to prevent the potential of annealing the case head? I have seen annealing mentioned here numerous times and am curious how you avoid this possible dangerous situation.

Thanks.....

This is the way I do it and is certainly NOT a recommentation.
Also works best in dim light (though soon as I sign off this morning at 10:00 local (CST) I plan to do a bunch of Federal Gold Medal so I can form some TCUs). Gonna start with Federal GMs to see if any accuracy difference between it and the military brass I use now.

Set up a propane torch over a bucket of water
Hold the brass between the thumb and first finger (base should be held away from the flame )
Twirl the neck in the flame of the torch
Drop it into the water as soon as you get beginning of red in the neck area.
Works for me and annealing has always been held to neck and shoulder area in those I have done.
base will not even get very warm to the touch (remember it is between your fingers so you can tell if you get it too hot (techinical term for overheating the base is the "OUCH factor").
Recycle any brass with positive "ouch factor"
I have only used this method on 30-06, 30-30, and 223 brass so can not speak for other possibilities.

This is not a recommendation since I can NOT control every fool who softens brass clear to the base and blows his hand/head off!

As an aside, we have fould that Cream of Wheat works better than corn meal for fireforming, and the assumption is that it works better because it is denser and applies more force to the case on firing.

LouisB

All just a bunch of opinions of course.

Mike,

Good old post here:

http://www.serveroptions.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=35;t=000259

Regards

I also have annealed for many moons using the exact method TCLouis mentioned above.

Trust me, when you hold the brass between your thumb and forefinger and spin it while heating it with a propane torch your fingers will tell you to drop the brass long before you've over annealed / ruined it.

Louis, let us know how the GM brass works out. I have made 6 and 7 tcu out of WW brass with out annealing. I made some 7TCU's out of GM brass without annealling them and lost about 90%. I annealed yet another batch for the 7TCU and lost about 15%. I had another 100 left annealled them for the 6TCU lost one out of there.
I just annealled and fireformed 300 7TCU's from WW brass and never lost one. I have 200 7TCU's out of some "90" LC brass, I annealed them before sizing. This batch has been loaded about 15 times I trimmed and annealed them several loads back and they are still going strong.

As far as the way I anneal, I have an old round cake pan that I stand the brass up in. then fill with water up to the area I want the heat to stop at. I hit them with teh torch all the way around and tip them over when I get the color I want.
Not saying this is right or wrong, it works for me and very few problems.
Jeff