# Plated brass..



## Baldy (Jun 21, 2006)

Here's a article I read on another site about nickle plated brass. Might be of interrest to some of the reloaders here.:smt1099

http://www.varmintal.com/arelo.htm
FORGET NICKEL-PLATED BRASS.... 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:
Electroless 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 electroless 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 t


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## 2400 (Feb 4, 2006)

Great article Baldy, thanks for the link. Keep in mind it's discussing rifle brass. 

Plated brass works well for pistols and revolvers.


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## Baldy (Jun 21, 2006)

Yep I seen that. I just thought it might be a good read for some of the guys like yourself who I know loads everything that goes bang. SUre wish I could.


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## hberttmank (May 5, 2006)

The only nickle plated brass I reload is in handgun calibers (38, 357, 45acp) but I've been doing it for years without any problems. Never reloaded any nickle plated rifle rounds, I'll keep this in mind.


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## Revolver (Aug 26, 2006)

I don't think I could really benefit enough with nickel-plated brass to justify searching for and paying extra for it so I don't bother.


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## james (Aug 23, 2006)

Has any one had any trouble with the nickle spliting during sizing? Straght walled cases do that on just about any caliber I've tried. The 45 ACP has been the worst for me. Just my own experiance.
James:smt1099


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## Bob Wright (May 10, 2006)

I've used a lot of nickel plated brass over the years. This primarily for identifying different handloads at one time or another. I've not found any practical difference between the two.

Nickle plated brass was originally applied to ammunition intended for police use when the revolver was the arm of choice. The nickel plating prevented the build up of verdigris when kept in leather cartridge loops for long periods of time. Chemicals in the leather lead to the build-up of that green stuff.

Later, nickel plating was used to identify .38 Super cartridges from the .38 ACP.

Now its just for looks. I've got some plated brass that looks like gold as the nickel is wearing thin enough for the brass to show through.

Bob Wright


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