quote:

Originally posted by Twicepop:
Go to Brownells, they have electroless nickle for brass in their catalog.

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Originally posted by scojac:

quote:

Originally posted by Twicepop:
Go to Brownells, they have electroless nickle for brass in their catalog.

I appreciate the response, but I don't know for sure that electroless is the correct method for cartridge brass, and I'd really rather have somebody who knows what they're doing do it for me. This will be used in a dangerous game rifle and mistakes could be unpleasant.

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Originally posted by eagle27:

quote:

Originally posted by scojac:

quote:

Originally posted by Twicepop:
Go to Brownells, they have electroless nickle for brass in their catalog.

I appreciate the response, but I don't know for sure that electroless is the correct method for cartridge brass, and I'd really rather have somebody who knows what they're doing do it for me. This will be used in a dangerous game rifle and mistakes could be unpleasant.

Not quite sure what you want to achieve with using nickel plated brass. You say you want to purchase some brass while still available, intimating that it maybe hard to get brass in the future for the particular new rifle you are ordering. If you research a bit e.g. visit Remington site FAQ, nickel plated brass does not have quite the life of plain brass because of the etching process required to get the nickel to stick and stay (according to Remington anyway).

In your post you asked quite a few questions including Electroless? but then discarded Twicepop's reply indicating Brownells sell an electroless nickelling product without any other information to support your contention that you don't know that electroless is the correct method. Why ask the question if you already know the answer? Maybe I'm just reading it wrong.

Brownells sell some good stuff and I'm sure there would be instructions with the product. I would have thought it was worth a go, just on any old brass to see how it worked out if you really want or need to nickle plated DG brass.

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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:
Electrolysis 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 electrolysis 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 the neck getting embedded in the bullet's copper surface and then fire lapping my nice shiny barrel.