I have been reading a few threads about the annealing process. It seems that there is some differences of opinion on how to tell when the brass is hot enough or too hot.

So, what' the correct procedure, Let the tip of the neck glow red or is a red tip a sign you have gone to far?

No, heating to red (with a gas torch?) is probably not helpful. Brass anneals at around 500 degrees F.

An easy way of annealing brass is to put them into a baking dish deep enpugh to reach up to the shoulder. De-prime and resize, trim and chamfer, then place your brass into the baking dish and fil the dish slowly with water, allowing the cases to fill via the primer pocket/flash hole, stop when the water level is about 1/4 inch from the shoulder.

Adjust the top rake in your oven so the case mouths will be about 1 inch below the broiler element. Set the oven to Broil, insert the baking dish and wait approximately 45 minutes.

Your brass may not discolor like military cartridges, since you are not using a carbon source, but they should ahve a slight color difference-shiny below the waterline, darker above.

Good luck

I am under the impression that proper annealing will not take away the shine on the brass. As far as getting it to glow red, well, obviously we've seen some posts where some get the brass that hot, but according to what I'm reading, that is not the goal.

That's why I'm in favor of some device that has been tested and proven to show the right temperature and TIME that it takes to properly anneal, and do it to each hull evenly.

I've not made up my mind yet, but I will likely purchase one of the 2 cheaper annealing units that were posted in the thread.

Which brings up another question. Wouldn't it be best to anneal fired brass right after it is cleaned BEFORE resizing/decapping?

I didn't write this only copied it and I'll post the link .

The Art and Science of Annealing
Annealing Basics, Cartridge Metallurgy, and Automated Options

For many reloaders, annealing is a "dark science" that defies easy explanation. When done right, annealing extends brass life and makes neck tension more consistent, something very important for accuracy. There is plenty of evidence that annealing works. Just look at your new Lapua brass--those rainbow colors on the necks are artifacts of annealing. And we know annealing can make your brass shoot better and last longer. Score Shooter of the Year Joe Entrekin has 40+ reloads on his regularly-annealed brass. The smallest 1000-yard 5-shot group ever shot in IBS competition was done with brass annealed after every firing. So, learning how to anneal the right way is something that can benefit every precision shooter. For this feature, IHMSA Champion Silhouette shooter Jim Harris and manufacturer Ken Light explain the "dos and don'ts" of annealing, clarify many common misconceptions, and review the best gear for both manual and automated annealing.

http://www.6mmbr.com/annealing.html

Temp is around 650 F. water quenching isn't required , however the pan of water keeps the case head and cartridge body cool as the neck and shoulder is what needs annealing .

Large volumes of brass Automation is by far less time consuming . Low volume many people use the old water pan and single torch .

I personally don't care for the single torch as I find it difficult to heat evenly around the neck shoulder .

Red color isn't good !.Orange is better if just the very tip of the neck turns red it's OK !.

I now have a close friend who does all of my annealing . he built a real nice trick set up . however forbid my taking a picture of it .Until Pat. Searches are concluded .

Doc; Annealing will remove the shine !. Look at Lapua brass their annealing is STATE OF THE ART !. Others re polish the brass after annealing it , to make it all pretty and such .

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...

Dr. K -

Basically good stuff in your cited post. The only thing I would add is that I think a lot of folk get far too worried about evil effects on their brass by heating it to where some or even all of the neck turns red.

Let me immediately say, I am speaking in terms of safety, not competitive accuracy. Obviously where accuracy is concerned, there is a desirable "ideal" state, and everything else.

For saving brass from neck cracks and using it long term, however, one need not be quite so perfection oriented. The important thing is to make sure the lower body and head of the case do not become annealed, as a matter of preserving safety.

When I first learned how to anneal brass, I was taught (by the NRA) to stand the cartridge cases in a pie tin or cake bowl, with enough water to reach all the way up to just below the case shoulder(s). Then, using a "spreader tip" (NOT a "pointy" flame) of a butane torch, to heat the necks red all the way from the top edge of the shoulder to the "muzzle" end of the neck, one case at a time. As soon as the neck visibly reddened (in a darkened room), the case was then tipped over into the water to cool it.

I know many will throw their hands up in horror at that description, but my point is, crude as it may have been, I have been using that method for almost 60 years and have had no bad experiences of any sort as a result.

Yes brass may sometimes end up with a softer neck than one wishes, but work hardening (by firing it) will soon have it as hard again as anyone will want.

Using that approach, I have formed, repeatedly fired and resized and loaded all ilk of wildcats, and am still using 1,000 .30-06 bulk military brass I bought in 1959.

Certainly, if I was going to anneal large lots of brass, either all at once or sequentially, and had the money handy I would buy one of the newer machines. But for safety, I wouldn't worry about the necks getting red, so long as the lower case bodies and heads are well protected from any heat.

Best wishes,

AC

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
Dr. K - But for safety, I wouldn't worry about the necks getting red, so long as the lower case bodies and heads are well protected from any heat.Best wishes,
AC

once again Being absolutly precise is great , being adequate is being smarter roger

quote:

I am under the impression that proper annealing will not take away the shine on the brass.

I do believe that properly annealed brass should have discoloring in the neck. Here is a photo of a Lapua 30-06 case.

quote:

Originally posted by Dr.K:
I didn't write this only copied it and I'll post the link .

You must have missed it in my thread, I already posted that link.

quote:

Originally posted by Dr.Koc; Annealing will remove the shine !. Look at Lapua brass their annealing is STATE OF THE ART !.

No, it doesn't it. Take a look at the Lapua photo. The shine is still there, just a different color. I'm talking about truly removing any reflective property.

AC Roger I couldn't agree more !. My Regards , Ken .

It's the way I was taught also Lights out check out the color . Red tip Orange neck . We never put the cases that deep in water . No reason you couldn't we just never did about an 1-1.5" was all I ever used .

Brass need not be quenched according to metallurgists . As the heating realigns crystalline structure . Temp is for degree of softness or malleability .

My buddy is an Engineer , no ordinary Engineer mind you . He was a Tool and Die maker for large Aerospace firm . Then went to work for a CNC outfit who does HP'S machine work . That's where he became ANAL !.
He doesn't run machines , he Designs them in CAD . Then when things go wrong He machines the intricate parts ( Proto Types them ) !. For production .

He had his own shop for years building proto type machinery for the Japanese and shipping them over there . They would then build them .

Okuma , MORI SEIKI machine centers were some of his designs .

He is on another level , so I tend to leave him alone when it comes to design work or machining !.

He once told me ( Screw patents ) he who manufactures first wins !.

Also included in the above line was something like this . If your making it for the public you had better make it Idiot proof !.

Because they'll come back and sue the living shit out of you !.

Now Dinner with the evening news for my daily dose of depression !.

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...

Dr. K - I'd guess your friend is a pretty good guy to hang around with and discuss stuff in almost any field.

He's sure right about patents. They are useful for larger companies who have the money and a bunch of in-house lawyers and want to intimidate some folks. But they are basically useless for most individuals and most inventions.

A normal scenario is this. Man invents wonder doo-dad. He gets patent. He begins to manufacture it and try to sell it. It takes off slightly, but is no big thing (yet) because he doesn't have the deep pockets to market it big time. (Remember, if you haven't carefully planned or can't afford the marketing, you will make NOTHING from the patent. The goods have to sell before you get anything back.)

Person here on a long term visa (or another American who just plain lives by theft) buys one, decides it is a way to make some real good, short-term money, and contacts his local PRC (People's Republic of China) OEM rep. Has a large batch of them made and packaged.

If he is American, uses contacts he has built up over years of conniving, and "seed money", to advertise and market them. If he's a properly employed industrial espionage worker for a large foreign company, they handle all that themselves.

Inventor finds out, files suit if he can afford to. After maybe two years, finally gets into court. (Until then, he is still getting ripped off by unauthorized competing sales.)

If he is lucky enough to win there, court orders those ripping off his invention to cease and desist sales in U.S. (Our courts can't tell them what to manufacture for selling to Mongolia, India, etc., despite lots of treaties to do exactly that. Once again, talk is cheap.) They smile. They have taken the "cream" off the top of the market anyway, with no design and development time or cost.

They almost never are ordered to turn over any money they made off the ones already sold here. In fact, how do you even find out how many HAVE been sold? No way to get a genuine figure from a foreign corporation practiced at that kind of business. Even if you could, they don't pay in accord with court order. They just declare bankruptcy and transfer assets to a new "front" company. Ever try to seize assets in a foreign country? Ever figure out what that would cost?

If it is an item which is going to be a long time market staple, the "rippers-off" change the name of the "manufacturing" company (the shell company which exists solely to sell them in the U.S.) from Ben xHung Ltd. to Ooh cFong Inc., make some more, sell them again. When taken to court again under their new corporate name, same scenario plays out again.

Eventually, if the item is a really good long-term seller, they modify the design very slightly, just enough to qualify for the legally required "15% improvement", and get their own U.S. patent on the improved model.

It is more practical to invent the item, locate some venture capital to pay for manufacture/marketing (using well-written non-disclosure agreements), and rush the thing into manufacture and distribution. The inventor can then market the hell out of them and not CARE if someone else decides to also make them once they've seen it. If they are gonna really sell, he is already selling them, and copies at that point are really just another form of good free advertising.

If the rip-off competition finally starts to dominate the inventor's market, the inventor moves on to his next idea. One has to realize that in business (inventing, or any other) the idea is NOT to control one idea forever. It is to use a good idea to make money, then move on to the next money-maker.

I know lots of people here believe patents are solid security, but if they ever do really check it out, they will find that idea is the patent attorney version of the stock broker's "guaranteed next big money maker" hot tip. Yes, he makes HIS money (fees or commissions).

Guess that will get some debate going on a sleepy day.........

Best wishes,

AC

P.S. Sounds a lot like my dad, who was a prototype machinist for a large aerospace firm also. At the end of his "career" he became responsible for assembly of Polaris/Poseidon missiles produced by that corporation. Not bad for a Comanche who began life as an Arkansas farm boy just after the turn of the 20th Century and had to forego a Razorback law degree to get day jobs as a labourer to help his brothers and sisters eat during the depression..

The question:

quote:

Originally posted by steve4102:
So, what' the correct procedure, Let the tip of the neck glow red or is a red tip a sign you have gone to far?

The answer:

quote:

If you let the color on the neck go beyond light blue, and the shine disappears, you’re on the edge of ruining the case, and you may already have gone too far. If you let the case get red, it’s a goner.

quote:

Originally posted by steve4102:
... So, what' the correct procedure, Let the tip of the neck glow red or is a red tip a sign you have gone to far?

I heat until the Case Mouth is Red in a dim room and let it hit the water. It works well for me.

I remember a few years ago on another web site the question of Annealing came up and the (revrend dr.) howl(same doctorate as al sharpton and jesse jackson) begin listing a bunch of far out on how to do it.

The was the basis for Awarding the "howl C.A.R.E.T. Factor" - howl Complicating Any Relatively Easy Task - to the point of absurdity.
-----

So, I do it the old, time-proven, easy-to-do ways of our forefathers and never have a problem. If anyone wants to do it another way and it makes them happy, that is what they should do.

quote:

Originally posted by Doc:

quote:

If you let the color on the neck go beyond light blue, and the shine disappears, you’re on the edge of ruining the case, and you may already have gone too far. If you let the case get red, it’s a goner.

Doc,if you saw this somewhere in print it is a case of something being pulished that is totally ambiguous at best. ""If you let the whole case get red,no question, it is a wipe out"".

The adequacy of the RED NECK is in the historical doing and not in some bending of knowledge put in print. roger

I only have the directions from my Hornady Case Neck Annealing Kit to go by.

"Apply the 475 degree Tempilaq temperature indicating paste to case body 1\4" below the shoulder. ...when that Tempilaq melts the case neck has been sufficiently annealed. FURTHER ANNEALING ONLY SOFTENS THE CASE SHOULDER, WHICH CAN REDUCE ACCURACY AND CASE LIFE."

onefunzer2 -

My first question about the Hornady instructions is, "Where do the instructions say to apply the heat?" If the heat is applied to the neck, and the 475-degree Tempilaq is melting 1/4" below the shoulder, I suspect the case neck temp is well over 600-degrees. Could the neck itself be starting to appear reddish, if seen in a darkened room?

Am NOT disagreeng with you or Hornady, just asking for more complete info.

Personally, I almost never anneal case shoulders, EXCEPT when I am reforming the shoulders by pushing a them a long way back or greatly reducing their diameter to make case necks for some wildcats. Annealing the necks but not the shoulders has proved plenty adequate for my uses.

So, that's why I stand the cases being annealed in water up almost to the bottom of the shoulders. Neck gets annealed, and shoulder doesn't. Even though the case necks turn quite red, I have never lost a case from doing that except when I first started and tried to make too great a change in neck diameter with them.

But, I am talking about things like necking full-length .404 cases to take .25 bullets. Doing that, if one doesn't do it in steps, he will sometimes lose a case regardless whether the case is annealed or not.

quote:

Originally posted by bartsche:

quote:

Originally posted by Doc:

quote:

If you let the color on the neck go beyond light blue, and the shine disappears, you’re on the edge of ruining the case, and you may already have gone too far. If you let the case get red, it’s a goner.

Doc,if you saw this somewhere in print it is a case of something being pulished that is totally ambiguous at best. ""If you let the whole case get red,no question, it is a wipe out"".

The adequacy of the RED NECK is in the historical doing and not in some bending of knowledge put in print. roger

Just quoting the article winchester 69 posted. What may be important here is that many of those who handload/reload don't anneal enough, if ever. I was talking with Patrick Ryan today from Redding and he agreed that annealing is underutilized. Especially in a case like mine where I'm loading a wildcat and necking down .06 to 270.

I'll likely purchase some type of annealing unit and follow the directions and leave it at that. As I have mentioned previously, I have a lot to learn on this topic.

What I also wonder about is whether or not annealing is necessary if brass has been stored for years.

I don't wish to start an argument so I'll only say .
It's real hard to tell if you ruin a case or not as the higher the heat the softer the brass becomes . So it forms real slick shoots well and after a couple of firings starts to harden again .

I know from three separate experiments on the same day in his garage ( Work Shop ) we first used the Lights out , then temp sticks , to verify he used a digital laser temperature gun .

As I've watched him over To many years to doubt his knowledge in metallurgy or much else in terms of fabrication work .

I tend to take his word as gospel in matters of hardening softening what ever metals are used .

According to him it's not absolutely critical on temp just somewhere between 650-720 and that's why I posted it .

I saw the tip of the neck turn red and the shoulder go orange . When finished and cool it had a Blue cast on the neck and slightly down on top of the shoulder .

I formed some .221 fireball's for a friend . He gets 8-10 loadings now before re annealing is necessary .

He was only getting a maximum of two loadings before case failures before I started annealing for him .

Bear with me I'm going to post a picture in a little while showing factory and my reloads an lapua and Winchester annealing side by side .

As soon as I charge the Nikon's battery that it !

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...

Here are some annealed cases .Left too right .

My reload , lapua factory case , Winchester Factory round , Winchester re annealed case with 17 firings on it .






Shoot Straight Know Your target . ...

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
onefunzer2 -

My first question about the Hornady instructions is, "Where do the instructions say to apply the heat?" If the heat is applied to the neck, and the 475-degree Tempilaq is melting 1/4" below the shoulder, I suspect the case neck temp is well over 600-degrees. Could the neck itself be starting to appear reddish, if seen in a darkened room?

"Bring spinning case into flame. Locate middle of case neck in center of flame, near end of bright blue inner cone. Always locate flame on neck area only. NEVER APPLY FLAME DIRECTLY TO CASE BODY OR MARKING MATERIAL, AVOID CENTERING FLAME NEAR CASE SHOULDER."

Yes, the neck just starts to turn a dark red. I've never annealed in a darkened room.