A History of CCI®

Richard "Dick" Speer (1915-1994) possessed a remarkable talent for things mechanical. He was a machinist at Boeing Aircraft's Seattle plant when he realized that his brother Vernon's success in the component bullet business meant there was money to be made in reloading.

The brothers found another niche that they felt held opportunity. There were a number of proprietary rifle cartridge like the Weatherby and Newton designs that were not supported by the "big" ammo companies. Dick decided to make cases to service this small but active market. He left Seattle and joined Vernon in Lewiston, Idaho. In a small room at the Speer bullet plant, he began production of these special cases using an impact extrusion process.

Speer's cases were first sold under the name, "Forged from Solid," before changing to Speer Cartridge Works. Later, market confusion over to companies with "Speer" in the name led Dick and his partner Arvid Nelson to change the name to Cascade Cartridges, Inc., or CCI.

Although Dick's case-making process was sound, the quality of the raw material was not. In the early post-war years, most stocks of cartridge brass had been depleted for the war effort. Faced with an untenable situation, Dick turned to a different path.

Component primers for reloaders were in short supply. Some war surplus primers were showing up but the supply and choice was limited. Dick decided to get into the component primer business. He found a refugee scientist from Lithuania, Dr. Victor Jasaitis, and brought him to Lewiston in 1951. Dr. Jasaitis, or "Doc" to most people, was a specialist in explosive chemistry, and developed the exotic chemicals and processes needed for primer manufacture. Although Dick intended to build primers for hobby reloaders, his first shipment was to fulfill an military contract, using the chlorate FA-70 formula. Then he turned to non-corrosive, non-mercuric formulas for sporting cartridges, and reloaders now had a steady supply of rifle and pistol primers that was unheard of previously.

To handle the new business, Dick Speer bought a 17-acre chicken "ranch" next to the Lewiston Gun Club just a mile south of brother Vernon's bullet works. The farmhouse doubled as an office and warehouse, and production began in a renovated chicken coop. He quickly erected modern labs and manufacturing buikdings, gaining him room to expand the product line. When the gun club moved, Dick bought the adjoining property for future expansion. The CCI plant still occupies that property today.

In 1957, Dick added shotshells to the line and, two years later, began making industrial powerloads for powder-actuated fastener systems. In 1962, he expanded into rimfire ammunition with Mini-Mag, still our most popular rimfire product.

In 1967, an Oregon firm, Omark Industries, was seeking an in-house source of loads for the powder-actuated tools they manufactured, and bought CCI from Dick Speer. Seeing the profitability of sporting ammo and components, they wisely elected to let CCI continue to grow in this area. New products such as Stinger, the world's first hypervelocity 22 Long Rifle ammo, rolled out of the CCI facility.

In 1986, CCI's development engineers set out on a comprehensive primer improvement program to meet the requirements of progressive loading equipment that was starting to dominate the reloading market. The program wrapped up in 1989 with the introduction of all-new primers that featured smooth feeding through automated equipment, reduced residue in non-magnum primers, improved primer seating, and better sensitivity that included a larger "sweet spot" for firearms that produced off-center firing pin strikes.

In 1991, CCI opened a new, state-of-the-art primer manufacturing facility to insure that we could supply all our customers' needs. During the so-called "primer shortage" of 1993-94, CCI was the only US primer manufacture to continuously ship primers to commercial accounts, largely due to the increased capacity afforded by this new facility. CCI is also a major supplier of military cannon primers.

In 1990, CCI perfected the first hypervelocity 22 Magnum Rimfire cartridge, and has continued to add new rimfire products like Mini-Mag™ Silhouette, Segmented Hollow Point, and Velocitor™, the fastest 40 grain 22 Long Rifle load on the market.