My education in the process of case neck annealing has gone through several stages. I began by using a propane torch to heat the case necks, while standing the case in about a half inch of water in the middle of a pie tin, the tin itself on a lazy Susan, which I turned during the process to insure uniform heat on all sides of the neck. When the neck began to glow red, I simply tipped it into the water to cool.

Later I read that a red hot case neck is too hot and that heat should be applied by timing the exposure to one second per millimeter of neck diameter, six seconds for a .243 Winchester, nine seconds for a .35 Whelen, and so on. This method insured that the neck never became red hot.

Most recently, I have acquired a custom made induction annealing setup, which uses an electrical coil to heat the case neck without recourse to an open flame. However, the coil obscures my view of the case and I am unable to determine whether the "one second per millimeter" rule is working to prevent overheating. I am holding the cases by the bases in my fingers and have only occasionally felt a small amount of heat transferred from the neck.

I am curious as to whether others have used this "timing" method of judging proper annealing and found it accurate and useful, and whether there is an easy and reliable method of determining whether a case has been properly annealed.

tempilaq.

quote:

Originally posted by xausa:
My education in the process of case neck annealing has gone through several stages. I began by using a propane torch to heat the case necks, while standing the case in about a half inch of water in the middle of a pie tin, the tin itself on a lazy Susan, which I turned during the process to insure uniform heat on all sides of the neck. When the neck began to glow red, I simply tipped it into the water to cool.

Later I read that a red hot case neck is too hot and that heat should be applied by timing the exposure to one second per millimeter of neck diameter, six seconds for a .243 Winchester, nine seconds for a .35 Whelen, and so on. This method insured that the neck never became red hot.

Most recently, I have acquired a custom made induction annealing setup, which uses an electrical coil to heat the case neck without recourse to an open flame. However, the coil obscures my view of the case and I am unable to determine whether the "one second per millimeter" rule is working to prevent overheating. I am holding the cases by the bases in my fingers and have only occasionally felt a small amount of heat transferred from the neck.

I am curious as to whether others have used this "timing" method of judging proper annealing and found it accurate and useful, and whether there is an easy and reliable method of determining whether a case has been properly annealed.

I don't think you are getting them hot enough...cases are too hot to touch when annealed using my Annealing Made Perfect machine. They cool quickly, but I can't imagine holding them.

I work in a mostly dark room with just enough light to see what I'm doing. I heat cases until they just start to glow red.

This video gives an idea. It's too hot, but my camera doesn't work well in low light and I wanted it to show in the video:

https://vimeo.com/279384452

Yep, dull red in a dimly lit room........

quote:

Originally posted by Redstone:
Yep, dull red in a dimly lit room........

Too hot.

https://thebloke.co.nz/understanding-brass-annealing/

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:
Too hot.

Disagree.

https://www.ampannealing.com/a...nder-the-microscope/

you need a consistent proper temperature to anneal brass.

dull red is not a temperature, nor is it consistent.

if it's important enough to do, it's important enough to do right.

quote:

Originally posted by jpl:

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:
Too hot.

Disagree.

https://www.ampannealing.com/a...nder-the-microscope/

Makes me just want to run out and spend 1400 bucks on their machine.

Molten salt seems to be the most accurate on the cheap

Wow, I'm reminded of the story of the little boy who came home from school and asked his father,
"Daddy, where did I come from?"

The father, who had been dreading this moment, but was prepared for it, launched into a discussion of love and intimacy, segued in to male and female sex organs, discussed eggs, sperm and their roles in fertilization, and the ovaries, uterus and birth canal and finally the miracle of birth.

He concluded by asking, "Does that answer your question?"

"Well, no," his son replied. "Freddy Johnson at school told me he came from Detroit and I just wanted to know where I came from."

I'm in the middle of resurrecting some obsolete cartridges to shoot in my equally ancient rifles. One of them is the .35 Newton, which all the reference books say can be created from 8X68S brass.

I have succeeded through the most laborious process I have ever encountered, but because the parent cases are the of notoriously brittle RWS manufacture, I am concerned about the fruits of my labor splitting after one or two loadings, hence the interest in annealing.

I also have some original .256 Newton cases which I am giving the same treatment to.

There was a time when I was heavily engaged in competitive shooting when the kind of case preparation mentioned in the AZTEC article would
have appealed to me. For long range shooting at 300 and 600 yards I used only Lapua brass and Berger bullets and checked every cartridge for run out, relegating the ones with more than a tiny bit to 300 yard shooting, where the course of fire was rapid fire in any case.

Right now, crippled as I am with neuropathy in both feet and unable to aim with my master eye because of a vision problem, Minute of Deer accuracy is what I am aspiring to. Both my bore scope and my chronograph are gathering dust. As soon as I get this problem solved, my next project will be to get my Mauser 66 in 7X66SE vom Hofe up and running.

In the meantime, thanks for all your responses. It has been most educational.

One reply to this question mentions Tempilac. I had occasion to use the stuff many times over many years in my job qualifying curing ovens, and in my opinion the stuff is next to worthless. It is extremely sensitive as to the way it is applied affecting results. The advent of the infrared heat "gun" allowed Tempilac to hit the trash can where it belonged.

You guys have made a case for dumping old brass and buying new stuff for $60. per hundred..I have a good annealer, a gift from Norman, and it works great, or so it seems to me, but I pretty much use my own advise In the first sentence of this post...Only on rare brass/caliber or very expensive brass do I find it a better option.....

I'm glad it's working for you Ray; it couldn't have found a better home. Let me know when you plan to visit your son + maybe we can have lunch.

NOrm, Im hoping to get down that way in Nov. or Jan. to do some white tail culling, and maybe see a monster buck or two..If so I will surely buy you the second biggest steak or Burrito In town!

Oh yeah, and a cool LOne Star.

Lots of previous posts on annealing. Like any process, consistency is the key to good results. It is not rocket science or hard to do, even the simple method of standing cases in a water bath, playing a propane torch on the necks until a colour change is seen, preferably before dull red and definitely before cherry red, then tip cases over in the water to cool works reasonably well, certainly better than nothing. Brass does not need quenching to anneal, it is the heating that does the annealing, the water bath just stops the heat migrating up the case walls to the case head where you most surely don't want it.

Problem with the bath method and even turning a case between the thumb and finger is that it is difficult to apply heat evenly around the neck.

I use a simple setup using case holders I made up to fit in a battery drill chuck (can use extension sockets just as well), with a wooden base made to hold the small propane torch and drill into position. I get perfectly even heat onto the case necks as they are rotated slowly by the drill. Once the colour change has occurred in a few seconds the drill is lifted away and case tipped into a container of water to cool.
No chance of having hot cases rolling around on the bench and burnt fingers from holding cases or getting in the way of the flame.

I regularly do my 404 Jeffery cases (shown in the photos) to prevent neck and shoulder splits, some of my original Kynoch factory ammo cases split on firing but if they don't, I anneal and they last for ever it seems.

My case annealing set-up.



Annealed 404 Jeffery cases loaded with cast bullets.

Annealing has been a learning process. Of course I could buy expensive equipment and paint the interior of the case necks with a compound that changes color when temperatures are correct. I have not. Maybe some day. I only began annealing when my 30-06 cases neck sized to a 35 Whelen started cracking on the first, second, third firing. Expanding the case necks that much over worked the brass.



Initially I tried the pan technique, where you immerse the case in water, heat the case neck till it turns red, and tip it over. That was a mistake. Heating the brass to a red color over annealed the case necks and the cases would not hold a bullet. And there was no need to tip the case over as brass is not steel. You heat treat steel by quenching. That fixes the crystal structure, BCC or FCC, for steel but quenching brass does nothing. Brass work hardens, heating and cooling it only removes the hardness created by work hardening.









What I eventually did was to use a blowtorch in one hand and held the case in another hand. I aim the flame at the case neck/shoulder junction and rotate the case before it turns red. That is basically a three count for my 30-06 cases. Because I am holding the bottom of the case with my fingers I am absolutely sure that the rest of the case is not heated so much that the hardness is annealed from the case head. I am absolutely sure that softening the case head is dangerous.

At the count of three I drop the case into a pan of water to cool the thing down. As I wrote earlier, quenching does nothing to fix hardness. I do remove the primer from these cases. I noticed water filled the cases very quickly if the primer hold was clear. I don't know if an air bubble inside would cause over annealing if I left the primer on.

On the first time firing, I lubricate these cases, like I do all new cases, so the cases will slide to the bolt face instead of gripping the side walls. I don't want the front of the case to adhere to the chamber and then have issues with sidewall stretch. I don't want separated cases, after spending all this time and effort on these cases. After firing, I have cases that are stress free and perfectly fireformed to the chamber.

Seems most folks over-think and get overly stressed on annealing brass. Fire up the blow torch, hold the case with your fingers with the neck in the blue part of the flame, rotate until you see the brass wash and just start to turn a very dark red (I anneal in low light so it is easy to see the color change) and then drop it in water.

I don't get all the rigs and gizmos unless you're annealing hundreds upon hundreds of cases at a time.

SlamFire - just a question - with all that hair gel on your cases and ultimately in the chamber, do you ever crease a few while fireforming?

I tried some extreme amounts of grease and with the shallow shouldered cases I tried, nothing happened.





You can see grease was actually squeezed down the case body and out the action





Tried it with 45/70 cases



a lot of grease back into the action but, no real case dents.





I did get shoulder dents firing 6.5 Swede.



Don't know why other than I dipped the cases and did not smooth out the grease.






Still shot well





These 300 H&H cases, dipped and smoothed them out, no dents





Shot well



Any dents I get, they will blow out next firing. As long as I don't fill the cavity with grease. It actually takes very little grease or oil to break the friction between case and chamber. I cannot remember any case dents with cases coated with Johnson Paste Wax. I shot thousands to tens of thousands of 308/30-06 coated in Johnson paste wax in NRA Highpower competition.

I never tumbled off the paste wax on these sectioned cases.






I started dipping in grease because I did not want to take the time the night before going to the range rubbing paste wax on. And, I wanted to see whether grease on the bullet reduces jacket fouling. To my satisfaction, it really, really does. You blow enough grease up the barrel and throat fouling really decreased.