Fiocchi (CBC) & Aguila (AGL) 45 colt Brass

[Tall John]

Who regularly reloads CBC & AGL Head Stamped .45 Colt brass?   Both have Cannelures.  
 

I’ve managed to end up with a bunch of each through large purchases of mixed brass.

 

It cleans up really good, de-primes easy and I discovered this morning that both brands might be excellent candidates to cut down for Cowboy 45 Special cases as the Cannelures are above the .90” mark and get cut off using my C45S jig that I bought on EBay.  This is different than my Cannelured Winchester cases where the Cannelures are barely below the 0.90” cut mark. (Which I then trim to 0.892”)

 

 

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

Well, I have never trimmed them, but in my ongoing, I've got to reload all this .45 Colt brass I have and may as well sort it by headstamp for fun, project, I found that I had a significant amount of brass headstamped CBC and Aguila.  I do not have a box labeled for anything like those, so I have no idea how I got it.   Maybe it was in a mixed bag of used brass or something.  

Anyway, I had no problems reloading either brand.   When I get home from work, I'll say how much of each I came across.

I have a plethora of different headstamps in this caliber.   Once I get all the Winchester and Starline reloaded, which I have more of than anything else, I'll say what I'll I've got.

At the moment, I have about 700 rounds loaded of the "other" category.   

[Choctaw Jack]

After having 2 case separations of 45 Colt brass (both were Winchesters ), I removed all cannelured brass from my loading rotation.

I had CBC and AGL in the lot, but I've never had any problems with either.

Most of these brands eventually got cut down to C45S , so the cannelure question is solved for now.

Choctaw

[Go West]

I've only had case separations with .38 Special cannelured nickel brass. If you want to cut them down it's up to you.

[Col. Cornelius Gilliam, SASS#5875TG]

I had a few case separations on the first reloading of 45 Colt, CBC cannelured brass. I won't make that mistake again!

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

I am curious.   When it comes to cannelured brass, I've noticed that sometimes the cannelure is very prominent, and at other times, you gotta look twice cuz it's so faint.

But I have to admit, I've never had a case split at the cannelure.  What causes the splitting?  There's gotta be something other than the cannelure itself that it causing the brass to fail.  

[Tall John]

I’m told that the cannelure will disappear over time with multiple reloading cycles…

[Tall John]

Looking closer at some of this cannelured brass, I found that most of the 400 pcs of CBC (MagTech ) brass’ cannelures in this batch were at about the 0.920-0.930” mark so I used my trusty HF Mini Chop Saw with the jig I bought on eBay and cut ‘em down to 0.898-0.910” and will use my Lee drill powered quick trimmer to finish them at 0.892-0894” for Cowboy 45 Special.

 

i also cut down all of the short spec Hornady cases in my bucket.  About 165 of them.

 

cutting is quick but trimming and measuring each case is tedious.

 

 

[Griff]

I've never bought any CBC brass, but have a fair amount among my 45 Colt brass.  I have all sorts of cannelured brass amongst my 45 Colt empties, have for the 50+ years I've been reloading it...  But, I've never had a case separation in 45 Colt, and only one in 38 Spl.;  and that separation was of a cannelured W-W nickel brass, but nowhere near the cannelure,  close to the web... that case had been resized so many times the nickel was nearly worn off... strictly metal fatigue.  Every crack of 45 Colt brass has been longitudinal in nature, splits that stretch from the case head to near the mouth.  Seldom cracking the case mouth.  

[Garrison Joe, SASS #60708]

I now cut down a lot of brands of .45 Colt to make C45S out of it.  CBC and Aguila are two of the ones I cut down.   

 

I leave the Starline, Winchester (non-cannelure only) and Top Gun cases uncut, as  .45 Colt.   Yes, I have had a couple of old Winchester cases that separated at the cannelure.  I have only bought Starline for the last 20 years - all the rest is from mixing on the cowboy ranges.  

 

good luck, GJ