Nickel Plated Brass

They should reload just fine with no problems.

Nickel plated brass can be harder on the dies. They will reload OK, though.

Rem nickel is all I have ever used to load 357, Don't have to tumble, get 20 plus reloads per case.
I use brass for 38 to keep them separated. Have to tumble them though.
Good luck, catpop

I will chime in too, and say No difference.

No difference in loading, but case life will be shorter than the yellow brass, but only by a few loadings. I typically get 12-15 loads from.nickle and 18-20 from brass in 357 and 38spl

The only nickeled brass I ever had an issue with was .50AE

Even heavily lubed the force required to resize them was far above the standard brass rounds. I don't know why. I won't be reloading any more nickeled brass in that caliber. Every other caliber the resizing effort is the same as unplated.

Been using them for years. Will re-load just fine.

As others said, they should be no different. The only thing I've noticed with nickel plated cases, they don't seem to last as long. This seems to be true across the board, whether 357, 38, 10mm, 40, or whatever.

Slight drift: Is nickel-plated brass the same as nickel? (I know they're not technically - but I'm wondering if just plain nickel is/was ever used.)

I picked up a bunch of .38 Spcl cases from a friend and there is some silver (I presume nickel at some level) cases and I'm wondering if I can assume the same characteristics and behavior for those cases as that described in this thread.

Thanks.

OR

Some very old & tired 357 mag nickel cases have become hard to extract after firing. I found that there is no springback of the case after firing .

They will load and shoot fine. Nickel cases seem to be more brittle and develop splits a little sooner than other cases and are a little harder on cutting tools (trimmers). They also have better corrosion resistance.

Personally I would prefer brass cases but have used lots of nickel with no problems. If you like shiny stuff they make a sexy looking load with plastic tipped bullets!

otisrush said:

Slight drift: Is nickel-plated brass the same as nickel? (I know they're not technically - but I'm wondering if just plain nickel is/was ever used.)

I picked up a bunch of .38 Spcl cases from a friend and there is some silver (I presume nickel at some level) cases and I'm wondering if I can assume the same characteristics and behavior for those cases as that described in this thread.

Thanks.

OR

Click to expand...

If the case has nickel on it, it is a brass case with nickel plating. Folks just call it "nickel" as it is easier to say than "nickel plated".

One of the reasons nickel plated cases came about was back in the leather cartridge belt era. The tanning chemicals left in the leather would corrode the plain brass cases and the nickel plating was resistant to the chemicals.

Brass and nickel plated brass are about the most common material used in cases but aluminum and steel are used as well. There may be some other even less common materials as aluminum and steel.

My experience with nickel plated cases is about the same as other folks. I use the cases without issue. I do find nickel plated cases do not last through as many reloading cycles as un-plated cases.

Nickel plated cases are harder on steel resizing dies unless they are properly lubricated. Since most folks have carbide pistol cartridge resizing dies these days, it is not an issue with handgun cartridges. Care must be exercised with rifle cartridges as resizing dies are predominantly steel.

Everybody brings up leather holsters with nickel, but the truth is that just by touching brass it becomes tarnished. Hunting or defnse ammo that gets loaded and loaded stands out in the box. I do all my defense loads with nickel. I don't own a leather holster.

Personally, I prefer it, but either way, the only dofference I've noticed is that resizing takes slightly more force with nickel. I've never seen a difference in performance or lifespan, and I document number of reloadings on everything.

Thanks for the explanation cfullgraf. I'm somewhat of an old guy and I recall my dad reloading nickel .38 Spcl when I was a kid. That was long before the current usage of steel. I know the problems with reloading steel. And I was virtually sure nickel was ok - but I realized I didn't understand if there were subtleties in difference between working with brass and nickel.

Very interesting on the tanned leather situation.

Thanks again.

OR

Nickeled case work well in single stage presses. On my 650 they tend to seize on the powder funnel (takes more force on the down stroke) unless I champher the case mouth.