Carbide v. Nickel plate

[Polish-Jack]

Who wins? I have done a little reading here and most posts state that you can resize nickel plated brass but that it will damage your sizing die. What about the carbide dies? Does the nickel plating also scratch the snot out of the carbide sizers?

 

[acrashb]

No. Carbide dies are made with diamond-tipped tools.

 

[python357]

No. Carbide dies are made with diamond-tipped tools.

Probably the only thing that can damage a carbide die is if you drop it on a cement floor. The impact could cause the carbide insert to chip. I've had mine for 25ysr + and still like new. I do clean them regularly however.

 

[johnone]

A CRASH B;
When we used to reload on a commercial basis we found that the only thing that was hard on the carbide dies was brass collected from outdoor ranges (ie;bits of sand) so we use to clean our brass before reloading....
As for the "life" of a carbide die, well we used to get 450,000 to 500,000 rounds before they needed polishing which sometime extended their usefull life a further 150,000 or so rds.
Regards
John

 

[woodchopper]

dirt and sand are hard on carbide tools in general.