Out of all the years I've been reloading, I think this is a first. Ive had this happen a few times with rifle cases but never pistol. This is a W-W nickel case only reloaded twice. Tonight I was reloading some 230 gr GDHP's and after about fifteen of the same batch of cases this one felt a little different when I seated the bullet...much too easy. I thought the bullet looked a little deeper and when I put the calipers to it, it sunk down in the case a little more. This is what I found and why it was so easy to seat. It pays to be vigilant reloading and paying close attention!! I think my days of trying to save nickel cases for reloading are over. Never had this happen with brass. I don't think it would have been healthy had I not seek this.

I've loaded nickel brass and regular brass for years and always marked how many times I loaded each box of brass as I kept them separated and the nickel seemed to start to hairline at the mouth a little faster than the regular brass, but they both will do it. Most of mine were crimp loads and some semi-auto and the crimping will start the mouth of the cases to hairline. Watch them closely.


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James

I haven't reloaded for years, but I'd always heard and believedt the the nickle cases were a little more durable than the straight brass. Can't say I ever had a failure, but I probably didn't reload them that many times.

The annealing process used with nickel brass weakens the material. I will have nickel “brass” reloaded no more than 2 times, after that out it goes.

Keep loading and you will. I have had brass split after loading new cases and before the first firing.

I load it all calibers till it starts to split at the mouth then throw it away......same with brass cases

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S&W Accumulator

It all makes me wonder about some guys I've read that claim they still have 45 brass from the 60's and 70's that have been reloaded so many times you can barely see the head stamp...right. These cases were reloaded twice.

I nave only had 357 Mag in Nickle split. It just makes for a semi powder puff load and difficult extraction. I have had them split while using a Chronograph and you can see the drop in velocity.

I may be wrong but I do not think anything catastrophic will happen, at least it has not to me in a revolver.

It may be hard to find but there was a thread on some new Win brass splitting. Need to contact OLIN, it should not split after 2 reloads.

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Still Running Against the Wind

I have had this happen many , many times mostly with 357 mag , but also with my "ruger only " type 45 Colt.
Leads me to believe pressure has some bearing on it.
Nonetheless, I like Nickel and pick it up at the range any chance I get.
I also have even bought it special in 38 Super as it makes finding them so much easier, as opposed to 9mm.
Who cares about the splits, They just get thrown away when I see them, I have never had a problem other then tougher extraction in a revolver, I do not believe its dangerous

I guess the splitting only happens with certain lots of brass. I finally threw out some .38 Special that had most of the nickle worn off from resizing.

I use nickel 38 specials for cowboy action, like the looks better than brass. The nickel is harder than brass and will not last as long. Depends on how much you flare the mouth, crimp, how hot the loads are for case life. My loads are mild, 130 grain RN with 3.8 grains of Trail Boss. I check every case before reloading for splitting, throw away the ones starting to split. I've reloaded some 7 and 8 times without any problems. If they split when shot, they are just a little harder to push out of the cylinder. Then just throw it away.

Just a bad piece of brass, nothing to worry about.

Discard the claims if you like. Just leave all your twice fired brass at the range. The rest of us would be happy to put your fears to rest by picking it up ourselves.

Nickel will not reload as Meany times as brass! That is why I do not reload nickel

doesn't happen often but i have had nickle and brass split after a couple of reloads...i'm certainly not going to quit reloading because of that...just be alert and look at your reloads

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SWCA#2208
KK4EMO

This is nothing new. Nickel-plated brass is always more brittle than plain brass - and thus, will never last as long. No matter the brand.

I have some, which came mixed in with the range brass I buy (38 Spl). I do load it - but I just expect that it will fail earlier than the plain cases - so I am more cautious with it.

Nothing new based on 50 years of reloading - nickel plated cases have a greater tendency to split upon reloading than brass cases

Pretty common occurrence. Back when I loaded ammo for Caswell's Shooting Range in Mesa, AZ. 99 times out of 100 if I heard a bad case when I was "ringing" them it'd be a nickel plated case. Nickel is nice if you store your ammo in leather but other then that I much prefer brass cases. They don't go thru the process of being plated that leaves them more brittle.

P.S.
"Ringing" involves putting a bunch of cases on the floor and running your hand through them and listening for an "off" tone coming from a case. Good cases will ring true, split ones will sound flat.

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S&W M642-2,
ATI 1911a1, 4.25"

They all split. Nothing special, should've caught it before in went into the machine.

Yep, like many others, I have the same observations about nickel cases. They are harder and less ductile for repeated resizing. I have noticed this in 45 Colt brass used for cowboy action shooting. It looks good to give that silver bullet look, but the cases have about half the life of brass. I think I have some brass cases with over 20 loads, if not more, but nickel is the exception if I get more than 5 or 6 before I start getting a lot of splits, especially in Ruger chambers. You can hear the report difference and know when one cracks upon firing. Fortunately, the pressures are low. They also have that unmistakable dull clunk sound rather than that brass bell tinkle when handling a handful of them!

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" I said, good DAY! "

If u reload enough this is very common with nickel or brass cases it is not a big deal unless it holds firearm out or breach when firing and the gun fires out of battery or blows up , it pays to always look at your ammo when loading firearms and feel over the rounds in your hands , also would like to work out something with the guy who discards his brass after two firings i would be interested in them .357 and above cals. I have reloaded .45 acp brass from WW2 onward some has probally seen 20 or more reloads over the years it will eventually crack on firing or sometimes resizeing or belling the case mouth

I have been reloading the same .44 Mag cases, both nickel and brass for almost 30 years. I don't keep track of how many times a case was loaded, don't know if brass lasts longer than nickel. I look them all over thoroughly before loading and any questionable ones get thrown out. When a bright line appears in the brass about a quarter inch above the rim I know they are starting to stretch out and I throw them away.

They all wear out eventually. That is why part of your overall process needs to include case inspections. It needs to be done before priming and after cleaning, and again after final loading.

For liability reasons I'm not advising you to do this but, I've shot plenty of cases that looked like that. .45ACP is a low pressure round, as long as it chambers I shoot it, and nothing bad has happened to me.

/c

I have had both brass and nickel cases split like this. I like the nickel plated cases and reload it whenever I can.

Just my experience, but my nickel cases in .38 and .45 are always more liable to cracks than plain brass. I've always attributed it to the plating process.

It happens all the time, after cleaning I sort mine and look them over and put into empty boxes before I reload. Everyone does it different but this way makes it easy for me to find the split cases.

I found that the case feeder for the Hornady Lock-N-Load press also helps to identify cracked cases. When they drop from the feed tube to the plate below, the cracked cases has a distinctive difference in sound. I have found quire a few cracked cases using this method.

I have some nickel plated .45 ACP brass that has been loaded so many times that the case looks more brass than nickel. On the other hand, I recently threw away some once fired Remington nickel plated .45 Colt cases wherein the nickel plating literally blew off the case mouths on the first firing and could then be peeled off in large chunks with my fingers. I guess they just don't make it like they used to.

And I DO have some cases that have been reloaded so many times over the years that you literally can not read the headstamp. They are not nickel, but plain brass that was shot primarily out of a Colt Officer's Model .45 ACP that I had many years ago. Most of them are WCC from the 80's. At the time I didn't have much brass and what I did have was loaded many times. I am now very fortunate to have many thousands of pieces of .45 ACP but every so often I still find one of these from my early days.

Dave Sinko

When I ran into a couple of cracked .45 ACP cases recently in my bucket of range brass, I inspected them all just to clean out the rotten apples. I found a dozen or so--all CBC headstamps. I don't bother keeping that brand any longer. I haven't accumulated enough nickled brass to bother with reloading.

No machine-just an RCBS Jr press. It didn't split till I seated the bullet.

I haven't reloaded nickel all that much. I only started with a few hundred rounds ago from some Ranger T and Speer 45 ACP ammo...take that back. I have reloaded 44 Magnum nickel cases before but not the 20 gr of 2400 loads, just mild 900 fps loads and they held up better than this batch. I'll use what I have a couple times and just use brass henceforth. Maybe it was just a fluke but I'll be on the watch more carefully. This wasn't a maxed out load and certainly the 45 ACP is not a high pressure load. I guess that's what threw me.

Yup!!! It's true. You used up all the X-ring shots in that nickeled case, Now get over it and go back to reloading. A split case is not the end of the world and it will happen again. If it doesn't, you just need to shoot more.

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S&WHF 366

I guess I've been lucky. I can't recall a split case before but no big gig. I'll chuck it and save the bullet as 230 gr GDHP bullets for reloading are like hens teeth. I'll be watching those cases a lot closer next time. I lapsed into laziness I guess since this just heretofore wasn't a problem...maybe just a bad case.

Where I work we plate nickel plate over copper. Even under ideal conditions the process of nickel plating creates "Micro Dendrites" that are visible under high magnification. I have heard the term many times over the years, along with hydrogen embrittlement.
I too have had poor life with plated cases. I suspect as others have said; they are for anti corrosion protection in humid areas. When leather holsters were more common and brass cases were used & contacted each other, there would get "vertigress" green crud on the cases.

Maybe I don't shoot enough, but in the 35 years I have been
shooting and reloading 44's, I have never noticed the nickel to
crack any more than the brass. I have some Fed nickel from the
80's I still use. No failures (yet).

Yeah I get cracks and throw them away but its even steven
on the nickel and brass. JMHO. I have never attempted to
re-anneal brass so I am sure I will be throwing away more in
the future. I have had 444 brass crack in just 2 uses. That's
some lousy annealing from the factory.

...Nemo...

BTW I see a few Badger fans in here. I am a video engineer for the Badgers at the Kohl
Center and Camp Randall so: GO BADGERS!
The new CCW law has the campus in a tizzy. Safe Zones my butt. But I digress...

If you load enough rounds, you will eventually have a "crack" problem. It may be nickel plated or not, but you just have to watch for it. Years ago I found 500 pieces of NEP 38 Spl Winchester brass (not nickel). I loaded them, mild WC with HP 38, and 1 or 2 out of every cylinder fired was cracked. This brass was very old, probably made in the 1930's , I wonder if the age had anything to do with it.

When developing 445 rounds in the days before brass was available
we used 303 and 30/40 brass. I came across some "30USA" brass
that was the American version of the 30/40. Really heavy duty.
I also got some NIB 30/40. The 30usa was obviously used what with
the huge extractor ding across the heel. That latter brass also
was way harder and more brittle, some cracked at the mouth
on the first shot. Mind you this mouth is what once was the
middle of the case and I did not anneal.
However the NOS 30/40 was much nicer and did not crack.
I have always attributed this to the corrosive primers used back
then. At least it's a good guess. Any brass from WW2 and before
should be re-annealed IMHO. Or not used at all. Mercury is an insidious
element when in contact with other metals.



...Nemo...

It's a fact of life with reloading. Although I would think that you would get more than two reloads out of them. Two years ago I bought two boxes loaded 357 ammo. One Remington brass cases, the other Winchester nickel. Also bought 2 boxes of 38 special loads, one brass, one nickel. After about 6 reloads through all boxes I have only about half of the 357 cases left. Lost more of the nickel to splits than the brass. But I still have almost all of the 38 special cases. The big difference here is that the 357 mags were always hot hunting loads while the 38's were mild targets. They were all shot out of the same two revolvers.
Last year a friend gave me 400 38 special cases. They are a mixed lot of brass and nickel cases, of mixed manufacture and most well over 30 years old. He used them in his 357 Ruger Black Hawk and usually loaded them hot. I only load them mild but I have learned to inspect them closely every time I reload and usually throw out about 10%. It getting to the point where they are not worth the effort.
John