I have always avoided it, as I was told it scratches the inside of the sizing die.

True or false?

(Prolly should have been a poll)

I have avoided it since my first batch I bought new Winchester brass and the first run through the sizing die the nickel was flaking off of it and that did scratch the die. The flaking was most apparent on the shoulder. Figured it was a bad batch but why risk it.

I have run a lot of nickel pistol brass though without flaking, carbide dies and straight walled cases.

Makes sense that the straight wall pistol brass is fine to reuse.

I just resized 100+ Speer nickel 308 brass and didn’t have any issues. Nothing on the cases were damaged or flaked. I used the spray on resizing lube from Franks Arsenal.

I also use nickel pistol brass. With a hard crimp it starts flaking after 3 ish loadings. I’ve only tried it once on rifle. .260 Remington brass. Flaked on the first loading. I trashed it.

When I started loading for dad’s 280 rem the only brass I could find was nickel. Loaded some of is several times with no issues. It is really hard to trim with a hand trimmer and as soon as I was able to get some other brass for it I haven’t used it anymore.

Loaded quite a bit of in in various chamberings over the years. I’ve noticed it tends to split faster than normal brass.

Never had a problem with it damaging dies.

Ever try annealing it?

Wondered this too.

I did a little research since I know nothing about it. Not regarding reloading but the properties of Nickle and Nickle alloys means it requires a higher temp to be annealed than brass. From this article I can’t see how it could hurt and may even help if you anneal to the high side of what’s acceptable for brass.

https://www.totalmateria.com/Article32.htm


Note their temperatures are °C. That’s hot.

I have cut down thousands of pieces of nickel plated .223 to make 300Blk Cases.

Deburred, annealed, sized and trimmed. No flaking issues.

Those same rounds have been re-annealed, sized and trimmed.
Still no flaking.

I also "wet clean" the cases with stainless pins.

Nickel Plated Cases anneal the same as regular Brass Cases.
You can verify this by visiting AMP's sight.

I don't know about the scratch of the die aspect but have seen early cracking of the plating. I was not annealing at the time so that might could be avoided. Same experience as the others with straight walled pistol cartridges that might only last 3 or 4 loadings.

705-1205° C, that's 1301-2201° F

But my understanding is that is solid Nickel. Maybe it doesn't require as much with nickel plating and a brass backer?

Thank you sir

I have sized thousands of nickel plated .38 and .357. I only use carbide dies without lube and have never had any scratching issues. The plating does start to crack after several sizings at the case mouth since these are typically generously belled and then roll crimped. I accidentally left some .38 cases in the SS pin cleaner for several hours and it does begin to wear through the plating. I have not tried to trim a plated case yet because I have not had to.

I have some 10 MM plated cases that needed a little more sizing effort than the .357 cases. I applied a squirt of the Dillon sizing lube and it helped greatly. Two reloadings so far with no flaking. I use a Dillon Taper crimp to just remove the bell so i expect they should last longer before I see any flaking. Again no apparent scratching.

If your cases start to flake be certain to clean your firearm well. Our standard lead and coper solvents wont affect it. Its quite hard and you need a brush to remove it.

The plating cracks and the brass is more brittle. I don't use it for pistol.

My only experience with nickel brass is the straight walled pistol. I have some 357 cases where the nickel has started to wear thin. No cracking or flaking issues.

I've never had a problem with pistol cases. That's all the nickel I've had.

I've seen some work ok, and some flake very easily. Straight walled pistol brass should have no problems. I've loaded some rifle rounds where they would flake on every piece when sizing, I think it was 270 WSM nickel cases. When they flake, they score up the inside of your die during sizing. I've had some where it was no problem to size and load. But the nickel brass is heavier with less internal case volume and thicker necks. You have to back the load down some using nickel brass. The necks are very hard and sometimes rings the bullet from the seating stem. I choose not to reload them. Most shooters who have nickel brass only have a few pieces anyway, and are often mixed in with regular brass cases. So, it throws off your load and consistency with the nickel brass. I just don't find it worth loading the few rounds of nickel cases for the negatives of using them.

Kind if where I'm at.

This was brought up because a PD left a whole lot of 5.56/.223 Rem brass. Some of it is Nickle plated.

Not worth it, I'll just put them in the scrap brass bucket.

I have annealed, sized, trimmed etc mult loads, mult times, for mult calibers including 280ai, 338 Sherm, and now 6.8 western

No problems with the reloading process. No scratched dies as long as you wet tumble before sizing and after trimming.

Only drawback is that NOBODY makes top tier nickel plated brass so there’s a lot of case to case variability in weight, thickness and case capacity. Win nickel brass is the worst, federal not much better. The best was Hornady Outfitter 270 that I pulled the bullets and fire formed for the 338 Sherman

google it

I have made 30 06 to 35 Whelen nickel cases. Just lube and size up. Never had a bad case