Nickle Plated Brass and Black Powder
- Thread starter Re3iever
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fingers284
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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- Alberta Cowboy Ranges
I'v loaded 10's of thousands of handgun Nickle plated brass, all low pressure stuff, and can't say that I notice any difference at all in those but some reloaders claim Nickle splits at the mouth with less reloads but I can't say that my experience proves this isnt the case. I think I dispose of just as many pure brass as nickle in a year. Some of my .38 sp brass has been in my regular brass rotation since 1973 so could easily have 30-40 loadings through them.
I have read (but have no personal experience) that nickle rifle shell with full pressure loads start to loose nickle in flakes after a couple of loadings, but again, these are high pressure loads and from your other post's I suspect all your loadings would be of a subdued pressure.
the other thing I have read is that once a case starts to flake it is very easy to score the inside of a polished die body so "test with care" and chuck any case that even shows a crack in the nickle.
I have read (but have no personal experience) that nickle rifle shell with full pressure loads start to loose nickle in flakes after a couple of loadings, but again, these are high pressure loads and from your other post's I suspect all your loadings would be of a subdued pressure.
the other thing I have read is that once a case starts to flake it is very easy to score the inside of a polished die body so "test with care" and chuck any case that even shows a crack in the nickle.
I use nickel brass in my 45-70 BPloads. I am going on 11 reloads so far with no flaking. I anneal my brass every 3rd time which discoloured the plating. Some cases the plating is wearing off with no flaking. I believe the annealing of the cases mouth helps stop the flaking. I don’t like using brass that has flaking, I usually throw it out. Happens a lot with my 38 and 9 brass.
My experience pretty much mirrors Fingers284's. I shoot plated brass all the time, too. Some for so long that, the nickle plating is pretty much worn right off some of them. Never any concerns, so far.
I fully agree on previous comments though...regarding brass flaking, case splits, etc. I either discard them. Or...in the case of .38 Special or .357 mag revolver brass...if only split at the case mouth, cut them down into .38 Long/Short cases.
Since your question revolved around using plated cases with bp : When shooting bp rounds, I did observe that nickle plated brass tended to stain less (if at all)than regular brass, and cleaned up a bit easier. Otherwise, I did not see any advantage/disadvantage of one, versus the other when it came to reloading. This, with both pistol-caliber and .45-70 brass.
Co-incidentally, a similar question recently popped up on the SASS Wire forum. The general consensus was that nickle plated brass worked well with bp. In this case APP...a bp substitute. But, clean up with most of the subs is similar, anyway.. If you haven't already seen that Sass Wire thread, it may be worth the time to check it out.
Al
I fully agree on previous comments though...regarding brass flaking, case splits, etc. I either discard them. Or...in the case of .38 Special or .357 mag revolver brass...if only split at the case mouth, cut them down into .38 Long/Short cases.
Since your question revolved around using plated cases with bp : When shooting bp rounds, I did observe that nickle plated brass tended to stain less (if at all)than regular brass, and cleaned up a bit easier. Otherwise, I did not see any advantage/disadvantage of one, versus the other when it came to reloading. This, with both pistol-caliber and .45-70 brass.
Co-incidentally, a similar question recently popped up on the SASS Wire forum. The general consensus was that nickle plated brass worked well with bp. In this case APP...a bp substitute. But, clean up with most of the subs is similar, anyway.. If you haven't already seen that Sass Wire thread, it may be worth the time to check it out.
Al
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