Having carried a S&W Model 66 in a duty rig for several years, you need to shoot up the ammo you keep on your belt rig to keep it fresh, nickel is necessary due to the leather. I can't tell you how disgusted I got with nickel cases that cracked and had to be thrown away after being fired the FIRST time, this problem occurred with Remington, Winchester and Federal issued 357 ammo. If you wanted to reload it, you would invariably have to replace 2 or 3 cases every time you shot up a box of 50, if those were reloaded, you would have to replace a few more after the second time they were fired. It wasn't the pistol, I also carried a Model 13, and then a Model 19, then went to a Model 66, the results were the same. Brass cased ammo gave no problems at all in the same pistols.