steel1212 Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 I was just sorting some brass last night and noticed that most of my .40 brass is nickel? Is there a reason behind it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Boudrie Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 Probably the choice of the law enforcment agency which originally generated the surplus which made it your way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Keen Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 Thats a little out of the ordinary, but not un-common. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ipscbob Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 Over 2 years or so, I went through 20K 40SW cases from our local LE ranges and didnt find a single nickle case. Just the luck of the draw I would guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin c Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 Like Rob said, it depends on your source. Most brass is unplated, works just fine, and is less expense to the manufacturer. Nickel brass originally was, I think, an anticorrosion measure. Some premium ammo comes nickelled, but it does not improve ballistics in any way. Much brass that we buy once fired, as noted above, comes from police ranges, where they fire, as a matter of policy, their carry load or the ballistic equivalent. That's often a premium brand, which might come in a nickelled case. Come qualification day, all that gets swept up from the range that ends up being bought by you will be from the same load from the same manufacturer, and that might be almost all yellow brass or all nickelled brass. From a reloading point of view, the nickelled brass seems to take less lube, but tends to split a bit sooner than yellow brass. Kevin C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steel1212 Posted October 12, 2006 Author Share Posted October 12, 2006 10-4 guys. This came from a police range. Most of it is winchester both yellow and nickel which is good for me I guess! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 Most duty ammo has nickel cases just my agency issues. We carry the RP Golden Saber with a nickel case for duty ammo but use the UMC/RP for training etc... I figure we buy about 40M of the JHP and around 500M of the FMJ per cycle. Not all agencies do this. I've seen the Feds buy nothing but duty ammo for everything. When they use our range we see them shooting Hydra-Shoks and whatever else they carry for everything. I once new a Fed that would show up to local USPSA matches to shoot his STI with Federal Hydra-Shoks. That's all they had... The nickel has corrosion resistance but are more brittle for numerous reloads. I had a 5 gallon bucket of RP nickel .40 brass years ago that I kept for matches as I wasn't getting 4 reloads from the nickel brass that seemed to split more often than brass.... Mick A27257 Most duty ammo has nickel cases just like my agency issues. We carry the RP Golden Saber with a nickel case for duty ammo but use the UMC/RP for training etc... I figure we buy about 40M of the JHP and around 500M of the FMJ per cycle. Not all agencies do this. I've seen the Feds buy nothing but duty ammo for everything. When they use our range we see them shooting Hydra-Shoks and whatever else they carry for everything. I once knew a Fed that would show up to local USPSA matches to shoot his STI with Federal Hydra-Shoks. That's all they had...The nickel has corrosion resistance but are more brittle for numerous reloads. I had a 5 gallon bucket of RP nickel .40 brass years ago that I kept for matches as I wasn't getting 4 reloads from the nickel brass that seemed to split more often than brass.... Mick A27257 So much for spell check and grammar.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgary Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 Nickel brass originally was, I think, an anticorrosion measure Just read, recently, that nickel-plating cartridge casings was started in the 1870s, because if ammo was kept in leather loops on leather gun-belts for long periods of time, the acids (tannic?) in the leather would corrode the casings. Modern-day, the common belief is that nickel plated casings, being "slicker", extract more easily and are therefore more reliable... hence (I'm told) the reason that a lot of the more expensive "defensive loads" come in nickel casings. B Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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