Help me out on my first attempt at annealing. I inherited some older brass. Don't know how many times its been shot. Looks to be in good condition, but the last batch I shot I had two necks split out of about 30 rounds. I'm thinking maybe I should anneal the necks, in case they've become too work hardened.

So the process is like this, right? Please correct as needed.

1. Put the brass in question in a pan of water, with the water level just below the shoulder. (Or is it just below the neck?

2. With your propane torch, heat the neck & shoulder until it turns blue.

3. Knock the case over in the water.

Anything else to it?

There are many ways to do this. Everyone that posts will probibly have a different opinion, but this is how I do it.
I start with all my brass, a pan of water and the torch. I put everything into place, turn off the lights in the room, hold the brass about 1/3 of the way from the case head with my fingers and heat until I can see the neck of the brass just start to turn a dull red NOT glowing bright and drop it in the water. If you burn your fingers you are overheating the case.

Hello Dave - do a search for "how to anneal brass" - covers just about every way that you can do it.

here's a copy/paste of what I wrote there

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Here's how I do it - being lazy I like to jig things.

Clamp a piece of 1/4" steel rod (1/8" for 0.222" cases) in the vise at about 20 -30 degrees to the horizontal and slip a case onto the end as far as it will go. Place the propane torch on the bench so that the flame surrounds the neck/shoulder area of the cartridge. Now remove that case and let the gas bring the steel rod up to temperature. (Hardly ever gets red but it's not too important).

While all that is happening I fill a bucket of water and place it on a lab stool just under the end of the rod.

OK that's the set up. Now to the annealing bit.

Once the rod is hot I slip on a cartridge and gently spin it and watch the neck/shoulder area. You will see all the colour changes that have been described above. When the temp at the primer end gets just too hot for comfort an almost involuntary twitch of the fingers pulls it off the rod and it falls into the bucket of water with a satisfying shiiisss!

The purpose of the steel rod is to act as a heat sink - this shortens the time to anneal each case quite nicely. It also acts as a jig to keep everything fairly constant relative to the flame.

Certainly if the cases are polished to start with I end up with that bluish collar below the shoulder that you see on RWS cases.

My way of deciding when to anneal is to monitor the neck for soot marks. A newly annealed case will show no soot - by the fourth or fifth shot it is quite clear that the neck is not sealing off the combustion gases and I haul out the torch, bucket etc.

Some ammo that has been on the shelf for 40 -50 years seems to age-harden. I have seen quite a number of first time fired cases come out of the rifle with longitudinal lines burnt through the brass of the neck. Looks as though it was done with a plasma torch - actually that is exactly what did it. Anyway after annealing the survivors, there was no further splitting of the necks.

cheers edi

Or you could take a couple of hours and build one of these:


Used a cassette tape mechanism and stuffed everything into the box. Here it is spinning
a .500 case.

I built this since I wanted to get a good anneal.

I just hold the cases in my hand in the flame of the torch, and when they get a bit too warm, I drop them in the water. Simple, quich and reasonably fool proof.
Paul B.

Great info, guys. Thanks. That tip about soot marks is particularly helpful. I have seen some definite soot marks on the necks of some, so it must be time.