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Fact or BS: Aluminum Case Ammo Can Damage Your 1911 | 1911Forum
Fact or BS: Aluminum Case Ammo Can Damage Your 1911
I went looking for the best deal on CCI/Blazer. A shop
owner told me he didn't sell it because it will ruin your
gun. Now, I am a little skeptical about his explaination...
But, I thought I would run it by more experienced owners.
His explaination was:
"As the gun wears, it allows the aluminum to expand to the point
that the extractor will break because the extra expansion
will lodge the casing in the barrel/chamber."
Personally, I have a new (about 500rnds fired) Kimber CDP Pro Series 1 1911. So, I would think that if I had that much wear
on the weapon, I probably need to replace the extractor and
the barrel anyway. It would also seem that brass could expand
to the point where the extractor couldn't extract it anyway.
Your extractor is hardly your entire gun. I'm not a fan of Blazer, primarily because I reload, but with the money you save on Blazer as opposed to most brass-cased ammunition you could pick up another extractor every other case and still come out ahead.
Besides, I haven't heard anyone say anything about Blazer breaking extractors before this thread. Generally the complaint I hear is that for some twisted reason people think the aluminum will chew up their chamber quicker than brass. True or not, the same concept applies. Pick up a new barrel when you've saved $250 on ammo!
BS. I have been through at least 25K on one gun, all Blazer, plus another 15K of different types and I am still on the same extractor.
Try this. Buy some Blazer. Fire a few rounds and collect the spent cases off the ground. Drop your mag and clear the live round from the chamber. Lock the slide back. Now, see if you can insert a spent case into the chamber. If the case has expanded as claimed, then you should not be able to do this very easily. Now repeat with brass cases and see what you find out. Both should fit into the chamber just fine.
Something to note here is that brass isn't exactly known as the strongest metal in the world. If there is room to expand, the brass will expand and so too will aluminum. In fact, if the brass/aluminum is not properly supported by the chamber, both can result in a case failure produced by the high pressures during ignition. In short, if there is room, then both will expand. In a proper chamber, both will be fine.
Keep in mind that the supposed threat to the extractor is coming from supposed additional friction caused by the case expanding in the chamber and that over time this will supposedly stress the extractor to failure. Neither aluminum or brass should produce any sort of significant chamber wear as both are softer metals than the barrel.
A couple of my shooting buddies also use Blazer and have had no extractor problems. What a bunch of BS!
Speaking of BS, keep in mind that the gunstore guy who told you that probably tells people that .32s are good guns for defense.
BS, I have shot some Blazer ammo, it was accurate, reliable, no problems. The aluminum case is not reloadable, even though at one gun show I saw a table of reloads that contained some Blazer cases. I left that table at warp speed!
Jim, if you use CCI primers, Blazer cases can be reloaded. That said, the aluminum apparently does not hold up well for multiple use and is much for likely to fail if re-used than brass. I have known people who have reloaded the odd aluminum case here and there and have yet to have a castastrophe, but it still probably is not a good idea.
You guys are in luck--and not just because you lucky devils get to read a post from me! Four years or so ago, a shooting pal of mine (with maybe too much spare time on his hands) decided to start reloading some of his Blazer .45 empties. Yep. Kept track of them, to see how long they would hold up. Nearly all of them gave up the ghost after about six reloadings, tops. They split, got dinged up, stretched etc., most after the second or third go-round. Jethro---I mean Double Naught Spy---while some of the cases split, I don't think any of them caused any harm to the gun. And they were loaded for bowling pins, at 200+ power factor. Your point is still valid though. And Jim V, gosh, as a moderator it's great to be able to brag that you learned another important factoid today, huh?
I agree.
I have shot a lot of Blazer also over the years and with the exception of a few hard primers I have never had a problem with any of it.
Seems a little dirtier in my gun than some other brands but the savings $$ means more shooting.
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Four years or so ago, a shooting pal of mine (with maybe too much spare time on his hands) decided to start reloading some of his Blazer .45 empties. Yep. Kept track of them, to see how long they would hold up. Nearly all of them gave up the ghost after about six reloadings, tops. They split, got dinged up, stretched etc., most after the second or third go-round. Jethro---I mean Double Naught Spy---while some of the cases split, I don't think any of them caused any harm to the gun. And they were loaded for bowling pins, at 200+ power factor. Your point is still valid though. And Jim V, gosh, as a moderator it's great to be able to brag that you learned another important factoid today, huh? 
