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Those who shoot steel casings usually don't dump the brass bucket after their session. So when I dump it into my brass bag after my session, I have a lot of steel mixed in with my brass. Are there any clever uses for the steel casings or do you just throw it out?
Thanks.

Get enough of them and sell them for scrap - - - gonna take a lot of cases to be worth the trouble though.

I read that someone reloaded steel cases and thought they were OK, and potentially safer than brass for hot loads, steel being stronger and all.

In fact, I remember seeing ads in the gun rags when I was a kid where one of the custom die shops (Huntington's?) used to sell "Steel Head" rifle cases to contain the pressure of what would normally be overloads for use in certain cartridges.

I think most of today's steel cases are covered with plastic, varnish, or lacquer, so I expect they'd need quite a bit of cleaning to avoid gumming up your reloading setup . . . and I'm not sure how well they'd size down, since the steel wouldn't have the same springiness as brass . . .

Steel cases can be reloaded if they are boxer-primed, according to my Lee manual.

However, it's generally not going to be worth the effort unless it's a rare caliber that you can't get ample brass for. There does seem to be at least a few people who reload steel in 7.62x39, which makes sense as brass-cased ammo in that caliber is relatively uncommon.

If you want to attempt it, I would recommend using carbide dies and case lube to avoid stuck cases and wear on your equipment. As for case life, I've read articles from folks who reload steel that they can be annealed in a similar fashion to brass except cooling should be done by letting the case sit and cool unassisted in the air rather than quenching in water.

A google search will turn up lots of results on the subject.

I throw away all steel cases as I believe they cause more wear on the re-sizing die. I have a magnet I stir through the brass before I clean them to weed out the steel. I have found some 9mms that have a brass plating of some kind but are steel and get picked up the magnet. They look just a regular brass case.

AndyC wrote:I throw away all steel and aluminum cases - not worth the effort to me.

The only aluminum cases I can think of right now are CCI Blazer . . . and I believe they have a non-standard primer diameter, so reloading them would require a lot of work.