Nickel vs Brass

not true at all. nickle plated brass is a little bit harder to resize but it stays cleaner and cycles through a gun much easier. if you live near salt water brass can turn rather quick and not look that nice.
 
Nickel plated doesn't seem to last as long but I use it a lot, it's how I distinguish hunting from target loads, nickle plated only for hunting. You may be thinking of the (cheap) steel cases which most people say are not reloadable although some do reuse em.
 
No truth to that at all. In fact some nickle is proned to splitting easier and may in fact cause damage to your dies if not carefully inspected prior. Nickel, when in perfect condition, seems to work a bit easier in the dies but thats little comfort when u also realize they can also damage the die if the surface is cracked or peeling. Further reinforcement to always inspect your brass.
dB
 
daBear said:
No truth to that at all. In fact some nickle is proned to splitting easier and may in fact cause damage to your dies if not carefully inspected prior. Nickel, when in perfect condition, seems to work a bit easier in the dies but thats little comfort when u also realize they can also damage the die if the surface is cracked or peeling. Further reinforcement to always inspect your brass.
dB
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I found the direct opposite. Nickle brass seemed to be harder to resize than regular brass. The cases do split after a few loadings faster than regular brass.

Take Care

Bob
 
superd222 said:
Nickel plated brass is just fine to reload. The Nickel plating will eventually peel off the necks. Looks ugly but still works. I don't think it (nickel fragments) will harm barrel or action since steel is harder than nickel.
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In fact, nickle is harder than either 416 Stainless or C-M 4140 barrel steels, so it is not a good idea to allow the flaking nickle to get into your barrels or resizing dies, since it has the ability to scratch them seriously.
Here are the comparisons according to Rockwell Hardness scale:

Chrome-Moly (4140) 22-30 Rockwell C [depends on tempering process]
Stainless (416) 34 -40 Rockwell C [ tempering also affect the hardness of 416 ]
Nickle 55 Rockwell C
 
I only reload for pistol and have no issues with plated brass in 38 spl. Like many have said, go ahead and reload nickel plated brass.

I did get the rare split the first few times I reloaded the same brass, but I guess those were the "weak" examples. Right now, I hardly get any splits.

Having said that, I recall very, very few splits in my "plain brass" brass.

FWIW, there was a magazine test that somewhat mirrored by results and most of their 38 spl brass lasted 100 reloads or more.

Sorry I cannot be more specific with the number or reload cycles, or failed cases. There are just too many cycles and too few split cases.
 
I find it harder to resize and harder to trim. SInce regular brass works fine, nickel brass is a bit of an annoyance, I only use it to differentiate reduced loads or when I have to use it.
 
Found much the same as above - harder to resize. The flaking pretty well did in my old RCBS 300 Mag die and a new cutter head for my manual RCBS trimmer was useless after maybe 100 case trimmings of which about half were nickel plated. A new replacement cutter head has lasted maybe 10 times longer, still okay, since junking all the nickel stuff. Pretty, but no good for me.
 
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