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Annealing Brass
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I've never found the need to anneal brass. With common calibers I'd just discard it. But with 375 HH&H brass I thought it would be time to learn.
Can nickle plated brass be annealed?


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The end result will be having to shoot our way out of it.
 
Posts: 388 | Location: Aroostook County, Maine | Registered: 09 September 2010Reply With Quote
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Gojoe,
Yes, nickle-plated brass can be annealed. The annealing proces will anneal the brass and the unlying brass. The nickle will oxidize a bit during the heating process, but this will not hurt the nickel. The only way to avoid is would be to heat inside a vacuum.

This website is excellent and explains all the metalurgy concepts, if you are interested. http://www.keytometals.com/Article32.htm
 
Posts: 55 | Location: West Point, NY | Registered: 16 January 2009Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by 500straight:
Gojoe,
Yes, nickle-plated brass can be annealed. The annealing proces will anneal the brass and the unlying brass. The nickle will oxidize a bit during the heating process, but this will not hurt the nickel. The only way to avoid is would be to heat inside a vacuum.

This website is excellent and explains all the metalurgy concepts, if you are interested. http://www.keytometals.com/Article32.htm



So I'm gonna need a bigger shop vac? bewildered

Thank you for the help.


---------------------------------

We unfortunately will vote our way into socialism.
The end result will be having to shoot our way out of it.
 
Posts: 388 | Location: Aroostook County, Maine | Registered: 09 September 2010Reply With Quote
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posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Gojoe:
quote:
Originally posted by 500straight:
Gojoe,
Yes, nickle-plated brass can be annealed. The annealing proces will anneal the brass and the unlying brass. The nickle will oxidize a bit during the heating process, but this will not hurt the nickel. The only way to avoid is would be to heat inside a vacuum.

This website is excellent and explains all the metalurgy concepts, if you are interested. http://www.keytometals.com/Article32.htm



So I'm gonna need a bigger shop vac? bewildered

Thank you for the help.



animal
Way to Gojoe!


Rusty
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Posts: 9797 | Location: Missouri City, Texas | Registered: 21 June 2000Reply With Quote
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You should never anneal nickel plated brass cases!

Annealing brass softens it; annealing nickel HARDENS it.
quote:
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.
 
Posts: 3427 | Registered: 05 August 2008Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by rcamuglia:
You should never anneal nickel plated brass cases!

Annealing brass softens it; annealing nickel HARDENS it.
quote:
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.


Excellent statement....That's why I traded 500 cases of once fired 308!
 
Posts: 969 | Registered: 13 October 2009Reply With Quote
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Not everything posted on the net is accurate.

Annealing nickel - Read here
 
Posts: 13978 | Location: http://www.tarawaontheweb.org/tarawa2.jpg | Registered: 03 December 2008Reply With Quote
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There are two types of nickel plating -
1 - electrolytic ,which plates pure nickel
2 - electroless nickel , which plates nickel with a small amount of phosphorous.

pure nickel will soften when annealed but the nickel/phosphorous alloy can precipitation harden. I'm not sure which type of plating is used on cases. Anyone know the FACTS ??
 
Posts: 7636 | Registered: 10 October 2002Reply With Quote
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"1 - electrolytic ,which plates pure nickel"

This is the process that ammunition manufacturers use.

"2 - electroless nickel , which plates nickel with a small amount of phosphorous."

This is not. Electroless Nickle has a satin appearance. This is not what you find on firearms ammunition.


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Posts: 199 | Location: Northwest Oregon | Registered: 05 January 2004Reply With Quote
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Since Varmint Al (Al Harral) is an engineer, I'll quote from his Reloading Page:

quote:
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.



You really need to read THIS LINK he provides as well which describes nickel plating in detail.
 
Posts: 3427 | Registered: 05 August 2008Reply With Quote
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I don't like the feel of nickel cases when resizing them. You can feel that they are harder on your resizing die.
 
Posts: 2459 | Registered: 02 July 2010Reply With Quote
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Nickel cases do not respond well to any of the brass prep that I often use. Primer pocket uniforming, even trimming and chamfering etc. Of course any form of neck turning is out.

If it starts flaking off the brass you have a recipe for a scratched die.

I've never experienced benefits of nickel. I think if you are a guide or PH and you need to keep the ammo in a belt for months at a time and the elements could damage the brass cases more it will be justified.

Nickel can feed a little slicker too I suppose, but brass seems fine to me.
 
Posts: 224 | Location: South Africa | Registered: 15 July 2008Reply With Quote
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I only have some nickel plated pistol bullets and the nickel is only on the outside of the case which indicates electrolytic nickel !! Electrolytic plating doesn't plate holes very well ! Electroless plating would plate the inside also ! So it's soft nickel which actually makes sense.
The hardenable electroless plating has been used on guns .For example Browning HPs were available at one time.
 
Posts: 7636 | Registered: 10 October 2002Reply With Quote
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Why I dont use nickel plating; one on the left was pulled out of regular brass, one on the right was nickel plated.



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Posts: 1092 | Location: Eau Claire, WI | Registered: 20 January 2011Reply With Quote
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