Nickle vs. regular brass?

[Jodipuma]

I'm fairly new to reloading and was wondering if there are any extra steps that need to be taken with Nickle played brass compared to regular brass? Is it harder to load? Does it resize different?

 

[Gunpoor]

The nickel plated cases load and shoot just like the non-plated. I have heard some people say that you are putting your sizing die at risk with the plated but I have loaded many rounds of plated cases without any damage to the dies.

 

[varmintH8R]

My personal preference is brass for bottleneck cases. Nickel seem very hard to me - I feel like I get less "feel" when sizing and seating. I also hate trimming it.

Here are some other opinions, from both sides:

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f28/reloading-nickel-plated-125830/

 

[RT2506]

The nickel plated cases load and shoot just like the non-plated. I have heard some people say that you are putting your sizing die at risk with the plated but I have loaded many rounds of plated cases without any damage to the dies.
__________________

I have had the same results and agree with this statement.

 

[tbrice23]

I was working up a new lot of h4831. I used mixed brass and it appears nickel has less capacity becausr the lower charges had similar velocities of brass at higher charges.

 

[Hunter2678]

IMHO stay away from it if possible.

 

[dig]

Nickle is certainly harder and more difficult to work with. That being said it can work fine. I was given a large lot of Federal nickel in 300 Wby. Given the cost, I reloaded it. Ensure the brass is very clean (I use stainless media), lube well when resizing and your dies will be fine. It will dull the case trimmer head quicker as it's harder, I replaced with a carbon cutter. You will notice some flaking of the nickel when trimming and chamfering, no big deal. All in it shoots fine, never corrodes, and feeds well. It's just a bit more difficult to work with. Would I buy it new, NO. If you have it use it!

As for capacity the federal is not coated on the interior.

 

[baldhunter]

The problem with nickel brass is,it can vary from lot to lot.The first batch I tried I absolutely loved it.I loaded some of that brass more than a dozen times out of my 7mag.I bought a second batch that was the worst brass I ever saw.It was so inconsistent in hardness.Some bullets would be very hard to seat because of the hardness and some would seat with ease.The uneven neck tension showed up in lack of accuracy with that batch of brass.I went back to regular brass after that and have not used the nickel stuff since.

 

[flashhole]

I don't find nickel brass any more difficult to load than conventional non-plated brass but there is one nice advantage to nickel plated brass. It is not subject to corrosion when stored or carried in a leather ammo belt like conventional brass. I try and reserve my nickel brass for hunting for that reason.

 

[Hunter2678]

From Varmint Al's reloading page.

I liked the looks and feel of nickel-plated cases, but I don't load them anymore and here is why. The cases are strong and it is easy enough to outside neck turn them. That is not the problem. The nickel-plating on the case neck ID is like sandpaper. The only way you might be able to remove this grit is with a case neck ID reamer if you have a "tight neck" chamber and enough neck wall thickness to work with. If you have a loaded nickel-plated round laying around and don't believe me, just pull the bullet. It will look like you pulled it out of a tube of 180 grit wet/dry sandpaper. If you pull the bullet out of a brass case mouth that has been carefully chamfered and polished with the steel wool process above, it will be essentially like out of the bullet box. Want copper in the barrel? Start by sanding the surface of those nice polished precision bullets. Try it with a Moly Coated bullet and it is even worse; the nickel-plated cases scrape off the Moly. The nickel-plated case neck IDs don't get any better after you reload them a few times. They are still like sandpaper. Think about a few of those nickel pieces of grit imbedding into the copper of the bullet and what they do to your rifle barrel! I have heard that the nickel is hard enough to score some reloading dies and also wear down the expander ball. Any metal that hard, should be kept away from your precision barrel. I have heard that some people have had success in removing the nickel plate from the neck IDs with a stainless steel brush and a drill motor. I haven't tried it.
MORE ABOUT NICKEL PLATING.... This is interesting about the mechanical properties of the nickel plating:
Electrolysis nickel plating is a process for chemically applying nickel-alloy deposits onto metallic substrates using an auto catalytic immersion process without the use of electrical current. ...snip....
Hardness and Wear Resistance
One of the most important properties for many applications is hardness. As deposited, the micro-hardness of electrolysis nickel coatings is about 500 to 700 HK100. That is approximately equal to 45 to 58 HRC and equivalent to many hardened alloy steels. Heat treatment causes these alloys to precipitation harden and can produce hardness values as high as 1100 HK100, equal to most commercial hard chromium coatings. ...snip...

Note that if you anneal your nickel plated necks, you are hardening the nickel plating. It can be harder than many alloyed steels before you anneal and can increase is hardness as much as 2 fold by precipitation hardening. I sure wouldn't want those tiny little hard pieces inside the neck getting embedded in the bullet's copper surface and then fire lapping my nice shiny barrel