Silver casings from most self defense ammo reloadable?

[cali shot doc]

I know the steel casings that wolf and other companies use aren't reloadable but are the "silver" looking cases that some self defense rounds use are? Sorting brass and am wondering if i need to sort them out

[raysracer]

self defense rounds are nickel plated brass.

those are reloadable.

[NuJudge]

Nickel plated cases have a reputation for not lasting as long as unplated brass cases. The nickeled ones have the reputation of cracking earlier. I've really never noticed the difference.

The Steel cases you mentioned above actually are reloadable, with difficulty, but they may not last as long, and they may be hard on extractors of firearms designed for brass cases. Some of the Steel cases are Boxer primed: there is one central flash hole from the primer to the powder. Look in the mouth of the case to see if there is one hole or two tiny holes. The two tiny holes indicates Berdan priming, which is more difficult to load.

Removing spent Berdan primers takes specialized equipment. The availability of Berdan primers is very bad. The primer pockets on Berdan cases require Berdan primers of many different diameters, heights, hardnesses, and explosive strengths. Berdan primers of many different diameters are still made and sold in Europe, but only one diameter (.217") and two heights have been imported in recent years.

Boxer primers have a primer assembly that contains not just the primer cup and priming impact-sensitive explosive compound, but also has the anvil. The anvil is what the priming compound is crushed against by the firing pin to initiate the firing of the cartridge.

Berdan primers have just the cup and explosive, the anvil being a part of the case. Berdan is probably cheaper to make, but slower.

As a side note, there have been some very rare Berdan primed cases made that had one central flash hole: Czech pre-war 8x57 comes to mind. I seem to remember some pre-war Berdan primed Russian 7.62x54R ammo that had 3 flash holes. You are not going to see any of these.

[blaster113]

once fired nickel cases will sometimes split when running them through my resize die. they also seem to split a lot quicker than regular brass. I would separate the two.

[cheers623]

Nickel brass is slightly harder than regular brass. It's great for reliable feeding and holding up to rough handling but because all brass gets work-hardened when reloading nickel brass tends to get brittle sooner. I've seen my recycled brass experience exactly this behavior. Nickel ones tend to split sooner. YMMV

Cheers623

[whistlepig]

You should never ever load those...... you should send them all to me

Ha... load em. shoot em. repeat as needed. Case life is a small problem, just check your brass as you get ready to load.

The above post on steel cases was interesting, but I can't see the pro to that.

[g56]

The theory is the nickel plating process does something to make the brass brittle, I separate them out since they are much more likely to fail, and therefore need to be inspected more closely when reloading.

They are nickel plated to resist corrosion, originally the big problem was brass cases in belt loops, they would corrode and get this waxy green stuff called verdigris all over them, so ammo carried in belt loops needs to have nickel plated cases, but they resist corrosion from other things as well, so they are good for self defense ammo that might be carried a lot, but not shot that often.

[Biloxi23]

I still reload on a single stage, and I too have noticed that the nickle brass seems to split more often. With my single stage I can feel the difference when sizing. It's hard to explain but the handle kind of feels mushy. I have only felt this a couple of times with brass casess, but a bunch of times with nickeled brass. I'm one of those people that keep everything, and I have a bag of nickled bras that is split. A couple ot them were fired by me as new, and then reloaded twice before splitting.