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Nickel plated vs brass

rhodesengr

I am a little new to metallic reloading. I do a lot more shotshell reloading for Trap. I have a 686 Competitor though and I have made a bunch of 38spl rounds for it. Now I want to make some 357 magnum rounds but having trouble finding brass. One guy has offered to to sell some Nickle plated cases. However, I understand that nickel plated cases are "not as good" as plain brass. Something about can't be loaded as many times. Here are my questions:

How undesirable are nickel plated cases vs brass cases. Is it that big a deal?

Are there any advantages to nickel plated cases? Why do they exists if they are inferior to brass?
 
Years ago I used nickel plated brass in my crow and groundhog rifles just because it was easier to spot my empty’s in the grass. I never noticed anything bad about them. Some of my necks started splitting after 10-12 loadings, never annealed.
I still have 30-40 pieces of the same 22-250 cases that were loaded a bunch of times.
 
rhodesengr said:
Are there any advantages to nickel plated cases? Why do they exists if they are inferior to brass?
Click to expand...

Nickel plate is used for the theory that it is more corrosion resistant in field and duty carry contexts, especially where there is wet and snow involved. I cringe at the condition of some of the weapons that belong to cycle LEOs in places where their weapons and ammo get wet all the time. That theory is why it is still in demand.

Reloaders tend to shy from it due to the additional wear to their tooling. It is a thin plating, but it will cause more wear to tooling than cartridge brass. That has only a little effect on a home reloader doing straightwall pistol cartridges since you don't tend to trim or run the numbers a factory does.

Can you use these, yes you will get way with it and likely not notice much difference. If you make a long term habit of it, you probably will notice if you have the background comparison basis from regular brass.

As a beginner, I would normally tell you to pass and find some regular brass, but these are troubled times and that wait is up to you. 38 Spcl and 357 Mag are still very popular so you either take these or wait for availability. My guess would be the trade off between indefinite wait and trivial differences would be to roll with them and keep an eye open for regular brass over time.
 
OK. I am getting the available plated stuff for now. What I want to do is try some 357 loads to see what actual speeds I get out of my 686 comp and how I like or dislike the recoil compared to 38spl. I made some medium +p rounds last weekend and they were no big deal at shoot all. My chrono is on the way so I don't have speed data yet to compare with speeds listed in the load guide. I have AA#5 and 125gr XTP bullets to work with. I'll see how it goes with that and I'll think about a powder like Enforcer that can get me up to full power. I figure at some point, new brass will be come available but I can do my development with the plated stuff.

Thanks for helping.
 
@rhodesengr play it safe with higher pressure 357 Mag loads and wait for the chronograph would be my advice.

There is a night and day difference between full house 357 mag and target velocity 38 Spcl. You can get a feel for 357 Mag levels with a box of factory ammo first, and then decide if you want to work handloads up that high.

I saw many S&W rigs ruined by folks in the revolver silhouette games when they tried to keep up with 44 Mags. A plate must be knocked over to count, and the 357 Mag didn't have the energy at distance so they eventually came up with 357 Max. The DW and Ruger pistols took the pressures well enough, but many S&W pistols were ruined before folks made the jump to 357 Max and 44 Mag.

In the process of playing with hotter 357 Mag loads, proceed with caution.
 
rhodesengr said:
I am a little new to metallic reloading. I do a lot more shotshell reloading for Trap. I have a 686 Competitor though and I have made a bunch of 38spl rounds for it. Now I want to make some 357 magnum rounds but having trouble finding brass. One guy has offered to to sell some Nickle plated cases. However, I understand that nickel plated cases are "not as good" as plain brass. Something about can't be loaded as many times. Here are my questions:

How undesirable are nickel plated cases vs brass cases. Is it that big a deal?

Are there any advantages to nickel plated cases? Why do they exists if they are inferior to brass?
Click to expand...
nickle plating can embrittle brass. not a good thing in the reloading world.
not lots of reloading as in case life...splits common early in their life
 
My main application is really just SD. But I enjoy experimenting and learning. Commercial 357 ammo is difficult to get in my area. There's a little online but I would have to FFL it. I would start at the bottom of the 357 loads. See, what happened was I got some 125gr XTP bullets with the idea to making a 38spl SD load. I did some digging and found some discrepancies around claims that 900fps was enough speed for that bullet. I started a thread on Calguns asking how much speed they needed to fully open. I learned a lot in that thread including that a light 357 load might be better (faster) than a hot 38spl load. I also had some suggestions to look at the "FBI load" (158gr SWCHP) for 38 spl so I am pursuing that also.
 
rhodesengr said:
I am a little new to metallic reloading. I do a lot more shotshell reloading for Trap. I have a 686 Competitor though and I have made a bunch of 38spl rounds for it. Now I want to make some 357 magnum rounds but having trouble finding brass. One guy has offered to to sell some Nickle plated cases. However, I understand that nickel plated cases are "not as good" as plain brass. Something about can't be loaded as many times. Here are my questions:

How undesirable are nickel plated cases vs brass cases. Is it that big a deal?

Are there any advantages to nickel plated cases? Why do they exists if they are inferior to brass?
Click to expand...
I use nickel plated brass (as well as plain brass) in my .17 Remington, .223, .22-250, 7BR, .38 Special, .44 Magnums, .45 ACPs and .45 Colt. I have seen no difference in durability, but cleaning is generally easier and faster with the nickel. The only drawback I've seen is occasional flaking of the necks on bottle-neck cases or case mouths on crimped handgun rounds. I eliminated the neck flaking entirely when I started neck 'skimming' to uniform case necks on all my bottle-neck rounds (nickel and brass both) as a matter of course. That little bit of turning removes the plating from the neck. The flaking from crimping makes sense due to the extra 'working' of the case mouth, but really isn't of any real concern.
 
I load a lot of nickel plated brass. 9mm, 40S&W, 38 Special and 45 ACP and the only thing you need to look out for are splits in the body and crack necks.
 
I'm seeing more 357mag showing up in stores, .75-1.00/round. In the last year I started loading 38/357 only cases that were "strange" some Corbon nickel 357 I was given.
 
jdague12 said:
Don’t over analyze it. Use it until you can’t. It’s fine.
Click to expand...
generally speaking I over analyze everything :)
But in this case, the situation is simple. I have two offers for plated cases and zero for plain brass. I'm "horny" to try some 357 and don't want to wait for the indefinite future when plain brass becomes available.

I bought brass last year and thought I had ordered 38spl and 357mag but turns out I made a mistake and ordered 38spl and 357 Max. I went to load some 357 last weekend and discovered I had the wrong brass.
 
6bra1k said:
nickle plating can embrittle brass. not a good thing in the reloading world.
not lots of reloading as in case life...splits common early in their life
Click to expand...
For pistols and straight wall cases it’s ok but for bottle neck cases it’s total junk as far as I’m concerned!…. Everything you just mentioned plus it scratches your reloading dies!…. That transfers to your cases,…. I can’t say enough negativity about nickel brass
Wayne
 
You should be able to very easily swap the .357 Max for regular .357 Magnum and probably at a premium in your favor. The brass vs. nickel in the .38/.357 is of little concern. The two can be used for target loads in one and hotter stuff in the other to visually identify which is which.
KS
 
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