I’ve only reloaded a hand-full of nickle-plated brass in the past 12-14 years , but Ive accumulated enough Hornady cases that I want to make a special run of varmint loads using the ‘shiny-stuff’ , so as not to mix it up with so many others…
What differences are there? Is there anything I need to watch for , anything different in my processing methods ?
None that I know of.
It is harder than brass. I suggest you anneal it before loading it. I have noticed it cracks long before good quality brass cracks.
kwg
Just process it the same as you do your ‘brass’ brass. The only difference is that it cleans/polishes up a bit faster.
I’ve loaded 1000s of nickel plated handgun rounds and could not tell any difference. Because the nickel is plated onto the brass, some of it may flake off–hence the old wives’ tale that dies would/could/might be scratched by the flakes. This tale circulated many decades before the internet. Before carbide size dies became so widespread, we noticed that regular steel dies would scratch easily if cases were not cleaned before loading, and during this time case tumblers were very uncommon.
There is a slight bit of embrittlement from the plating. It’s very common for 38/357 to split case mouths more often since they’re so thin… so it really shows up there. But as far as .223 or 45acp. No difference.