How are nickel cases better than brass?

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I reload only for target shooting and competition. Economy and good accuracy are my main goals.

If other people have use for nickel cases I am not preventing their indulgence and I expect other people will respect that I have no need for them.
 
As a dealer in used brass, I get customers that ask for all brass (no nickle) and I get some that ask specifically for nickle! I send more nickle .40 cases to Europe than you could imagine! One guy in Italy told me it's easier to find them. The Only real experiance I have had is in .50 AE, the nickle does not crimp on the bullet worth a damn and with the extreme recoil, the bullets "walk" in the Mag. I have yet to have an auto loader case split so maybe I just don't load them enough times before scrapping them.
 
I don't find nickel cases any harder to full length resize then the plain brass. It all depends on just how hot I load them as to whether they are hard to resize or not...
 
This is from another forum, don't remember who or where. I copied it, saved it in my docs.

Nickel plating of cases is done for ONE reason and ONE reason only . . . CORROSION RESISTANCE! Leave a brass case in a rifle chamber for a couple days in a hot humid climate and you get a nasty little galvanic corrosion cell which may get you a STUCK cartridge/case.

Nickel plating is all of a few MICRONS thick. 2.54 MICRONS = 0.0001"!

Nickel is harder than WROUGHT IRON. OH yeah, wrought iron is some REALLY soft stuff (softer than many brass alloys).

Nickel plating can be heat treated to make it moderately hard, RC63 to 65, but you won't find that on a cartridge case (brass wouldn't like it). It would melt first.

The CHEAP nickel plating which is done to firearms munitions is NOT very hard, although it is possible it could be harder than a cheap SOFT barrel. This cheap nickel plating WILL DEFINITELY NOT BE HARDER THAN A PROPERLY HEAT TREATED STEEL SIZING DIE!"
 
Oh. It's from another forum? Wow. It must be right then.

Sorry. Depending on composition (mainly phosphorus content), electroless nickel plating (the kind used on cartridge cases) has a hardness of RC 48 up to RC 60. Note that both are harder than wrought iron, and one is harder than die steel.

Also, once you fire the case, the rougher nickel on the inside of the case is heat treated. I don't know if anyone's ever done a test on the hardness of the microscopic particles after firing, but I'd bet they're harder than the barrel.
 
One thing I can tell you from personal experience. If you are taking a young person shooting, they will frequently shoot all the nickel plated stuff and leave the brass in the box. I discovered my teen age son would help me reload and go shooting more often if I let him pick out the nickel cases and load them for himself.

Hey if it works, who am I to argue!
 
Oh. It's from another forum? Wow. It must be right then.
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Your sarcasm is noted. I did mean it to say that it was somehow more correct than your repeating of reloading myths and urban legends.

My memory is like a leaky pail, but I now remember it was on the AR forum. There was a metallurgist on there that stated with authority that the nickel used for plating brass cases was in the 20 to 25 Rockwell C scale of hardness. It was electroless nickel, that CAN be hardened , but the heat needed to do that would melt the brass!

This discussion comes up often on forums like this one and others on the internet. So many of the answers are from people that are just repeating what they heard or not thinking,(using common sense). Think about it for a second. An industry,(ammo manufactures), wants to put a coating on their brass shells to prevent corrosion. They look at different metals, lacquer, wax and find that nickel works best. Then they test it to see if it could possibly harm the metal that common guns are made of. They find it would do no harm. They would NOT use it if it could wear a barrel or chamber of any guns. They have no intention of that brass to ever be reloaded. But that carries over to tools used to reload.

Some like it, use it, and recommend it to others. Others, diss on it and say it'll be the end of you rifle and loading dies. Decide which side you're on and go on with your life.
 
I notice Double Tap has their 10mm pistol ammo in nickel and I see it laying around the various ranges a lot (10mm). It must be good for something or else Double Tap would not use it:confused:

Someone mentioned one time it was similar to the aluminum of blazer, one time shoot.:uhoh:

Brass without the nickel on it will work many many times because it is very ductile, when you add nickel to surround it the nickel does not have that ability it seems. I have only run into it with pistol ammo. I know it is out in the mainstream of other ammo I just don't use it.

If you are reforming a brass cartridge like 45 to 400 Corbon, I'd not use a nickel one I am thinking. If you did it a few times, and noticed what happens, it would put you off nickel for reloading.
:D
 
Someone mentioned one time it was similar to the aluminum of blazer, one time shoot.
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Completely false. I am on the third and fourth loadings of some 9mm nickel cases and life is good.
 
One word of caution: When resizing nickeled cases, the nickle can come off the case and imbed itself in the sizing die. This can cause scratches on the next cases sized. Clean your sizer frequently if you have this problem.

I prefer nickle for loads that are "stored up", much better storage life with little, if any tarnishing or corrosion. Immediate use loads are in brass cases.
 
Hummm...I must have gotten the wrong nickel plated brass. I haven't had any flaking of the nickel. I have noticed that the more I resize some cases the more of the plating seems to wear off exposing the brass, but no flaking...I'm not sure that nickel chips will imbed into carbide handgun sizing dies or not. Maybe rifle dies...Still...You're supposed to clean your dies frequently anyway...
 
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Someone mentioned one time it was similar to the aluminum of blazer, one time shoot.

Completely false. I am on the third and fourth loadings of some 9mm nickel cases and life is good.
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Ditto on 9MM, as well as .40 & 45

I have never seen it flake off. I have trimmed it off. :evil:

It will, as The Bushmaster said, wear to the point you see brass after awhile on some cases. The nickle is very thin.
 
In years past, flaking nickel was a problem. Way back when, it wasn't uncommon to have one shed some flakes of nickel. They've improved the process from the 60's, so it's not the problem now that it used to be.

I've worn nickel off pistol brass by leaving it in the tumbler too long, but it still loads. Like Walkalong pointed out, the plating is very thin.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
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Well the nickle brass I have collected and the nickle brass from the 2 boxes of winchester suprime I bought can wait untill this is figured out.If its not figured out soon then the brite shinny cases will be 22lr targets,more of a challange then empty shot gun shells!
 
Nickel hard on cutter heads.

I gave up on nickel cases a couple of years ago when I got sick of replacing cutter heads. I could trim hundreds of brass cases and be fine. But after trimming 20 nickel cases my cutter heads looked like a beaver chewed on them. These were the standard Lyman heads (not carbide). I'm sure the carbide head would have done much better.
You could also make the argument for the potential of increased bolt thrust. From my experience with nickel cases it seemed to have less stretch. In my mind I figured a brass case would stretch out and grab the chamber walls better than a stiffer nickel plated case. If this is the case it would cause more stress on the bolt lugs than necessary.
 
Horsemany. You must have cheap cutting heads. I have a RCBS Case Trimmer 2 that I bought over 20 years ago and I have trimmed hundreds of nickel plated cases and am still on the first cutting head. Never been off the trimmer or sharpeded.

Bboomer. Nickel plated cases are better then plain brass if use with leather loops. Better or worse then brass?...No and no.
Do they last longer? Depends how hot you load them. My CCW carry loads are hot .357 mag loads and in Nickel WW Super cases.
Safer? Why not? They're brass aren't they?
 
Wow, this didn't take long to degrade to something like a caliber war thread. I see a little REAL data with a whole lot of opinion. As you were.

In the PNW, I like nickel. I don't carry it exclusively, but I like it for it's corrosion resistance comer rainy PNW hunting season in the Coast or Cascade ranges. Multi decade old coins can't be wrong.

However, I do see it split faster than brass, unless of course it's Starline, that stuff seems to split on me in the first reloading for some reason. This in in 10mm reloads, and no, they are not at max, not even close, usually midrange. Their first loading in very likely pretty hot though considering it's either Reeder's or Double Tap ammo.
 
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Trophy bonded bearclaw tipped

The December rifleman magazine has an article by Bryce M. Towsley about the new trophy bonded bearclaw tipped bullet. It seems Federal has re-designed the old TBBC to include a polymer tip,(like the ballistic tip), as well as a boat tail design, grooves on the shank and get this, IT'S COATED WITH NICKEL PLATING! WHAT? :what: But-but-but nickel is so darn hard that it'll wreck the rifling! You haters of nickel plating had better call Federal, tell them they're nuts for putting nickel plating on their bullets!

Grumulkin
Senior Member


They don't last longer and aren't safer for maximum loads.

The only respects in which they're better than brass is that some consider them prettier, since most people don't use them, it's easier to keep track of them at a range and they clean up easier than brass.

At least when first loaded, nickel from the case mouth can become embedded in the bullet and potentially cause increased barrel wear; that's why I don't use nickel plated brass any more.
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* Nickel is abrasive (bad for dies and barrels)
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If nickel was so hard, why would an ammunition company put it on the outside of a bullet? My guess is; it isn't all that hard?!¿ If it is as hard as some here have said, it would wipe the rifling out of every barrel it was fired in.:neener:
 
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