I was browsing for some .32 acp ammo and found some old surplus nickel coated ammo. I was wondering if it would foul more or be cleaner than copper coated fmj ammo?
Everyone says copper is horrible to foul but i shoot 800 to 900 yards with a rem 700 vtr 308. and i run a bore snake every 5 rounds and dont have any problem with fouling. if u let it go 20 and up it gets rough but other than that i love my copper fmj. but the nickel i couldn't tell u
nickle is harder than copper. Next to no extra fouling. HOWEVER, surplus ammo, unless USA, is normally corrosive powders and primers. Plus, the bulk of non US mil-surp is berden primed. A pain to reload. On the plus side? Mil-surp ammo is normally more powerful than today's modern. So, an older pistol will fire like it's suppose to. Strictly a balance. If, the 32 surplus is in good condition? You will do fine using it. Newer pistols mostly have stainless steel barrels. So, hard nickle vs copper near a non issue. Just clean pistol completely after using mil-surp ammo. Try some and you'll like it. Compare recoil and accuracy over today's commercial stuff.
Nickel is very hard. I doubt what you saw was nickel-plated. It was probably cupro-nickel, which wasn't as satisfactory an alloy as gilding metal, which is about 95% copper and 5% zinc, but was pretty decent in its day.
