I picked up some perfectly good looking nickel plated 30-06 cases while working as range officer and cleaned them up with other brass. My friend, more experienced than I told me to throw them out as they should not be reloaded. Can anyone give me a second opinion and a good reason.

Some people are really against nickel brass. There are those that say it flakes off and gets imbedded into dies. I've never had it happen and I'm not afraid to use it but I won't go out of my way to buy it.
What I've found when working with nickel is that if I trim it right away and look it over there is no fear of using it. I wouldn't be afraid to load it....and I'll bet you'll get some offers to send it to some of the guys that respond to your post!!

I reload them.....I'll buy them from you if you have enough to overcome shipping
PM me if interested.

YOur more" knowledgable" friend is superstitious....I prefer Nickel brass myself..I lube it just like regular brass...Only about 20% of my brass is nickel...but I have never experienced any problems with it..

where did he tell you to throw it - into his car??

the main reason that i avoid nickel cases is that i find them to be more rigid and require more force to re-size. if you lube them properly you should have no problems.

IMO they are easier to clean and easier to see the expansion ring on when they get well used. I don't buy them but, I do pick them up at the range from time to time.

Absolutely nothing wrong with reloading Nickel plated brass.

Good Luck

Reloader

from my personal experience the main difference in nickle brass compared to regular brass is more emotional than real.

I've been lucky maybe....but so far I've experienced no negatives with it at all.

I use them for reloading factory chamber all the time. Never a problem. I've never tried them in a blown out chamber.

I have heard both, do and don't, so I tried some to see for myself and I haven't had any problems with using it, some of mine is starting to wear the nickel off.

I once saw Winchester Supreme '06 empties listed on ebay. Somebody paid $20+ shipping for 1 box of 20.

I don't go out of my way to buy bottle-necked, nickel-plated rifle cases, but I truly love nickel pistol cases. I've never had a problem sizing them. I did once get a small sliver of nickel plating stuck in a finger like a wood splinter. Pulled it out like a splinter, too. No big deal.

Vapodog
You have a PM

quote:

Originally posted by Elmer Fud:
Vapodog
You have a PM

returned

Nickeled cases work thru an action more smoothly than brass; won't corrode when stored in a leather case or cartridge belt; and it readily identifiable.

Because of this latter characteristic, I frequently will use it when I am using another rifle on a hunt that has a similar cartridge size, shape, and features.

I have shot some excellent groups with nickeled brass; I have had it "flake", but I have not had issues with dies with it. Kudude

like the rest of em said.........LOAD EM AN BE HAPPY!!! about half of my .357 mag cases are nickel and i load the the same way as the plain brass ones.....

I reload them all the time, in fact before I knew or read much about nickel cases I bought 50 .280 Rem. cases and proceeded to fire form them into .280 Ackley inp. I think I onley lost 1 or 2. After repeated fireings I did get a little flacking on the case necks and eliminated the ones that did. I still have about 25 of them. I since have fire formed 100 new brass, and would recomend only brass for fireforming.

The nickel cases do develop more friction when sized. Due to the harder nickle surface I would recommend you make sure they are completely free of any grit to reduce the chance of scratching your sizing die. I have notice nickeled cases scratch a little easier if you have an old sizer that has had hard use. They also need more attention to lube on the expander ball.
An ideal setup for nickeled cases would be to use a neck bushing die with a tungsten carbide bushing or a titanium nitride surfaced steel bushing.

Federal .416 Rigby nickle plated cases are indestructable and very uniform wt. wise

There are a couple of things I have heard in addition (just after I purchased 200 .17s from Midway).
One is that the inside of the neck is very course and abrades the bullet and leads to additional copper fouling. The other is that the "flecks" of nickel get pushed up the pipe and damage the barrel.
There was also the fact that if you try to anneal the brass, you actually harden the nickel.

I'd be interested as the thought of binning 200 bew pieces of brass because they will kill my barrel, is not a welcome one.

I know a fellow that works up loads with regular brass and if he is going on a special hunt he will load the same load in nickel brass because it is more restistant to damage from the elements. He does test the load agin in the nickel brass and surprisingly the accuracy is acceptable to him.

In my experience, nickel cases are a little more difficult to size, but do seem to hold up better to the elements. I like to use them to designate a certain load - so make up one load in brass cases and another in nickel if you like to carry two different loads around.

Lately I've been using nickel cases for my light loads since that makes them easier to resize, and brass for my hotter stuff.