Thread: 45 ACP. Are these reloadable???

Got these cases from a friend's Dad's Garage after he passed on. I shot some thru my trusty 1911 and they worked just fine (had a really cool smell like large artillery).

So are these cases reloadable? I have some with head stamp dates 1943 and 1956 both have the same dull look.

Sorry the cases on the right are from BiMart and are for comparison.

Shine a light down into the case - if there is a single hole, then you should be able to size/deprime the case and load it. At most, you'll have to clean out the primer pockets and give them a good tumble.

I'm afraid from looking at it however, that when you look in there you will see two small holes close to one another - which would mean its berdan primed - which would make it more trouble than its worth (Berdan Primers for Centrefire (Centerfire) Metallic Cartridges and Shotshells for reference).

Nate

Not Berdan. I checked that first off. Busted a decamping on my Dillon pin years ago when one of those buggers got mixed into my clean brass.

1) It's corrosive ammo......make sure you clean your pistol with water to get the salts out as well as your regular cleaning solution.

2) It's steel cased ammo......I have very little experience in loading steel cased ammo and that only in rifle calibers but I would not reload it.

3) It DOES have collector value...... I would not shoot it and I would take good care of the ammo boxes.

I did not know about the collectibility of Ammo....Damn. I cracked open the box and shot and shot 15 rounds out of it.

looks like it's going for $35 a box

.45 acp AMMO for 1911 Dated 1943 45ACP WW II : Collectible Ammo at GunBroker.com

I had some of that (EC43) years ago. Shot most of it but kept one box. It's steel cased and corrosive (clean with water, old GI bore cleaner, or Black Powder solvent). I reloaded some of them as an experiment back then. It worked but the primer pockets were very tight and I think it's probably a bit hard on the dies. Steel work hardens quicker than brass and will fail/crack sooner so one reload is probably the limit and actually, probably not worth the effort.

Originally Posted by ogre

1) It's corrosive ammo......make sure you clean your pistol with water to get the salts out as well as your regular cleaning solution.

2) It's steel cased ammo......I have very little experience in loading steel cased ammo and that only in rifle calibers but I would not reload it.

+1 for this part at least