nickle plated brass

[buggybuilder]

Does nicle plated brass need annealing like the brass cases?
If so, is it done in the same manner?

[jabo52521]

Good question. Waiting to hear the answer.

[craig61a]

Yes it does need to be annealed if you are going to size it to some other type of cartridge. And if the sizing is going to be fairly radical don't waste your money on nickle plated brass. Nickle is harder and not as form-able as brass. It was meant to protect cases from verdigris when cartridges were put in leather gun belts.

[jabo52521]

So nickel plated 40sw is not the best to swage up to 45acp jacketed. Thank.

[Bonz]

I've never tried it but I was warned that the Nickel would crack

[largom]

I've never tried it but I was warned that the Nickel would crack

YES, and the cracks will then scratch your sizing die.

Larry

[buggybuilder]

I was just going to shoot and reload it in the proper headstamp. Was hoping to get alot of mileage out of these cases.

[mold maker]

They clean easier, but don't last as well if sized heavily. The thin nic plating doesn't stretch/compact same as brass, and winds up with spider web cracks. The edges turn up and release from the brass base metal. These in turn become sharp edged scrapers that are harder than the brass. They may wear/scratch your dies.

[birddog]

I've had good luck fire forming 257's up to Imp cases. Don't know if I would choose them to radically form new cases.
Charlie

[Motor]

I like them for the caliber they were made for. Its kind of a mixed bag though. I have had them last so long in 38spl and other straight wall pistol calibers that I have worn through the nickle.

Then some crack and peel very soon. This mostly happens with bottle neck rifle cases though. It seems to be directly related to trimming and de-burring but I've seen pistol brass do it too.

While it is true the nickle can damage sizing dies this is only with steel dies. The nickle can not harm a carbide sizing die.

Motor

[Bullwolf]

I like them for the caliber they were made for. Its kind of a mixed bag though. I have had them last so long in 38spl and other straight wall pistol calibers that I have worn through the nickle.

I like them for the caliber they were made for as well, Most of the time I use them to prevent corrosion and verdigris from forming on cases. Sometimes nickel cases seem to split much sooner than brass, while other times they can last nearly forever. I too have some nickel 38 special cases i've loaded so many times that I've nearly worn all the nickel plating off.



Then some crack and peel very soon. This mostly happens with bottle neck rifle cases though. It seems to be directly related to trimming and de-burring but I've seen pistol brass do it too.

I have to agree with this as well, it seems like nickel rifle cases don't do as well when you trim, or perform massive flaring or sizing operations on them.



While it is true the nickle can damage sizing dies this is only with steel dies. The nickle can not harm a carbide sizing die.
Motor

The only thing I would add to the part about nickel damaging sizing dies is this. Yes nickel can come off cases and imbedded itself in steel dies. You can often also polish out of steel dies, and press them back into service if this happens.

Recently however, while sizing a batch of clean nickel plated 357 Magnum cases, I had the nickel plating come off and imbedded itself somewhat into my RCBS Carbide sizing die. I was not intentionally lubing cases at the time, but there was a small amount of Lemon Pledge over spray contamination on the cases.

The carbide dies afterwards would leave vertical or longitudinal (Up and Down) scratch lines on the cases, when being used to size either brass or nickel plated cases due to the nickel contamination. The scratches were both visible and audible. You could tell simply from the extra effort involved that something was amiss, as well as from the sound and the clearly visible scratches.

I have, while working commercially sized a ridiculously large amount of nickel plated pistol brass using carbide dies and no case lube, also experiencing no problems whatsoever. So this one incident really surprised me.

I was a bit worried about the dies, as carbide is incredibly hard and usually takes something like diamond grit to lap out. Despite that, I managed to clean/polish out the nickel plating remnants using a split dowel in the drill press, and some JB bore paste, followed by a dab of Flitz metal polish. Apparently the nickel was not really imbedded into the carbide insert, (smeared perhaps) as the carbide dies worked fine again for me after the polishing.

I ended up scrapping the scratched nickel cases, since I wasn't able to polish out the scratches on them, and I did not want to have a repeat incident.

So an addition to what Motor said. While you are not likely to permanently damage either steel or carbide dies with the use of nickel plated cases, nickel plating can still apparently come off cases and deposit itself in both kinds of dies - causing similar issues.



- Bullwolf

[EDG]

Nickel plating being less self lubricating than brass has a much higher propensity to GALL (cold weld or stick) to the interior of a die. I stuck nickel on the inside of a Lyman .357 Mag carbide die. After polishing the nickle out I made it a habit to smear a finger across one of ten or so cases and never had that problem again.

I find the worst hing about nickel brass comes from the nickel inside the neck. It is rough, hard and really scars up the shanks of j word bullets when seated. I can deal with the outside of the cases by neck sizing only with a titanium nitride coated bushing. The interior of the neck needs to be expanded to minimize the force of the press fit. A carbide expander button would be a good item to use with a nickle case to burnish the nickel inside the case neck.

[mfraser264]

A few things to help with nickel plates brass - with handgun cases, deburr the outside of the mouth before resizing to remove any hard sharp burr's that could scratch the die. Nickel plate is measure in .0001" of and inch, not .001" of an inch, very thinly applied. A short run in a stainless steel pin tumbler does a great job. Even after 4 ours in SS pins the plating had no ill sign of over cleaning.

It will wear off quickly or wear through however. It is a corrosion inhibitor.

I have been resizing 5.56 FC military brass into .222 Remington and then turning the necks. No issue with plating cracking or peeling off and no damage to the sizing die. However, the neck turning removed the Nickel and leaves me with a rather unique looking case. Why do this? Easy to identify and keep a lot of brass together!

[brstevns]

Once tried Win, 30-30 nickle to 38-55 win. Lost more then half.

[claude]

This may be of some use on the question of nickel plated brass;

http://varmintal.com/arelo.htm#Nickel_Brass

There is a lot of useful info on the above site, I have enjoyed reading this gentlemans work a great deal.