Hey guys I was wondering if annealing is something that really needs to be done. If so do you do it with new brass or is it something that can be done on existing brass sometimes fired 5-6 times. Also what is a easy way to do it. Any info on this would be greatly appreciated.

Varmint Al's tells you how and why on a molecular level. This link goes to annealing, but the whole page is really informative.

http://www.cctrap.com/~varmint/arelo.htm#Anneal

Al is a retired structural engineer, used to design atom bombs.

Trophy,
I crushed one too many NEW, expensive ($2.00 ea) .460 Weatherby cases when trying to neck up even with Imperial Sizing Die Wax.

I did by hand a couple of cases to find they expanded up to .510 perfectly. To do a bunch I made a "turntable" to spin the cases so I did not have to concentrate on two things at once.

I used the cassette mechanism from an ancient cassette recorder. Removed it from the case, mounted a wooden "table" made by cutting a plug from 3/4" (19mm) plywood with a holesaw onto the spindle that is now forever in "play" mode. I made a small box out of 1/4" (6.35mm) plywood to hold it. I used the 12 Volt adapter and soldered the leads to an automotive toggle switch, itself mounted in a small wooden piece. This part keeps me from shocking myself (important). It all fits into the case so it doesn't lose parts and more importantly has a high SAF (Spousal Acceptance Factor). If it looks like a small jewelry box it can't be ALL bad can it?

I set up at the kitchen sink, put a case on the "table", flick the toggle and then heat with the Bernzo-Matic torch. When I begin to see a dull red in the neck and partial shoulder area I pluck it into the sink which has about a hand and a half of water in it. Works great.

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Primers out.

I put a finish nail in a the end of a large dowel to server as a "spindle." The finish nail fits LOOSELY in the primer flash hole with the brass sitting against the end of the dowel. This allows turning the brass without burning my fingers.

I put a BernzOMatic torch in the jaws of a vise and place a 5 gal bucket of water below the torch/vise. This way both hands are free to put brass on my "spindle."

Put the flame on the torch and rotate the spindle in the flame until the neck turns a DULL RED. You don't want cherry red -- just barely red. Then dump the brass in the bucket of water.

Heat the neck only.

Heat in a dark room so you can see the brass color coming up. DULL RED, then water quench.

NECK ONLY.

Read what Al says about all this. He understands metalurgy and stress. That's his field of engineering.

I don't quite do it like roger but it is the same idea. plastic bucket with a piece of pine board. Heat with a torch and as soon as they start to turn orange knock them into the bucket of water with a screw driver. I've got some pretty old cases that haven't split. It's an old idea and some are too lazy to do it, but if you save money on brass you can spend it on bullets, powder, or primers luck hotdog.

I am not as complicated as some, I simply use my little, pink, precision tuned, Mark I, God-designed fingers to hold the case and turn it in the flame. The best advice is to do this in a moderately dark room. If the brass takes on a cherry red color, you have over softened the case and neck tension will be greatly reduced - accuracy can also suffer with poor neck tension. You will also fold a few cartridges in your dies if you over soften the brass.

As you anneal, if you watch closely, the brass will take on a blue wash color just before it hits 660 to 665 degrees Fahrenheit (or 350 Celsius for you foreign types). This is the ideal annealing temperature for brass cartridges. Genghis - according to Varmint Al, he is heating the brass to 750 degrees F. This is considered by many to be too hot and can over soften the brass. Pick up �Designing and Forming Custom Cartridges� from Ken Howell. He is considered to be the custom cartridge wizard by all the experts. He strongly recommends to stay within 660 degrees F.

Warning, you do not want the heat to run past the shoulder. To avoid this, heat the mouth quickly and quench quickly. A temp stick (heat crayon) will help you develop a feel for annealing. Annealing is not necessary if you don�t hold on to your old brass. You can generally get 5 to 7 reloads from your brass before it becomes work hardened. The tighter your chamber, the less you will move the brass during resizing.

However, as Roger pointed out, for those of us who shoot proprietary or wildcat cartridges, annealing is both necessary and very cost effective.

To add, both the Woodchuck den and Hornady now sell a little attatchment for your burner, which heats the entire neck uniformly. Hornady's kit also comes with Tempilaq (temp indicator). This turns it into a "cookbook" operation, rather than guess work. HTH, Dutch.

Dutch - A friend gave me my annealing tip many years ago. I cannot remember for the life of me where he got it. I checked the Hornady site but could not find any reference to it and unfortunately, the Woodchuck Den site did not have a picture of their unit.

I would like to get several for friends at the range, but have not found a good source for them. Any other ideas? I would like to see a picture of the flame pattern before I purchase them.

I shoot a round about 10 times then I toss it in the trash bin and buy another bulk lot of brass...the exception would be some very hard to come by cases or very expensive cases....

I consider any form of metal changing process such as annealing, case hardening, to come under the catagory of guess and be gosh, and is akin to witchcraft and voodoo...some will find this offense but I have played with both a good deal and thats my assesment....heating and reshaping screwdrivers made into scrapers taxes my abilities...I'm sure there are some engineering genious that are overly educated and without work that will argue this subject until the cows come home.

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

"...I'm sure there are some engineering geniuses that are overly educated and without work that will argue this subject..." Other than the �out of work� comment, I think I resemble that comment. Thanks Ray.

Not being the defensive type - would like to clarify my position on annealing. It is not �necessary�, however, I shoot a lot of expensive and hard to find cartridges. I have been annealing for many, many years. There is nothing hard about it, but, just because you don�t do it, does not make you a bad person.

Whatitbelak' Zero Drift

You can find the little darlin's in Lock, stock and Barrel, Natchez, and Midsouth for sure, and Sinclair (I think) or from Hornady direct. I have a set and it works great.

Hey, I live it the woods surrounded by GREATBIGTREES, dark rooms and burning objects make me jumpy so the Templaq works better for me. No guessing.

I lock my torch down on my load bench, use a jig I made to brace the drill motor against, and have the dogs water bowl right below. I stand the brass in a loading block to swipe with the temp stuff. After the templaq dries I grab a case, drop it in the holder, spinning it for a few seconds until the templaq changes color and flick my wrist so the case falls into the water.

I'm not into speed here doing this thing, but it takes longer to tell about it than to do it. No problems yet unless you count the dog chewing on body parts because I'm messing with her "Private Stuff". Guess she doesn't like the taste of burned powder and hot brass. After I promised to get her a new water bowl she let go but I will need some thicker pillows on the chair for a while.

I'm annealing in a dark room. NOT low light, dark. Working by the light of the torch.

"Dull Red" is really, really dull. If the brass is "glowing" it's too hot.

The spindle method allows me to turn the brass in the flame and control the point of the heat.

After deburring, pocket uniforming, neck turning, fire forming and OAL trim on brass, I have a hard time tossing the stuff. Shooting .223 Ackley Imp. where there's considerable work in the brass.

We're sorting the brass by lot, case weight, and number of times fired. Lots of data on the stuff.

I'll check out Ken Howell.

"Tossing is hard" I hear that,Genghis. I have 6 wildcats I mess with now and have done a few I gave up on. I'm still thinking about doing the 223 AI. Any thoughts on why you wouldn't do it again if you had it to do all over? A little more velocity and better case life, resizing, less case stretching, that sort of thing. I still wonder if it is worth the trouble. I still trim each case after each firing, altho not much and have custom dies which only bump the neck and base a 0.001". A hundred cases last a LONG time.

I just received a 1000 LC 223 cases to start with. Even though the wildcats I now used only take one or two sizing operations, I REALLY hate it when one squishes on me. I have one batch of 22-243 Midd to anneal that have gone 8 loadings and a few split necks are showing up.

Let me know about the 223 AI.

Makatak