I have the same experience as many posters before me; i.e., I have seen no real difference in case life between solid brass and nickel plated brass as long as the loading has been middle of the road or lighter. I did find that if a die starts scratching the nickel cases AND I was loading a little hot, they were subject to splitting sooner than the brass cases.
BTW, I have a batch of nickel plated 38 Spec. brass picked up on a pistol range that I have been shooting and reloading since 1965. Most have been used over 40 times. When a mouth splits, I just pitch it into the scrap brass can. There were about 500 pieces originally and now are down to about 300. All were WW manufacturer. I would say that has been great service from a standard product. ............
I shot IPSC competition using 38 Super nickel plated cases for about 5 years. A couple of those years I shot upwards to 30,000 shots per year. I never owned more than 5,000 38 Super cases. I reloaded every shot (thank you Mike Dillon). I would get any where from 10 to 15 reloads minimum from some cases and over 20 reloading times from most. I was shooting 'Major Power Factor' in all those shots. Those cases were never liquid/chemically tumbled, just tumbled using dry corncob bits. I still have about 2,000 of those original cases.
