300 WM brass, Nickel vs. Regular???

[jcolev]

Hey Guys, I have a couple hundred winchester nickel(silver color) peices of 300 WM brass and a couple hundred I would say winchester standard peices of brass.

Is one better and why??? Thanks guys

Cole

 

[ChadTRG42]

Re: 300 WM brass, Nickel vs. Regular???

When you size the nickel brass, the nickel can flake off. When it does, it will scratch up your dies. I persoanlly won't resize nickel brass for this reason. But they will load and shoot fine. I would use the normal brass cases.

 

[pacomdiver]

Re: 300 WM brass, Nickel vs. Regular???

i must have extremely good luck then, ive loaded 500+ nickel winchester 308's, 200+ winchester 30-06, and 300+ 300wm winchester nickel and never had any flake, they have been reloaded at least 3 times,the only drawback is some of the necks split after a couple reloads, so you loose some to attrition, but i dont anneal the cases, as that would definitelly flake the nickel off

 

[head2h2o]

Re: 300 WM brass, Nickel vs. Regular???

I tried using the nickel brass for 30-06 when I first got into reloading. I never could get the nickel brass to shoot as well as regular brass. Never really could figure out why. I also came across the issue with scrathcing the dies. That alone was enough to make me stick with regular brass.

 

[Victor N TN]

Re: 300 WM brass, Nickel vs. Regular???

I'm going to agree with Chad on this one. I too have scratched a die on nickel plated cases. But the ones I have had flake had been loaded 3 or 4 times. The last ones I loaded were for hunting ammo that I probably won't pick up.

I don't buy plated brass anymore.

 

[CanPopper]

Re: 300 WM brass, Nickel vs. Regular???

Thing I don't like about nickel plated brass is they don't seem to have a very long life.

As for avoiding the die scratch issue,

1. For my .223/.308, I resize the nickel plated brass in my Dillon carbide dies. Since the die is harder than the nickel, I don't have to worry about scratching.

2. For my.300 Win Mag, I used the Redding Bushing dies with the titanium nitride bushing which is also harder than the nickel. Don't really care what it does to the body sizing die. But nickel does wear down regular FL steel dies.

I usually use the nickel brass for my home defense/battle loads. Easy to tell apart from my normal target shooting loads. Plus the brass doesn't corrode so they store well.

 

[Grumulkin]

Re: 300 WM brass, Nickel vs. Regular???

Another down side to nickel brass is that those cases dull case trimmer cutters VERY fast. If you're going to use it, I'd recommend a trim die.

 

[Lt. Arclight]

Re: 300 WM brass, Nickel vs. Regular???

Nickel is very hard on your dies. IMO, its not worth using.