CCI Celebrates 75th Anniversary

Though CCI was formally established in 1951 as Cascade Cartridges, Inc. by Dick Speer, a machinist by trade, the origins of the company date back several years.
“Dick’s older brother, Vernon, had established Speer Bullets in the mid-1940s, and his success convinced his younger brother that there was a future in selling reloading components,” says J.J. Reich, CCI’s senior communications manager. “So, Dick moved to Lewiston, Idaho, with the idea of making brass cases for cartridges that were hard to find in the reloading market.”

But a critical shortage of the brass needed for cases derailed the original plan. Instead, he decided to enter the component primer business, and his non-corrosive, non-mercuric formulas for sporting cartridge primers caught on and laid the foundation for all that was to come.

“Dick’s cartridge cases were good, but they were an unsuccessful product,” says Reich. “CCI, as we know it today, started with the launch of their successful primer component manufacturing business seventy-five years ago.

To handle the new primer business, Speer bought a small chicken ranch next to the Lewiston Gun Club just a mile south of his brother’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 buildings, gaining the room to expand the product line. When the gun club moved, Speer bought the adjoining property for future expansion. The CCI plant still occupies that property.

“Today, CCI and Speer Ammunition operations include three facilities that reside on a total of 400 acres with more than 350,000 square feet of state-of-the-art manufacturing space, staffed by 1,100 employees,” says Reich. “These facilities run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year long.”

The two plants are still located about a mile apart in their original locations in Lewiston, near the banks of the Snake River, with the Craig Mountains in the background. A primer plant is situated a short distance away in Southport Business Park.

CCI’s dedicated, experienced workforce delivers a wide variety of products that have built unparalleled brand loyalty among millions of shooters and hunters. This diverse range of products includes rimfire and handgun ammunition, primers and reloading components, and more, such as power loads for tools used in the construction industry.

“CCI’s current ammunition catalog offers more than 149 items with 30 options in the primer category, 53 options in centerfire handgun, and 66 offerings in rimfire ammo, far more than any rimfire competitor,” says Reich. “Our quest to create new and purposeful ammunition and a willingness to listen to customers’ wants and needs are what started CCI, and it is why the company has been in business for so long.”

But, as with many large industrial operations, small steps preceded giant ones. In the early 1950s, CCI was developing and manufacturing small-arms primers, and government orders accounted for nearly all of the company’s production. Dick knew he had to expand his customer base, and by 1956, a whole selection of CCI primers was commercially available. This included No. 200 Large Rifle, No. 300 Large Pistol, No. 400 Small Rifle, and No. 500 Small Pistol. These primers are still offered today. “In the 1960s, CCI expanded into making rimfire power loads for use in powder-actuated industrial fastening tools, also known as ‘nail guns’,” says Reich. “This opened the way for rimfire sporting ammunition, and in 1963, CCI started producing factory-loaded rimfire rounds.”

CCI’s Mini-Mag was marketed to “make your .22 shoot like a magnum.” CCI's rimfire products quickly became the top .22 LR ammunition of its time, and it still maintains that stellar reputation. In addition to creating innovative rimfire loads, CCI also excelled in another key area—innovative packaging.

“In the 1970s, CCI pioneered the use of “100 PAC” and “50 PAC” plastic boxes with a sliding lid; similar boxes are still used today,” says Reich. “Rimfire and centerfire shotshells featuring small payloads of small-sized shot in blue plastic capsules also became popular products.”

In the 1980s, plastic blister packs were produced for mass merchandisers to hang ammo on wire racks. CCI's “Belt Pak,” a blue plastic box with a hinged lid and a curved belt loop and a plastic “Ammo Can,” an olive-drab bulk box, helped sell more Mini-Mags in high-volume packaging. “In the 1990s, CCI perfected the first hyper-velocity .22 Win. Mag. cartridge, aptly named Maxi-Mag +V (Plus Velocity),” says Reich. “This higher velocity set the tone, as many of our current .22 WMRs are set at this higher velocity of 2,200 fps.”
The company also began loading rimfire cartridges with a segmented hollow-point (SHP) bullet design that broke into three equal pieces, creating separate wound channels for fast, effective terminal performance. These bullets are in many of their product lines today.

The 2000s brought many products that were, and still are, popular products in the current CCI catalog. CCI's Velocitor HP .22 LR was introduced, and its impressive velocity of 1,435 fps with a heavy 40-grain bullet was quite an accomplishment for the time. CCI collaborated with Hornady to launch the .17 HMR and .17 Mach 2 cartridges. New Arsenal rifle primers were introduced due to the popularity of the prepper trend within the hunting and shooting industry at that time. “The 2010s delivered more innovative and trendy products,” says Reich. “A new tactical .22 LR load for AR-style rifles was introduced, following the trend of modern sporting rifles becoming more mainstream.”

Larger-shot “Big 4” loads featuring No. 4 lead shot were added to the centerfire handgun lineup. The industry’s first .22 LR polymer-coated bullet was introduced in 2018. Several more Clean-22 loads followed in the years ahead, such as Maxi-Mag .22 WMR Segmented HP in 2020. “In the most recent years, our easy-to-pour cartons were introduced, offering bulk packaging options for product lines such as Maxi-Mag and VNT,” says Reich. “And Blazer Brass started loading the all-new 30 Super Carry cartridge, first introduced by Federal Ammunition.”

The innovative cartridge 30 Super Carry fires a smaller-diameter bullet than the 9mm Luger yet delivers comparable muzzle energy. In 2023, CCI released Clean-22 Hyper Velocity .22 LR rimfire ammunition, which boasts a 1,550-fps muzzle velocity. Uppercut .22 LR for self-defense was launched in 2024. It was the first true jacketed .22 LR bullet that’s commercially available. Uppercut .22 Win. Mag. followed in 2025.

Over the decades, CCI’s diverse product line has been driven by two factors: an unrelenting quest to create new, useful products for shooters and hunters and a willingness to listen to customers' wants and needs. Their product catalog includes a wide range of ammunition for plinkers, target and competition shooters, small-game and varmint hunters, and more.
“We are happy to celebrate the 75th anniversary of CCI this year,” says Reich. “CCI’s products have become household names over the years, and we plan to continue to add more to that list.”