Annealing nickel plated brass.

C

chiefr

New member
I have been reloading for many years and have been forming brass for about as long. Fully experienced in the art of annealing unplated brass.

However I have several hundred rounds of nickel plated 270 and 30-06 brass I do not need and want to turn it into 8 x 57 and 7mm x 53 Mauser brass. I always anneal after forming or during forming depending on what I am making.

In all my years reloading, I have never annealed any NI brass. Anybody experienced in doing so have any advice here? Thx
 
Me neither. Don't run into plated bottle necks much.

True, but since the Ni is a plating would it be necessary to fully anneal (or anneal at all) it if the brass underneath was fully annealed? I don't know, but I don't see it being dangerous to give it a go and see how it turns out. Obviously if big pieces of Ni are flaking off when you're reforming them I'd either toss them, or try to get it all off. It may just flake off after you anneal and resize. I imagine they would have to be plated after they were annealed (if they were) at the Mfg.. I'm interested to know how it works out.
 
I look forward to the response from a technical vantage.

I tried to size a nickel plated case as the wisdom said it could be done.

Not worth the struggle.
 
chiefr wrote:
Anybody experienced in doing so have any advice here?
Click to expand...

No experience annealing nickel plated brass, but I do observe the thermal expansion of nickel is different from brass, so if you're heating from room temperature to the range of 700 degrees, the difference in expansion rates may be sufficient to cause the nickel plating to de-bond (i.e. flake off) of the brass substrate.

The only way to know for sure is to go ahead and do it. Try it on a small sample of 5, maybe 10 cases, and see what the results are. My suggestions would be 1) use as little heat as you can get by with, and 2) work the brass slowly to give the nickel and brass an opportunity to move together.
 
Take the following for what it may be worth:
Nickel plated brass is not suitable for case forming as it tends to crack due to hardness greater than standard brass.
Nickel plated brass is harder on reloading dies due to this greater hardness than brass.

The above was taken from here. Remington Reloading Brass 30-06 Springfield. At some point over the years I ended up with about 500 Remington 30-06 Nickel Plated pieces. I have about maybe 300 left and while I never tried to form them they were a pain to reload and the case necks didn't fare well, cracking after a few firings. You can try a few and see how it works for you as was suggested.

Ron
 
Mileage varies: I have formed hundreds of nickeled 30/06 and 280 Remington cases to 338/06 and 35 Whelen, half of the cases split, the cases were new and or once fired.

I have necked up new 30/06 cases to 35 Whelen without one case splitting out of 300.

F. Guffey
 
I never cared for NI brass, but it was given to me. I will go ahead and form and anneal about 50 to see how they fare. Thanks to all and especially F Guffey.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top