Well, I have been happily reloading my WSM for 2.5 years now, and some of the brass is getting up there in firings. Primers are tight through 8 reloadings, but I have split a few necks...

I am a worrywart with this, my pet rifle too. I know primer leakage can damage things...can split necks allow enough leakage to damage the chamber/neck area?

I know, I should start tossing cases after 6-7 loads since I am losing about 1 in 10 at 8 firings, but I am too cheap to do it automatically and too lazy to anneal. False economy?

I doubt it is hurting things. But, how much worry is your failing to toss or anneal costing you??? THAT is my definition of false economy. LOL
Why even consider putting your pet rifle at risk for a couple $$ worth of brass or 20 minutes to anneal.

I think a steady diet of neck cracking might eventually lead to some sort of damage to the chamber, but it would take a lot of rounds to do it. I shoot lots of 222, Hornet, and 218 Bee at ground squirrels every spring and I don't keep track of how many times I load each case, I just use 'em until the neck splits and then shitcan them.

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can split necks allow enough leakage to damage the chamber/neck area?

in a word.....no.

There's no good reason to allow it when you see split necks.....throw them away!!! but they won't hurt anything either.

I had a similar problem with my .308, as I haven't annealed cases.

Either aneal cases after 3-4 firings, or toss them after 6-7. Not sure how many firings with cracked necks will damage a chamber, but it can't do anything good to the gun.

being a metallurgy grad i'm all hung up on annealing cases. Do it and it will help out many things like resizing is easier, fewer split necks, I experienced improved accuracy, and more case life. In fact my 22 250 cases i've been shooting this batch, my one and only batch to date since, 1992. i've even formed all of them to Ackley improved this pass year and only lost <10% of the cases. I anneal about every other to every third reload and neck size as often as i can get away with. there are many responsible ways to anneal. one is with a candle using your hand and a bucket of water another faster way is with a mapp gas torch you hand and a bucket of water. heat up the neck while spinning the case in your hand. when the brass is hot throw it in the water!! Hope this helps nedozier@utep.edu

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Originally posted by CDH:
...I know, I should start tossing cases after 6-7 loads since I am losing about 1 in 10 at 8 firings, but I am too cheap to do it automatically and too lazy to anneal. False economy?

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Hey CDH, Let's think about this for a minute.

When a person gets a Pinhole in a Casewall(generally due to the case being exposed to Ammonia) during the firing sequence, a micro-cutting torch is created which can blow a divot out of the Chamber Wall. Not good and I won't bother to explain why.

Now you are getting Neck Splits (generally due to Work Hardening) and during the firing sequence, a l-o-n-g narrow portion of the Chamber Neck is exposed to a short burst of extremely hot gas that the Case normally protects it from. This does not "necessarily" create the micro-torch, but as most have said, nothing good comes from it.

Did you get the idea it is OK to continue using Cases that you know are ready to split from denton?

Go back and dust off your Common Sense.
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Nice post Nate D and Welcome Aboard!

HC, you know you love Denton...admit it! You love to argue and in him have found a ready/willing opponent!

The difference in 'torching' the case walls at the neck compared to what normally happens 1/4" forward at the throat didn't really concern me much. I wouldn't EXPECT it to be a problem...but thought I'd ask and see if anyone had actually *experienced* it. I've seen some pitted bolt faces from leaking primers, so I understand the potential is there... Surely it isn't eroding the neck any faster than the throat of the rifle though. Let's see...10 cases, 8 fitings each, 1 split. 1/80th the exposure as the throat and at a random location. I jsut didn't see it as much of an issue...but I've been wrong before. Did I just admit that...don't tell my wife!

I'm thinking about dusting off an old (but new) industrial dial thermometer (50-500F) and some oil and making an oil bath (ATF and/or synthetic motor oil, or maybe peanut oil ) annealing setup...just needed the motivation.

Still, I'm usually in the better safe than sorry group...but still cheap (and 'bout broke right now...new baby in the house) and a 1 in 10 loss rate didn't seem tooooo bad after 8 firings!

Nate is right about the anneal.

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Originally posted by CDH:
HC, you know you love Denton...admit it! You love to argue and in him have found a ready/willing opponent!

Hey CDH, I do in fact love laughing at "denton's doozies". Ever since he made The World's Most Ignorant Reloading Suggestion (and someone called him on it ), he hasn't posted as much, or at all. Sure do miss how well he can totally foul up simple stuff.

quote:

...I'm thinking about dusting off an old (but new) industrial dial thermometer (50-500F) and some oil and making an oil bath (ATF and/or synthetic motor oil, or maybe peanut oil ) annealing setup...just needed the motivation.

Still, I'm usually in the better safe than sorry group...but still cheap (and 'bout broke right now...new baby in the house) and a 1 in 10 loss rate didn't seem tooooo bad after 8 firings!

That is what surprised me about your post. I always thought of you as in the "safe group" too.

Don't want to have to talk to you like you are denton to get you "motivated" to do the Annealing. Sometimes that seems to have the opposite effect anyhow.

Congratulations on the baby. Just imagine when the "baby" is old enough to go shooting/hunting with you. You might want to "hand down" that WSM, without a fried Chamber neck.
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Hey Nate, Tell us more about the "Candle Method".

I've used Propane and Butane Torches to do it with and dropped the Cases into a bucket of water. And I'd done the "Tip Over after heating in a pan of water". Both of which worked fine for me.

It is difficult for me to understand the Candle gets the Neck "hot enough - quick enough" before my fingers would feel the heat transfer at the Casehead though.

Do you use some kind of HIGH BTU Candle?

Not arguing, just curious how it can get the Caseneck hot enough.
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Hey CDH, If this does work, surely the BOSS would let you buy a candle. It could also serve as the "1 year old" Birthday candle.

Nate, why do you throw the hot cases in water?

you want the neck dead soft, or very well annealed. the primer pocket you want it to stay in the hardness its in right now. your hand is the thermometer to tell you crap there may be to much heat getting to the primer pocket. thats when you throw it in the water and here the PSSSS!! OK hey i did this with no big words. Does this make sense??

HC, honestly I was worried that I would get a barrage of "get the borescope to check it out" replies...it was only the second happening, but that's enough to tell me my brass life!

I must admit that I am only about 3 years into rifle reloading, after about 10 loading pistol and revolver rounds only. With the revolvers I always just loaded to a case split and tossed...no worries! I had no thought of doing otherwise with the rifles until I got to thinking about it long and hard.

Since the collective wisdom of this site has yet produced no "I've seen that trash a barrel" stories, I think my barrel is okay (not that I was REALLY worried to begin with ) but I do try and ask the experts here to ease my mind on this stuff.

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Don't want to have to talk to you like you are denton to get you "motivated" to do the Annealing. Sometimes that seems to have the opposite effect anyhow.

I can most assure you that talking to me like you do Denton WILL have the opposite effect. I'm the 'real easygoing till pushed, then really stubborn' type. Know the type???

Nate, I am wondering why you put them in water as opposed to just in a cardboard box or some other place that they stay dry. Thanks

Throwing them into the water is to keep heat from spreading to the parts of the brass you don't want annealed. Another method is to leave the bottom 1/2 of the brass in water while heating the necks. The annealed part does not need to cool fast - it's not like steel where you're trying to trap carbon in a higher energy state.

Working brass breaks up the crystals, smaller crystals mean more crystal lattice dislocations. These dislocations are potenital crack starts and also make the metal harder and less ductile.

Heating brass allows the atoms to rearrange back into large crystals again. The large crystals are more ductile and less prone to cracking.

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Originally posted by CDH:
...I can most assure you that talking to me like you do Denton WILL have the opposite effect. I'm the 'real easygoing till pushed, then really stubborn' type. Know the type???

I do believe I remember of hearing about people like that somewhere.

An interesting thing about the pistol/revolver cartridges (which I realize you know), is the duration of the Burn Time is extremely short in comparison to that of many rifle cartridges.

Kind of like lighting that candle and passing your hand through it quickly - no damage done. But if you slow down the movement so the time your hand spends in the flame is longer, at some point damage will occurr.

With all the variabilities, of components and drag creating different Bore Times and Buring Intensities, I can't come up with a 100% answer for the question. It does seem "logical"(something foreign to denton) that with some combination of components, damage to the Chamber Neck will eventually occurr.

I do hope it doesn't happen to your rifle. Well..., if it is a M70 it really doesn't matter.