Nickleplated cases are neat, ain't that right?

[Buckshot]

http://www.fototime.com/886D492FBD5834A/standard.jpg

Nickel plated R-P 45 Colt. Each one has a crack there on the side with the light reflection. These 8 cases were from a batch of 100 rounds I'd loaded. This is a common loss ratio with this stuff. Fire a box of 50 and you'll have 2-4 lost due to splits or casemouth cracks. Hard to see in the photo but a couple are split almost to the web.

This batch is the charm. Third time for me buying nickel plated cases, and each one was a bad decision that cost me more then the brass price. First was some .444 cases. Not so much cracks and splitting, allthough there was some of that but mainly flaking. It was so bad that the tumbling media looked like it had 'sparklies' in it :-). It ended up scratching the size die.

A couple years after that I'd bought a Pedersoli Creedmore rolling block in 45-70. I thought I might try some BPC work and figured that nickle plated cases would be tits. Yes, I did recall my earlier bad luck, but that had been long before. After all, I had a BUNCH of 38 Special, 45ACP, and 357 magthat was nickle plated (and R-P and Peters headstamped) and they were fine. In fact some had the brass showing through the plating they'd been reloaded so often.

I never did load any BP in them, and it took no time at all and these things did the same as the .444 cases had done. Ruined another set of dies.

Since the 45 Colt dies are carbide they haven't been scratched up. However, the loss rate is so high with these I won't have to mess with throwing them away as they're dying fast enough on their own! Some crapped out on the first firing.

....................Buckshot

[dubber123]

Great quality control going on there! This goes a long ways towards me not paying the extra for nickle. They do look nifty though.

[rugerman1]

Nickel plated R-P 44 Specials did it to me about 10 years ago.I called Remington and they said it happened bacause I didn't chamfer the cases enough.[smilie=1:
Starline brass for me now if I buy new stuff :drinks:

[Lloyd Smale]

I wont buy new nickle brass of any kind anymore. Only nickle ones i use are ones i got for free. Its allways seemed to give me about half the life of regular brass.

[Bass Ackward]

I think that's more a phenom of application. Thank goodness you didn't have to neck it up or change it. :grin: I got some brand new Starline 44 Mags that the first cylinder full had 3 spit clear to the rim. It wasn't plated.

On the other hand, I was given three boxes of once fired, Norma and Remington 357 brass from the 50s. The Remington was nickeled. Surprisingly, I didn't lose a one! Not only that but that brass is the best brass (both brands) I have had my hands on for uniformity of anneal judging by the "feel" during seating. Stuffs been reloaded 4 times now and still feels better than my modern brass.

[Andy_P]

I use Nickel when I need to distinguish the rounds from others - when I shoot in competitions (and would like my brass back), and when I have two different loadings, say low pressure for a handgun amd higher pressure for a rifle.

Rather than dismiss their use, anyone have any tips to extend their life? Anneal? (looks don;t matter so much) Choose Starline Nickel (longer inherent life than Remington)?

[racepres]

I have some nickel R-P s that I made into 7mmTCU's and some that became 35 Herret's.. According to my notes [I did these at least 10 and 15 years ago] Splitting was a "non-issue" and these have been reloaded 5X and 3X respectively... No prob.s yet!! Maybe QC ain't what it used to be?? MV
BTW any of these made recently have been w/ "brass"!!

[ebner glocken]

The nickel brass I've recieved from R-P in the past year or two has been less than steller. The nickel from starline has been good.

[Bass Ackward]

I use Nickel when I need to distinguish the rounds from others - when I shoot in competitions (and would like my brass back), and when I have two different loadings, say low pressure for a handgun amd higher pressure for a rifle.

Rather than dismiss their use, anyone have any tips to extend their life? Anneal? (looks don;t matter so much) Choose Starline Nickel (longer inherent life than Remington)?


Andy,

Anneal will help in some instances. I had some 30-06 Remington Nickel that I wanted to up to 35 Whelen. First two spit the neck down into the shoulder, so I annealed and necked the rest up. I am still shooting those cases.

Same with the Starline I mentioned above. I annealed and I haven't lost one of those yet either. I would say that there are only 6 or 7 firings on both of those examples, so not much history to go by.

But I have 197 of 200 Hornady cases that have 73 loadings now and I anneal every 5th reload, but each time it doesn't do as well or last as long, so I will eventually have to scrap them.

But if plating is too heavy, then anneal won't do much to help ya.

[44man]

I have nickel in various calibers that have been used so long that the nickel is worn off from the tumbler. Never lost a single one yet. I have lost regular cases with one loading so I think it can happen with any brass. I would not blame the coating but the underlying brass unless the nickel is peeling from a bad plating process.

[S.R.Custom]

Must be bad batch(es). Made in China?

The local stool shooters use nickel plated .308 Winchester brass to make their .30 BR cases because the nickel cases go through their forming dies much easier, indicating that nickel in and of itself is not a bad thing.

That said, the only nickel cases I have in my ammo boxes are the ones that fall into my possession by accident; I'm too cheap to actually buy the buggers; pretty is as pretty does... ;)

[StrawHat]

Buckshot,

I have two buckets of nickle plated 38 Specials I used for competition in the 80's and 90's.

I had some splitting with them but not beyond what I also experienced with brass 38's.

Maybe you got a bad batch, but three times?

I will keep firing these 38's until they are gone but I haven't bought any new nickel cases.

They do make a pretty "clink" when they are split don't they.

[Typecaster]

I've had mixed luck—.44 Mag (PMC) and .357 nickel (Winchester, I think) have a tendency to split, but the .357s were a gift so I'm not really out anything. The PMCs feel "gritty" when I size 'em, even when new. 38 Specials, also a gift, have a high split rate...but I don't have any idea how many times they've been loaded.

I have new .223 and .308 nickel Federals, but no experience with them yet. Looks like they'll stay in their bags and look pretty. I will definitely use my batch of 45/70 R-P nickel cases because they're destined for low-pressure loads for an original trapdoor. I'll use brass cases for my Ruger #1.

The .223, .308, 45/70, along with a shoebox-full of .44 Special, nickel cases were all part of a barrel lot I picked up at the scrapyard...about 60# of brass, almost all unfired, mostly in calibers I can use. Anybody need some unfired .264 Win. Mag cases?

[EMC45]

I have had 'em split, but I also have some that are brass in color that started life as nickel[smilie=1: I also have some that say .357 mag on the headstamp and are the same length as the rest of my .38 specs.[smilie=1:

[357tex]

I bought 1000 nickled rp cases ,in the early 80s.Some have split here lately,but they have been reloaded at least 20 times.Maybe 30 times I don't know,have not keep track.I am thinking of replacing them with starline.But no nickel has come off and it is just the last year I have started getting splits.I guess they are starting to wear out.

[Tom W.]

I got some once fired Nickel from my son, and had some that was fired several times in my Encore and Ruger. My problems with it started when I got my rifle re-chambered and wanted to use the nickel brass for fire- forming cases.The once fired cases mostly cracked, as they didn't want to form to the chamber. I got some new brass (not nickel), and they did fine.

The only thing that maked me scratch my head was that a lot of the loads that I had previously loaded and used before the conversion fired and formed well, nickel or not. I suspect it was a bunch of older brass just overworked.

[Harry O]

I use Nickel when I need to distinguish the rounds from others - when I shoot in competitions (and would like my brass back), and when I have two different loadings, say low pressure for a handgun amd higher pressure for a rifle.

Rather than dismiss their use, anyone have any tips to extend their life? Anneal? (looks don;t matter so much) Choose Starline Nickel (longer inherent life than Remington)?

I use nickel for the same reason you do. I have nickel .357 Magnums and brass .38 Specials. Also nickel 38-40's and brass 44-40's.

The nickel 38-40's are Starline and have thicker necks than the 44-40 Winchesters. I loaded up 50 of them and experienced approx. 20% loss with the first loading, firing, and case prep. Unacceptable. Most were small cracks, but a few were 75% of full length (as shown above) and two of them had two cracks that joined and were missing a large chunk of the mouth. Wonder where it went.

I took all the rest and annealed the necks. Discoloration was noticeable, but not bad. However, the neck was so soft it was very difficult to load without buckling the necks. I eventually worked out the die adjustments so that the loss was small. Then I loaded and shot 50 more. The loss to neck cracks went down to about 5%. I can live with that. After firing the first time, the neck hardened up quite a bit; enough so that there was little loss with ordinary handling. I have shot some of them about 4 or 5 times so far and the loss may be going up slightly. I may anneal them again, but because of the problems before, maybe not.

I will be staying with brass in the future.

[alamogunr]

When I was working, one of the things we had to be careful of with threaded fasteners(bolts) was hydrogen embrittlement in plated bolts. This could be a real problem, especially with imported(China) stuff. Processed correctly, it can be controlled. But it is not visually detectable. Can the same thing happen with nickel plated brass?

[trickyasafox]

were they pretty warm Buckshot? I just got into 44 loading for my brother and cringe to think of the brass splitting. that stuff isn't cheap.

[Buckshot]

were they pretty warm Buckshot? I just got into 44 loading for my brother and cringe to think of the brass splitting. that stuff isn't cheap.

..............No, not into 'Hot' :-) It just hast'a be a quality issue because as I mentioned I have some plated brass where the plateing is about slap wore off, and the brass is showing through. Kinda like my Gram-pa's old ZIPPO, :-)

Just not worth it.

..............Buckshot

[odoh]

When I was working, one of the things we had to be careful of with threaded fasteners(bolts) was hydrogen embrittlement in plated bolts. This could be a real problem, especially with imported(China) stuff. Processed correctly, it can be controlled. But it is not visually detectable. Can the same thing happen with nickel plated brass?

DoD had an occasional issue w/hydrogen embrittlement on plated hw back in the 70's. My forgetter continues to improve and can't recall what the fix was but do recall it wasn't insurmountable and w/good QA we didn't have a continuing problem. IIRC China was still behind the bamboo curtain then ~ now 30yrs later and it crops up again? Makes me think its negligence ~ there can't be an excuse.

Having said that, I don't think nickled cases has ever had the emphasis as we in DoD put on the plated bit/piece hw. I've experienced splitting consistanly over the 40yrs to the point of using one time. The hardness of the case is detectable in normal loading routine. Maybe annealing would help but w/my luck it would produce some toxic gas/by-product that at my age, I donwanna risk what few days I've left over something just because its shiny.

[G. Blessing]

Is there any functional advantage of nickel over brass, or is it purely visual?

:)

I got 50 or so RPs in 45Colt that have fired and sized at least the 4 times since a buddy picked them up at a range... Got some brand new Winchesters( I think... too cold in the shop to go check now) in 30-30 that have been fine for 4 or 5 loads...

[44man]

Some time ago I had to form 6.5 cases from 30-06 brass. I bought new Rem cases and annealed them first. I still lost a few even though I used a .257 die first.
These were then turned and reamed, then annealed again.
The rest came out great and shot good.
I left a bunch loaded in the MTM box and when I looked at them a few years later most had split. I had to dump the whole lot.
They were just brass, not plated, so who knows?

[StrawHat]

Is there any functional advantage of nickel over brass, or is it purely visual?




Black powder residue doesn't attack nickel with the same appetite it goes after brass.

That's the only benefit of which I am aware.

[Bent Ramrod]

The compounds used to tan leather set up a reaction with brass resulting in a green glop forming on the cases at the expense of their integrity. This reaction does not occur with nickel.

So the only real reason for nickel cases, except for showing up BP fouling and therefore being easier to clean, is so people who like to put a decorative row of cartridges in the loops of their gun belts can leave them in there forever without having to worry about them.

My admittedly limited experience with them indicates that even when the nickel plate doesn't shorten the case life, the nickel will flake off and contribute to die scratching when the case is full length sized. An Everlasting case, nickel plated, would probably be OK as it's just de- and reprimed and filled with BP over and over.

[fecmech]

I had a friend back in the 70's who was a commercial reloader who loaded millions of rounds every year for various PDs and a number of federal agencies. His scrap buckets of cases were mostly nickle cases on the order of about 80% nickle. It sure looks like to me something in the nickle plating process shortens the life of cartridge brass, IME .38 spec cases are the worst offenders.

[beagle]

You guys that want shiny brass need to search around a bit.

If you're lucky enough to find a source from a manufacturer's range and proof firing, you'll get tin plated cases as most proof rounds are put up in tin plated cases to insure that they don't get mixed during firing.

I had a source a while back and got .45/70s, .38/55s, .32 H & R Mag and some .30/30s that were tin plated.

They tumble up with a satin finish and so far after mutiple firings, I haven't had a cracked case./beagle

[Jim]

I pick up brass at the club range all the time. I give the nickel plateds to my friends and they're happy as can be.

[Lloyd Smale]

I think the idea for them origninaly was for police officers that carried ammo in belt loops for long periods of time. the brass cases would react to the acids in leather and tarnish and turn green. the nickled cases reisted this.

[Jim]

Ya' know, Lloyd, now that you mention it, I recall having .45 Colt rounds in an El Paso Saddlery rig belt for quite some time. I decided one day I'd go ahead and shoot 'em up. I pulled 'em from the loops and they almost didn't chamber! Now, just for "show and tell", I keep unprimed dummies in the loops. Sometimes I think that's kinda' silly, but what would a gunbelt with loops look like without rounds in it?:roll:

[EDK]

Quality control is all over the place. I have 44 Magnum nickle plate bought as once fired in the early 70s that is still good...some of it worn to the basic brass and still doing well. Other newer 44 Special (Remington and Starline) nickle plate has not been so durable, but still decent.

As a Cowboy Action Shooter, I carry nickle plated ammo in cartridge loops. Some of the newer stuff hasn't held up to the tanning acids in the belt loops while other vintages have. I have several belts from Bob Mernickle (one of the top leather guys in CAS/SASS/Fast Draw) and one of them will go after the plating with a vengeance. It's the newest and the others are about 4 years old.

I practice on my private range downhill about 200 yards and if I use all the practice ammo I have, I reload with ammo from the belt loops for the walk back home. (The coyotes are pretty brave about cats and small dogs.) It goes to the practice can and fresh ammo to the loops.

:cbpour::redneck:

[DLCTEX]

I bought 100 nickle cases (Rem. 222)a year or so ago and 1 case had a split in the neck right out of the bag. 2 more split on 1st. firing. 2 more upon resizing. They are still sitting in the cabinet where they will remain unless I decide to try annealing. DALE

[jleneave]

I will use nickle plated case when reloading straight wall pistol cases but won't use them in bottle necked rifle due to the strong possibility of scratching my reloading dies. I believe that carbide pistol dies are hard enough that they won't scratch, at least that has been my experience and the experience of other reloaders that I know. I also read on Varmint Al’s website that if a small piece of nickel became embedded in a bullet that it could possibly scratch the bore when it was fired? I have some Remington .38 Super nickel brass that I ordered from Midway. I have loaded it a couple times and haven’t had any problems with it as of yet. I am cautious with it though, after sizing, trimming, and deburring I run it through the tumbler to make sure that any chips are cleaned off and keep a closer watch when loading them.

[xtimberman]

It's real hard to argue with your evidence! I'm not buying any more plated cases.

I have plenty of old nickle-plated .38 Special brass that I've reloaded dozens of times before they split. Do you suppose that current plating procedures affects the quality of the annealiing process? Some lots/brands of modern nickle-plated cases seem to have a thicker plating layer than older stuff, and other lots/brands are just the opposite - showing brass after just a couple of vibro-polishings.

xtm

[odoh]

My take in addition to the question of hydrogen embrittlement is thet the nickle can't cling well to repeated expansion/resiziing of the host mat'l.

[NYBushBro]

Perhaps (?) a bit off-topic here (for all of you pistoleros), but I bought a batch of F.C. 375 H&H cases, and approx. 60 are nickel-plated.

Any suggestions on processing these for more than one or two firings?
NOTE: I plan to use AA-5744 and medium to heavy CB's to approximate the reduced-recoil loads once posted by NYATI Inc.

What color change to NICKEL is looked for when annealing?

[km101]

I have both brass and nickel .357 and .44 cases, and like Buckshot, I have some that have been loaded and tumbled so much that the nickel is starting to wear off. I have not had any niticeable difference in the split ratio. But I dont really have any "new" brass in nickel so I couldnt tell if the new stuff splits worse. But the old stuff seems about the same.

[David LaPell]

I was given three huge bags a couple of years ago of nickel .38 Special cases that were old 3-D cases. Most were cracked and were no good so I brought them to the local scrapyard. I bought a milk jug full of .38 Special +P nickel Winchesters and Remingtons two years ago. I load them with my .38-44 loads and I have not had one crack after two to three loadings. Most of the rest of my cases are just good old +P cases and they have held up just as well.

[Shiloh]

Great quality control going on there! This goes a long ways towards me not paying the extra for nickle. They do look nifty though.

....and they clean up in a very short time in the tumbler. I don't care for them. They split a lot faster than non-plated cases, and the nickel can flake off and damage dies. I've had .223, .30-30, and .30-06. I've discontinued all of it. Still have some .38 and .357, but it is being weeded (Split) out.

Shiloh