You're generating even more questions now, Peter.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a dedicated reloading or knife-making shop but guess big gunshops and hardware stores might be somewhere to look. Knowing which Tempilaq is appropriate to our task could be a problem at the latter, though, from what you say.

Since I don't run to a tumbler so far, getting it off might also be a problem. (The concept of pretty, shiny brass doesn't appeal to the deer around here, so I just shake my cases up in a jar of white gas (Shellite) to get the lubricant off and then load them the following day.)

For the moment my buddies doubt that I need to worry, reasoning that new Norma brass should be soft enough even for my headspace fix. Any thoughts on that?

I used to anneal a lot of cases due to using several wildcats based on the 284 Winchester and necking the necks up and down a lot. Formed several boxes of 6/284, full benchrest prepped them and were extremely accurate. A year later, found 5 boxes of loaded ammo (second loading) that had neck cracks in over 50%. From there out I neck annealed during multiforms and before first loading.

I used the method I had learned when young and was almost universally recommended at the time. Take a shallow metal oven pan (cake pan, sheet pan, whatever). Set it on a safe surface place an inch or so of water (appropriate to the cartridge length) in the pan and set the unprimed cartridges upright in the water bath. Separate them enough to work around the cartridges. Use a propane torch (I prefer a fan tip adapter) and heat the neck/shoulder area while rapidly moving the torch around to evenly heat the case. When hot, tip it over into the water. Move to the next. It takes about 10 seconds per cartridge. I have reached in and felt the cartridge head before tipping over and never felt any heat at all in the head. Over the years I have annealed probably thousands of cartridges like this and never lost or split another case. I anneal fireformed cartridges after the forming in the same way with total success.

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Where's the best place to get it?

Welding supply....

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Originally posted by Art S.:
I used to anneal a lot of cases due to using several wildcats based on the 284 Winchester and necking the necks up and down a lot. Formed several boxes of 6/284, full benchrest prepped them and were extremely accurate. A year later, found 5 boxes of loaded ammo (second loading) that had neck cracks in over 50% . . .

That's interesting, Art. I inspect my reloaded cases but once some hunter asked if he could look at a 338 WM cartridge. I pulled one out of my pouch and was embarrassed when the dude pointed out that it had a split neck.

It never occurred to me that cracks could develop later.

With the popularity of knife-making nowadays there are a whole bunch of suppliers who specialize in supplying them, but they maintain a fairly low profile and I only know about them because my brother earns his money by making knives. I would be somewhat surprised if the situation isn't similar over there, and Google should easily find them.

The reason I recommend big gun shops is that they will only stock the one temperature range, however if you can't find it there, then the annealing range for cartridge brass is 450-680 degrees Celsius.

I still haven't been able to figure out what your device looks like or how much it expands the brass. Many years ago we made 6.5x58 Portuguese cases from .270 Win, and we found that if we didn't do it in stages and anneal between most of the cases split. However that was a fairly intensive forming process as we were moving the whole shoulder back by a couple of mm.

You have nothing to lose by trying it but a few cases.

As for cleaning, once the Tempilaq has reached temperature it basically turns into soot. Wiping with a cloth will probably take it off as well, it's just labor-intensive.

Thanks Peter, I haven't thought to ask about that stuff yet, but do appreciate the heads-up.