Is the Winchester silver brass or is plain brass more desireable for reloading, or does it even matter?

I think that in the long run the plain version is best. The nickel will wear your dies, and occasionally flake off.

if you look back through this forum a bit you'll see a million posts about nickel brass. its fine to load, there's no difference between it and plain brass other that it doesn't corrode in a leather belt loop.

I've had bad results with nickel plated brass. After a couple of loadings I get huge vertical stringing. I assume this is due to inconsistent neck tension as I don't have this problem with normal brass.

Kev.

I have never used nickel plated brass and don't know how it works. The normal brass has worked for me for a very long time with no problem.

Regular brass. No peeling of the nickel plating when deburring, chamfering, annealing, trimming.

I much prefer unplated brass.