The Making of Cascade Cartridge Incorporated (CCI): Dick Speer Filling the Industry Gap

Cascade Cartridge Incorporated, better known as CCI received it's start from Dick Speer, brother to Vernon Speer who founded Speer bullet company. CCI is now one of the largest producers of ammunition components int h U.S.A., but they started with simple primers.

Dick Speer saw a gap in the industry, and like any good businessmen, he filled that gap. While there were proprietary cartridges available on the market, some more exotic ammunitions had been discarded. These cartridges, like the Newton series or Weatherby cartridges, had been pushed aside and the lack of a reliable brass source had created a need for a reliable producer. Dick Speer felt so strongly that there was a market in this area of ammunitions that he left his job at Boeing Aircraft to start up his Speer Cartridges.

When Speer's cartridges first hit th market they were sold under the label of "Forged From Solid" although they were later changed to "Speer Cartridge Works". The only problem was that material quality varied too much for "reliable" casings to be made, so much so that only a few acceptable cases were produced and shipped to customers. To build his business Dick Speer had to find a new avenue for his business to explore and profit from. With technology catching up with the ammunition world, and the specific technical operations of firearms shifting over the years Dick Speer decided that the viable option for his business to explore would be center fire primers. Since many larger companies were hesitant to sell off some of their primers along to reloaders, since that would ultimately lower their income, he decided that reloaders needed a reliable and new source such products, Dick Speer took that gap and filled it nicely.