Federal Aluminum 9mm sucks

I use aluminum out of my Glocks without an issue, especially at practice for steel plates. I have also seen people have issues with WWB brass ammo because it's underpowered, so it's not just an aluminum case issue.

LOL, WWB 9mm is anything but underpowered. Unless they changed it recently or something, or we're not talking 9mm.


-Mike
 
At 189.00 delivered for 1k rounds of Brand name Brass these days next time buy Brass. But like you said, you have learned a few things out of it. I do see people at my range shooting Fed Aluminum and the last time was out of a Hi-Point Carbine with zero issues.

if a hipoint is running it will eat anything. HPs are like that they either work or they dont. Funny thing is their. warranty is pretty good and turn around is great.
my friend bought one used and after 1k rounds that he put through it it started having problems. He contacted high point sent a few pictures and then all he had to do was pick up the new carbine at lgs and mail the old one back?
 
I can't speak to the 9mm, but the .45 ACP Aluminum Federal I've been using in a revolver is inaccurate as hell. I used PPU with it months back and it was far better, cheaper, and... BRASS!

I'm never buying Aluminum ammo again. Russian steel ammo is equally as bad and much cheaper. Plus I can pick it up with a magnet.
 
Can't say I've ever bought the aluminum-cased 9x19mm fodder, but for the same price I bought the brass-cased Federal ammo. This was only because the $7.50 steel-cased wasn't in stock. All ran fine in my little Taurus (used as a reload test gun primarily).
I've reloaded the aluminum cases and they functioned fine for at least 7 reloads (kind of lost track after that). Steel reloads work fine, too. Not my standard fare, but it was an experiment.
I don't have any issues reloading 8mm and .45 ACP in non-brass cases either, but don't take this as a recommendation.

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I tried some WPA military classic today, 9mm steel cased. ~$0.16/rd shipped. Iirc, 7/200 or so failure to fire in my G19. Tbh, I like the added aspect of not knowing if every one is going to go off and having to be ready to tap-rack-bang. Adds a little something to just shooting steel. Fwiw they all went bang the second time.
 
I've reloaded the aluminum cases and they functioned fine for at least 7 reloads (kind of lost track after that). Steel reloads work fine, too. Not my standard fare, but it was an experiment.
I don't have any issues reloading 8mm and .45 ACP in non-brass cases either, but don't take this as a recommendation.

Wow, 7+ reloads in aluminum cases, would of thought they would have split after a couple. Hows the steel to work with? Do you have to lube the cases? Must have to really crank on the handle to resize vs brass, no?
 
Well, that's the whole point for experimentation.
Everyone says no, not reloadable, etc...., but I say why not or how and when will they fail?
I don't size the aluminum or steel any differently than the brass. I don't polish the cases, just inspect and make sure they are clean. They process with as much ease as brass cases for me. They don't damage the dies and they grip the bullet just like brass cases do. Yes, I realize the properties of steel and aluminum aren't conducive to repeated working, but I find brass and nickel-plated cases fail just as often. In fact, I had some older Remington brass with a 88gr JHP in 9x19mm (presumably some old factory ammo, since I rarely load one bullet with all the same headstamp) and all split upon firing them. Likely, the cases will be lost before they fail, unless you have 100% ability to reclaim all of your fired cases.
From a safety standpoint, I'm not loading most .45 ACPs very hot and they are relatively low pressure to begin with (vs. 9mm and most other pistol/rifle calibers). This is not done to entice others to do it, but simply to find things out for myself. With the availability of boxer-primed brass cases in about all pistol and rifle calibers, it doesn't make a lot of sense to substitute with aluminum and steel, but it can be done.
Don't ask me how many steel-cased 7.62x39mm I've reloaded (at least until my stash of berdan primers were exhausted).

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^ I don't judge ammunition companies on kabooms as every company is capable of making a dangerous round. It's why I check all of my factory ammo after I buy it to make sure there are no bullets set deeper in the case than the rest of the box.

When I judge crappy factory ammo, I'm judging it off hard primers, accuracy, and in the case of hollow points, expansion performance. So far, Federal Aluminum .45 is pretty bad.
 
Federal Champion Aluminum case has always been my go to range ammo. Great stuff.

And yes you can reload aluminum and steel just fine. I don't reload but I know plenty that do it.
 
I don’t mind the aluminum stuff but won’t run steel through any nicer gun. I run it through my plinkers. The steel jackets wear more on your bore.
 
I had S&W tech supt admit that some of their guns have a narrow feedramp and cause feeding problems with steel cased ammo. That's the experience I had on a number of guns, so no steel goes in any of my handguns.
 
Agree on all fronts. Shoots super dirty too. That whole $.01/round I saved really feels like crap now. Live and learn. I had a new shooter with me today, so it was nice being able to do a little training on clearing malfunctions etc.

At least they were honest about it being training ammo. [lol]
 
The problem with the steel cases stuff isn’t so much the cases but the steel jacketed/copper washed bullets. They are harder on your barrel.
 
At 189.00 delivered for 1k rounds of Brand name Brass these days next time buy Brass. But like you said, you have learned a few things out of it. I do see people at my range shooting Fed Aluminum and the last time was out of a Hi-Point Carbine with zero issues.

IMHO stuff like Blazer AL and steel cased ammo has its place, problem in a lot of cases is that it just simply sin't loaded
hot enough. I actually had pretty good luck with Tulammo 9mm during Obamascare 2 though... (at the time, 9mm was dried the f***
out in the channel, and that was all I could get my hands on in case lots at a reasonable price before the walmarts started restocking finally... )

One fun thing about AL and steel cased ammo is its great for "throw away brass events" or if your range has any of those geritol brass rat jerkoffs that like to poke around taking everyones brass... if they find out you're shooting steel or AL, they'll stay away from you like you have
cooties... LMAO.

-Mike
 
The problem with the steel cases stuff isn’t so much the cases but the steel jacketed/copper washed bullets. They are harder on your barrel.

Not every steel cased round uses copper clad steel jacketed bullets. It's also a false problem, to some degree. For example I used to
shoot tons of that GECO 9mm 124 gr or whatever it was... and that stuff had exactly that kind of bullet in it. Never had a problem or noticed
excessive wear. At least not as far as handguns went....

-Mike
 
You are correct that not all steel case ammo uses bimetal jackets. It’s mostly the Russian stuff that does. I believe Winchester has a line of steel cases made in the US ammo now that AFAIK is copper jacketed. There are others.

I don’t mind the aluminum cased stuff. Works fine for me. I don’t totally avoid the steel cased stuff either- I shoot it when I can’t get anything else.

Good for winter shooting when cases will get lost in snow.
 
I've got a box of CCI Blazer .38+P that'll disagree with you. Man that stuff has some punch to it.

I should have been more specific, I was more speaking generically about imported steel cased pistol ammo (eg, like some crap like brown bear) than Blazer AL. I think several years ago there was a guy around here (Jgreen maybe?) who used some BB at an IDPA shoot and the stuff didn't even chrono at minimum/minor.

I've probably fired over 20,000 rounds of that stuff (mostly Blazer AL .45 230) and it was never "really hot" but it did the job. I killed lots of bowling pins with that stuff back when it went for like $160 / 1000 rounds.

-Mike
 
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