Nickel plated rifle brass

308Loader

New member
Bought some 7mm Mag brass from my local range. To my surprise all of them were nickel plated. Didn’t think much of it at the time, $1.50 per pound what could I loose ($3.00). Now it is time to load them. Haven’t ever used nickel plated for reloading. Any thing I need to do different with these? Can they go in the FART with steel pins? Any down side to nickel plaiting? Will the plaiting flake off after several sizing’s?

Thanks for any input.
 
Load them the same. Nickle resists corrosion and is used in most "professional" (think game wardens, law enforcement) applications where ammo and firearms are handled daily. They also interface better with leather.
Same as regular brass: Deprime and clean/tumble/polish before sizing, and keep your dies clean, too. Clean dies before use, if needed.
7mm Mag do not last as long as other calibers. Neck sizing only after shooting in your rifle good idea.
FART-ing is a good question: but I would follow F.A. procedure, wash first no pins, then tumble with pins no more than about one hour. Your plated brass will clean-up quickly. After firing on your rifle, I would not pin tumble again soon.
I have used a lot of Nickle plated 40 SW cases and liked them. But not used in rifle.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Dry tumbling the first batch of 100 with walnut now. Might FART with soap and water after just to see how dirty the water gets. Concerned with wet tumble, pins, citric acid and what it might do to the plaiting. Might be overthinking things as usual.

Happy 4th, dont do anything I wouldnt do, but if you do... take a picture :)
 
If you Deprime first, and then scrub the primer pockets with a tool (I have Lee and Lyman), you may eliminate the need for pin tumbling completely. Wear gloves; priming compounds have lead and tiny pieces of broken glass (by design).
 
Search the forum on this topic. I recall it came up before and citric acid caused some kind of darkening reaction, but I can't recall if it was on the nickel-plated brass or on the plain brass tumbled with it. Stainless steel has nickel and chromium in it, so there may be a reaction due to confusing the ions about where they belong, but you'd have to try it to seen.

The question is, why would you use citric acid with nickel? Do you have oxides showing on the nickel? It cleans brass well by reacting with it a bit, but I don't think that would happen with nickel in the absence of the stainless pins. My guess would be that simple near-neutral detergent like dishwashing liquids would be all you need.
 
I use nickel 223 and pistol cases a lot, dry tumbling is adequate since they clean easily. I do wash first in dawn but then deprive and tumble. I have done citric acid with nickel with no adverse reaction, but not sure if it’s helpful or not. Too high acid strength does darker brass.


Andrew - Lancaster, CA
NRA Life Member, CRPA member, Calguns.net contributor, CGF / SAF / FPC / CCRKBA / GOA / NAGR / NRA-ILA contributor, USCCA member - Support your defenders!
 
I run nickel plated .280 Rem. brass so I don't get it mixed up with 270 or 06 brass. Simple tumbling with walnut shells, a quick wipe down to make sure no dust from the media and load as usual. I even anneal after the fifth reload and they're holding up just fine. I've never had a problem with them flaking and damaging the sizing die like so many claim so I just keep using them and they work just fine.
Paul B.
 
"The question is, why would you use citric acid with nickel?"

No particular reason, usual FART method dawn and lemi shine... dry tumble seemed to do just fine.
 
I run nickel plated .280 Rem. brass so I don't get it mixed up with 270 or 06 brass. Simple tumbling with walnut shells, a quick wipe down to make sure no dust from the media and load as usual. I even anneal after the fifth reload and they're holding up just fine. I've never had a problem with them flaking and damaging the sizing die like so many claim so I just keep using them and they work just fine.
Paul B.
Walnut and Corn Cobb are too simple. Everyone is into this messy wet crap now.
 
Thanks for the question and answers. Just found a small quantity of nickel plated 223 in a pile of once-fired I was gifted and figured it was the same.
 
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