All input is welcome. ..
I use a propane torch in a dark room. I spin the case in my fingers, holding the base and heating it at the juncture of the neck and case. It will get hot at the end first. When it just barely starts to glow anywhere (you'll get the first couple too hot) drop it in a pan of cool tap water.
Don
The trick with annealing is to get to the right temperature (670 F). Too hot, and you have got mush, to cool and you are waisting your time. "cherry red" is way to hot. HTH, Dutch.
[This message has been edited by Steve in MI (edited 12-09-2001).]
Mike
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Victory through superior firepower!
You must not anneal the head of the case.
Mike
You are right, no gloves. The interesting thing is that the base does not even get warm!
You absolutely don't want cherry red. Just the first hint of a glow.
Don
Each case (6.5 Swede length) takes about 50 seconds. The nice thing about this system is you can anneal a bunch of cases quickly. There's 10 nubs to the plate and if you place them on and remove them at 5 second intervals you can get a bunch of cases done quickly. If that's too quick a pace, just use 5 nubs at a time and you get to spread this across 10 second intervals. Anyway, it's a pretty slick system and I don't have any fear of over annealing the brass or getting the case heads too hot.
Martindog
I might anneal some hard to come by or very expensive cases, should the problem arise. Heck I have trouble hardening my screw driver blades and stock making tools.
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Ray Atkinson
I do not think that's an accurate characterization. The newer generation of 'reloaders' are bombarded by oodles and oodles of goodies designed to do a specific job. This is fine for the economy, but I find this group as a whole knows little about the why's and indepth knowledge of good handloading. Boys with toys often. The knowledgeable handloader developes skills and competency- inventing routines and procedures which reflect that knowledge and common sense.
I have seen much the same thing in reverse: just drill neck-sized holes in an inch thick plate. Much quicker and easier to make yourself.
Don
Doing some research on this forum I discovered a few topics regarding annealing brass, and one of the comments that I have not been able to get a clear answer on is:
Upon heating the case to the proper temp, do you quench rapidly to temper? or do you let the case cool off naturally?
Thanks for the help!!!
TGW
Cool cartridge brass quickly in cool water. Other metals need to be cooled slowly or they harden. Has something to do with ferrous vs non-ferrous but I'm not smart enough to figure that one out.
On the surface, I would guess ferrous metals have something to do with having iron. Non-ferrous then wouldn't. Where I can't figure it out is you're supposed to cool brass quickly but it stays soft. But if you quench just-cast lead bullets in cool water, they harden (maybe because of the tin or antimony????). Neither to my knowledge contains any iron however, so I'm completely clueless. Need someone else to jump in and explain the real deal.
Martindog
If you don't spend much time in prepping new brass and use it "as is" from the supplier then I agree it doesn't make much sense to anneal. You're a "reloader" rather than a "handloader". However, for those interested in extreme accuracy and who spend time uniforming primer pockets, deburring flash holes and sorting their brass, the time spent in annealing perfectly good, uniform cases is a fraction of the time spent manicuring them. Annealing has many advantages and no disadvantage, other than the time it takes, which is minimal by comparision.
HOWEVER, as Bob338 pointed out, if you shoot a wildcat or proprietary cartridge, it is too expensive and too time consuming to prep and fire form new brass every 4 or 5 reloads. Most proprietary brass runs around $2 to $3 dollars each. It would be ridiculous to throw away brass that is slightly work hardened when all you need to do is invest a few minutes to anneal.
I use mostly Bell/MAST brass; I generally only neck size my brass; and I anneal after 5 reloads. My brass lasts at least 12 loads and some cartridges last far longer than that. There is no great mystery to properly annealing and it ain�t difficult.
To me, annealing IS the lazy man�s method. By annealing, I don�t waste hours inspecting and sorting brass, reaming primer holes, trimming cases, turning necks, and deburring case mouths. It takes me far longer to prep new brass than to anneal.
I am lazy, therefore I anneal.
If brass life is a concern, a tight neck and a custom die which minimally works the neck (as in .003-.004 or so) will allow for 20+ firings without annealing. Some of the folks that shoot benchrest (and HOT loads, I should point out) get 50+ firings from a case. JMO, Dutch.
Arizona Ammunition will do it at a very reasonable rate...every 5th loading I send them a hundred cases and they deprime, resize, trim and anneal plus send them back polished in some nifty MTM cses....I don't recall how much but I think around $20 and the MTM cases are worth half that. They're aren't real fast but they do good work and I don't need to worry about it....some of my brass has been annealed 3 or 4 times. I don't know if regular brass will last that long (I don't load really hot) but the Lazzeroni brass is certainly holding up.