Annealing nickel brass? - 24hourcampfire

Is there anything different about annealing nickel plated brass vs plain jane? I haven’t used nickel brass before.

Nope. The nickel plating is so thin it doesn't make any difference.

Thanks John

I second what Mule Deer said.
Paul B.

Never tried annealing it. Does it show a color change?

was wondering the same thing as I have never tried it either.

Originally Posted by 375Taylor

Never tried annealing it. Does it show a color change?

No, because the melting point of nickel is far higher than the annealing temperature of cartridge brass.

i used the candle aneal method on nickel plated Federal brass on my 257 Weatherby brass and it worked just fine for me .

Annealing Nickel-plated brass or bothering to even reload it is not something you want to do. Annealing the case will soften the brass, but harden the nickel plating.

Quote

Hardness and Wear Resistance
One of the most important properties for many applications is hardness. As deposited, the micro-hardness of electrolysis nickel coatings is about 500 to 700 HK100. That is approximately equal to 45 to 58 HRC and equivalent to many hardened alloy steels. Heat treatment causes these alloys to precipitation harden and can produce hardness values as high as 1100 HK100, equal to most commercial hard chromium coatings. ...snip...

Note that if you anneal your nickel plated necks, you are hardening the nickel plating. It can be harder than many alloyed steels before you anneal and can increase is hardness as much as 2 fold by precipitation hardening.

Forget Nickel Plated Brass

I have done considerable research on this, and the temperatures where brass anneals do not get hot enough to harden nickel plating any more than it already is.

That said, am not about to try to neck-turn nickel-plated brass. But used a batch of nickel-plated .270 Winchester brass for a long time with zero problems....

As MD said great it just like regular brass when annealing it. Don’t believe him, just go to AMP annelaers website and they say the same thing.

The only nickel plated brass I use is Winchester for my .280 Rem. The plating looks more like a wash of some type and starts to disappear after a few runs in the tumbler. I seriously doubt that "wash" would get all that much harder, especially after about four or five tumblings. I only anneal after the brass has been loaded and shot five times anyway.

I do have four boxes of Federal Premium ammo for my .35 Whelen that has plated brass. The coating on those appears to be heavier that what I see on the Winchester brass. I don't anticipate any problems reloading annealing that brass when I get around to doing so.
Paul B.