MIG nozzles: brass vs copper, what's the DEAL?

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outer nozzles for my (ancient) bernard MIG gun are offered in both brass and copper (copper for more money). they both seem to be -exactly- alike, otherwise, dimensionally. so, other than copper being more costly, what makes it better?lasts longer? gets fouled less? or? nozzle part numbers and sales sites are eveywhere, but nozzles INFO? 'seems to be top secret'....thanks for info guys
Reply:I've never found a lot of difference between the two actually. The only thing I did notice is when the nozzle becomes live due to spatter inside touching the contact tube and the nozzle arcs out on the weld the brass doesn't seem  to fare as well as copper. I'd be buying whatever is cheaper....Mike
Reply:well, they're both pretty cheap. thinkin' I'm gonna go ahead and get 'some of each' and find out.... :-) "fer myself"*thanks* mikey
Reply:I've had brass nozzles explode on me before. I was running about a 3 foot long pass with flux core that I always tried to run in one pass to avoid starts and stops. Access was tight and the nozzle had to be close to the weld. One day I was running along and *POOF* I get a bright purple flash and lots of white smoke and everything goes to hell. I stopped and about a 1/8th inch of the end of the nozzle was gone with bits of it stuck in my puddle. Lots of swearing and grinding. Never had a copper nozzle explode on me, I’ve had them glowing bright cherry red, but no explosions.
Reply:WOW, sheesh. sounds like a REAL bad day. my recollection is the place I like (to buy nozzles from) sells the brass ones for roughly 4 each, and the copper ones for about "5 and change" each...factoring in the possible 'explosion hazard', though, makes this one a 'no brainer' for ol' daveglad you're OK, and thanks for the education :-)ps-do just as many dingle-balls, tiny steel slag-balls and krap get 'stuck to' copper nozzles as to brass ones? it's 'been a few decades' since I last mig welded anything....thanks again,dave
Reply:Same IMHO. Pick up some tip dip while you're there as well....Mike
Reply:Spatter build up is about the same, ive found copper stands up to repeated cleaning more than brass. Most of the copper nozzels ive used were "heavy duty" varieties which might have helped. Be sure to get the right size nozzles, thats part of the reason why the brass one exploded. I was running production flux core on train parts, and the company olny had one kind of nozzle to use, tiny brass ones that were made for light to medium MIG welding, not the flux core we were running. One of the older guys had a heavy copper setup that he let me use, problem solved.It olny took about um... lets see... 10 to 15 times for the company to realize that it wasnt my fault that the tiny nozzle couldent take what i was putting it through before they got a few heavy nozzles for me.