluminum cased revolver ammo?

[ede]

I'll say no, and yes it's not reloadable.

[Toolguy]

Usually fire forming is done with bottleneck cases that have a shoulder. Revos use straight or very slightly tapered cases so there isn't really anything TO fire form except maybe a few thousandths of diameter in the middle of the case.

Often times the steel cases will stick in the cylinder and be hard to extract.

[mcb]

Slightly off topic but I have reloaded Blazer Aluminum 45 ACP (the new stuff is primed with small pistol primers) with minor loads (200gr RSFP, 140PF) and had good success. Runs great in my XD-45. I only reloaded them once. From my testing about 1/3 will split the second time you fire them and most of the rest will split the third time you press a bullet in them or the third time they are fired. Got to use fast powders (Titegroup works well) since they don't have much crimp force when reloaded. A crimp groove is very helpful to keep them from setting back. I personally would not do it with full power 45ACP.

[ede]

To help this stray off topic a bit more I reloaded 30-50 Blazer aluminum 9mm cases 5-6 years ago and fired them in a Glock. I know I used Titegroup and I'd guess 147s. Zero problems other than the cases looked dirty even after cleaning and I didn't like that. I didn't pick up or look at much of the cases since I was sure I ddin't wantto load them a third time, but the few I looked at seemed OK to load again.

[pskys2]

Is there such thing as fireforming brass in the revolver world? On the flip side of that, is there a big downside to competing with steel/aluminum cased revolver ammo?

Just out run the poor schumks who scrounge brass, or that shoot afterwards and had some steel cases mixed in with regular cases and then tried to reload them. They might be a bit miffed. At least the aluminum cases don't cause problems with reloading dies.

Guess one could try to fireform .400 cor bon ammo to .45, but my guess is the necks would be weak.

[cas]

.22 Long Snapper, before and after fire forming. It's not a dramatic difference, and it's sure not common, but it is a revolver round.