fireforming nickle plated brass

[cdet69]

has anyone fireformed nickle plated brass? i am thinking of using some for hunting loads and would like to make them in a 22k hornet. any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rcmodel]

I have never tried it.

But I would bet the nickle will crack and flake when fire-formed in a K-Hornet chamber.
No way it will stretch like brass.

But the only way to find out for sure is try it.

rc

 

[fguffey]

I have necked up 200 nickeled 30/06 to 35 Whelen, not one single one pealed or flaked, the problem with necking up nickel as in 30/06 to 35 Whelen 20%+ will split.

Because of the long case and forward shoulder the 280 Remington is my favorite case, again when necking up nickeled 280 cases to 338 or 35 the high number of splits make it a loosing proposition, again none of the 280 nickeled cases pealed and or flacked, with 38 special I have tumbled the nickel cases until the nickel thinned to the point brass was visable,again no pealing, I believe nickel would peal if the process used to plate the cases was called galvinized.

Point being, when forming cases by necking up I use brass cases, first choice new cases, second choice once fired, after that expect split necks.

F. Guffey

 

[fguffey]

If fire forming is cambering a 22K in a 22K chamber then do it there is not enough movement going on to effect the case, I form first then fire, I fire form when the case I formed does not fit the chamber, fire forming involves moving the case body out to the chamber wall and blows out the shoulder to form to the shoulder of the chamber. Fire forming requires a lot of brass flow amd or stretch.

F. Guffey

 

[dogrunner]

I've converted nickled 7mm mag to .338 with no indication of flaking..........don't know what you'd run into with a more extensive forming project tho.

 

[depoloni]

Shudder at the thought of fireforming nickel to a new configuration (vs. to "your" std. chamber) such as the K-hornet, or an AI, because you can't anneal them. So between the fireforming step, you wouldn't get more than one shot out of "too many" of them in all likelihood after the fireforming, which would cause a few losses itself. Not saying you have to anneal brass after fireforming to get decent life actually, but that case-blowout process would have to be really hard on the nickel shell in particular.

If that works for you though, nothing to say except to give it a try. Don't think it's dangerous to fire nickel-plated in an AI/etc chamber.

 

[ReloaderFred]

I size nickeled 10mm Auto brass to 9x25 Dillon all the time. That's reducing the neck from 10mm to 9mm, and I've yet to lose a case. I also size nickeled .45 acp brass to .400 Cor-Bon without a problem.

I haven't tried it with any nickel rifle brass, but you'll find out if it works once you give it a try.

Hope this helps.

Fred