Why Nickle Plated Brass?

Re3iever

Re3iever

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Amongst my 45-70 brass I have about 50 pcs that are Remington Nickle Plated. My question is does nickle-plated brass offer any advantage over regular brass for the purposes of reloading?

Important Note: I shoot primarily black powder or substitutes .

Thanks
Retreever
 
I am unaware of any advantages other than they look pretty when they're loaded. I believe there are some disadvantages to a reloader, so I no longer use it.
 
XEnHrrK.jpg


random.
i have been searching threads for nickel brass.... i just loaded these up. dont see why not really?
to answer your Q- no advantage. no maajor dissadvantage except a less than normal life often goes hard an splits a neck from most interwobble stories..
 
As far as I know it's for corrosion resistance so they dont turn green or get sticky.
Protection from the rain, humidity, corrosive oils from your fingerprints. Big feature if the ammo gets carried in the gun for long periods of time. Cops, security, hunting guides, surveyors, farmers, who knows how long the ammo stays loaded in a magazine. Especially if someone concealed carrys inside the waistband or somewhere else on them. The human body is a pretty wet and gross place.
Or because the ammo looks pretty. I could be totally wrong.
 
They have a bit better lubricity for chambering and most self defense rounds are nickel plated so you can easily distinguish between them and target bullets also a bit easier to see in a handgun when you do a press check. Downside is the nickel coating likes to flake off after awhile but really there is nothing overly special over regular brass
 
Rust said:
As far as I know it's for corrosion resistance so they dont turn green or get sticky.
Protection from the rain, humidity, corrosive oils from your fingerprints. Big feature if the ammo gets carried in the gun for long periods of time. Cops, security, hunting guides, surveyors, farmers, who knows how long the ammo stays loaded in a magazine. Especially if someone concealed carrys inside the waistband or somewhere else on them. The human body is a pretty wet and gross place.
Or because the ammo looks pretty. I could be totally wrong.
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the irony...

your username an the post.. youre right too haha
 
I love nickel plated brass myself. Trying to find a bunch of same headstamp 9mm at the moment. I use it to load all my rainy day defensive ammo. As far as reloading you are pretty well guaranteed to have significantly shorter case life due to neck splits.
 
B said:
I love nickel plated brass myself. Trying to find a bunch of same headstamp 9mm at the moment. I use it to load all my rainy day defensive ammo. As far as reloading you are pretty well guaranteed to have significantly shorter case life due to neck splits.
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Pretty sure you can anneal nickel as well that would help with splits, I saw TNA has some 9mm camdex processed nickel brass for sale if you are actually looking for nickel brass
 
Ravage said:
Pretty sure you can anneal nickel as well that would help with splits, I saw TNA has some 9mm camdex processed nickel brass for sale if you are actually looking for nickel brass
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The problem is finding a lot with the same headstamp. Annealing would do the trick but since I load a lot more nickel than I shoot it hasn't been much of an issue for me.
 
hawk-i said:
Does it anneal the same as regular brass?
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9mm is so cheap that going to the trouble of annealing it seems counterproductive. I could understand if brass is scarce or expensive but at most ranges 9mm is on the ground for the picking. Our club sells once fired 9mm brass from the CBSA (they use our range to qualfiy) for $25/1000 so at 2 1/2 cents per case going to the trouble of annealing it to get a couple more reloads is probably a fool's errand. A lot of it is nickel which is definitely slicker but case life is also shorter.
 
WhelanLad said:
XEnHrrK.jpg


random.
i have been searching threads for nickel brass.... i just loaded these up. dont see why not really?
to answer your Q- no advantage. no maajor dissadvantage except a less than normal life often goes hard an splits a neck from most interwobble stories..
Click to expand...

Can be hard on dies as well
 
Nickle brass can be vey useful. I used to have a 280 rem and a 270Win. Both were based on 30-06 brass. The loaded rounds looked almost identical.

I only used nickle brass for the 280. Made ID easy.
 
I generally avoid nickel rifle brass. Had some bad experiences with quality. Neck splits, hard on my poor old trimmer.

But don't care with pistol brass.
 
Nickel plating does not help accuracy, and actually hinders reloading because of brittleness / flaking. But for ammunition that is loaded for hunting dangerous game, I like new or once fired nickel plated brass. It's easy to ID, if you only load "serious" loads in plated and practise / target ammo in standard brass, you know what you have at a glance. Stores & carries well without corrosion, especially in leather cartridge holders. Feeds a tiny bit slicker in some actions. So I use it in my .375 H&H, and in the .44 mag carbine that is my bear repellent when I'm at our bush camp. I also load some "hard use" ammo in nickel plated cases for my rough country hunting rifle, a Ruger M77 RSI Canoe paddle Stainless .30-06. That rifle is nearly indestructible, and I like the idea of loading ammo that matches the rifles capabilities for use in adverse conditions. That ammo gets the full treatment, lacquer sealed primers, factory crimp to securely hold the bullet, and only premium bullets used.
I wouldn't choose nickel plated brass ( added later: for rifle cartridges ) for target shooting or high volume varmint hunting or casual plinking.
 
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It so the manufacturers can charge more for the rounds.


Simply sizzle

Not recommended for reloading a lot of times

I learned the hard way , that it can hide a head separation way more than raw brass.
 
As I understood, its origins came out of the days of law enforcement using revolvers. Think .38 Special. The extra rounds were carried in loops on the officers leather belts. In time the chemicals used in tanning the leather tarnished the brass casing green which meant the rounds needed to be cleaned often. The nickel plating solved the issue and went on to be used in other calibers.
 
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