Self-propagating exothermic reactions, for instance in the nickel-aluminum (Ni–Al) system, have been widely studied to create high performance intermetallic compounds or for in-situ welding. Their easy ignition once the phase spacing is reduced below the micron scale, makes top-down methods like high-energy ball milling, ideal to fabricate such reactive nanostructures. A major drawback of ball milling is the need of a sintering step to form bulk pieces of the reactive material. However, this is not possible, as the targeted reactions would already proceed. Therefore, we investigate the ability of high pressure torsion as an alternative process, capable to produce bulk nanocomposites from powder mixtures. Severe straining of powder mixtures with a composition of 50 wt% Ni and 50 wt% Al enables fabrication of self-reactive bulk samples with microstructures similar to those obtained from ball milling or magnetron sputtering. Samples deformed at ambient temperature are highly reactive and can be ignited significantly below the Al melting point, finally predominantly consisting of Al ₃Ni ₂ and Al ₃Ni, independent of the applied strain. Although the reaction proceeds first at the edge of the disk, the strain gradient present in the disks does not prevent reaction of the whole sample.