Does anyone here know for sure when nickeled cartridge cases were first offered in commercial handgun ammunition?

Maybe the late 1920's? Which calibers were first to be plated, or was it across a manufacturers entire line?

This might help


Nickled handgun ammo cases, when?

I don't know about specific uses, like cartridge cases, but nickel plating using chemical processes has been around a long time.


In 1837 G. Bird described electrodeposition of nickel chloride or sulphate on platinum. This process resulted in a thin crust of nickel on the platinum substrate, and soon after other European experiments proved nickel chloride, nitrate and nickel ammonium sulphate were also appropriate for nickel plating processes. The nickel ammonium sulphate, or double nickel salts, solution became industry standard for the next seventy years in commercial products.


The History of Nickel Plating

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Science plus Art

The Peters Cartridge Company's ammunition catalog and price list No. 106 (1932) is the earliest catalog I have seen that specifies nickel cases - to differentiate between standard velocity and high velocity loadings of .22 rimfire and .38 Special cartridges. Catalogs and price lists for preceeding years 1930 and 1931 make no mention of nickel cases or high velocity loadings in .22 rimfire or .38 Special.

So, at least as far as Peters is concenrned, the first cartridges to be marketed with nickel plated cases were the high velocity loadings of .22 rimfire and .38 Special (Smith & Wesson, and Colt varieties), and the year was 1932.

The .38 Super cartridge, introduced in 1929 when a lot of older .38 ACP pistols were still in use, used nickel plated cases from the beginning to distinguish it from the weaker load. Or so I've been told.

I have heard the same thing, but the catalogs of the time do not bear this out. In Remington ammunition price lists dated January 1, 1930, through January 12, 1935, .38 Super Automatic Colt Pistol cartridges are noted as "Adapted to all .38 Caliber Colt automatic pistols including the latest model." Let's let that sink in for a moment - for five to six years it was deemed perfectly safe, and evidently recommended practice, to fire .38 Super Auto cartridges in .38 Auto pistols! As a matter of interest, in the Remington price lists and catalogs 1930 through 1935, only .38 Super Automatic cartridges are listed - no plain .38 Automatic Colt Pistol cartridges at all. It is not until 1936 that the .38 Super cartridge is designated as "Adapted to all .38 caliber Colt Super Automatic Pistols." while the .38 Auto cartridge reappears in Remington's catalogs and price lists as "Adapted to Colt Military and Pocket Model Automatic Arms."

Based on this, it my opinion (and that's all it is, just my opinion) that the nickel plating of .38 Super cartridge cases may not have occurred until late 1935 or early 1936, when the differentiation between .38 Auto and .38 Super Auto became definite.

I think the nickel in auto cartridges loaded better with less drag.

Read down in this link, a guy went thru his American Rifleman mags and started seeing adds for the new nickel plated ammo.

nickel-plated cases?

I checked my 1938 Remington ammunition catalog. There is no mention in it anywhere about Remington's using nickel-plated cases in any caliber including .22, .38/44, .38 Super, .38 Special, and .357. There are some color pictures of various cartridges, but none show nickeled cases. Of course, that's not evidence that Remington did not supply nickeled cases, but if so, they didn't advertise the fact.

Nickel plating indeed extends far back into the 19th century, no question about that. But its initial use for cartridge cases is murky. For sure, it was used in the 1950s. I had also heard (without substantiation) that the original intent of nickel plating of cases was to prevent brass corrosion when cartridges were carried in leather belt loops. If that is true, then .38 Special cartridges would probably have been first with plating, as most cops in the early 20th century carried their spare .38 Special cartridges in looped leather belts.

I did notice something else unrelated from that 1938 catalog - Remington was still listing black powder loads for .38 Special. I knew .38 Special was available loaded with BP until the 1930s, but I didn't know it was that late into the 1930s.
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I went back and checked the 1948 Remington ammunition catalog. It DOES specifically mention that nickeled cases were available for .22 RF and also .38 Special. There may be other calibers also available with nickeled cases, but if so, no specific mention was made of them. My guess is that it's likely that case nickeling became more or less widespread during the post-WWII period.

More interesting reading regarding the .38 Super:
Old 38 Super Ammo - Vintage? - 1911Forum