Talk to me about proper annealing technique

[Rmeju]

So I've invested a decent amount in quality brass that I'd like to last, but I also know that improper heat treatment will ruin a case. I've never annealed a case before. 7mm RM and .308 if that's important.

- How do you know when it's time to anneal? After X firings based on caliber and load? Experience? Something else? Right now I'm using a collet neck sizer in between FL resizings.
- Do you need an expensive annealing machine to do it properly? Can it be done without a machine, and would you recommend it?
- If proper hand annealing is possible, how do you control the heating process? I've seen some posts suggesting temperature sensitive lacquer (indicating at 750 degrees)... Do you just stop heating once it liquifies? How do you get it off your case once you're done?

I won't be doing high volume annealing in the foreseeable future, so unless there's an inexpensive machine out there that does the job properly, I'm probably looking at doing this by hand.

 

[243winxb]

Annealing

Annealing is best left to the brass manufacturers. IMO. There are Hornady Annealing Kits available & Tempilstik & Tempilaq that may help.

[/URL][/IMG]

 

[docsleepy]

Apparently my views on this are somewhat controversial. There is a page of 6mmbr.com that gives a LOT of information on annealing, and this is what I have followed.

1. You ONLY anneal the NECK of the case. NEVER the body or head. READ THE PAGE ON ANNEALING.
2. According to 6mmbr, a world record group was shot with cases that were annealed EVERY FIRING. Most people consider this excessive, I have learned. Nevertheless, I have done that with some brass with no ill apparent effect. It was probably overkill. Every 4th firing? More people agree with that. Basically, I had it happen that my brass necks got so workhardned from the repetitive expansion of firing, compression of sizing....that they would not even grip a bullet. This is a clue!!!
3. I found a "color" guide to temperatures in one place and have used that rather than the temp-indicators. The most absolutely important thing is that I only anneal in the dead of night, in a totally dark room except for a tiny neon bulb night light, and the propane torch. There are some spray cans on a far shelf in that room. When I can literally see them in the dark with only the neon night light -- THEN my eyes are adequately dark-adjusted; this is my "control." It is impossible in the daytime.
4. I use a battery powered electric screwdriver turning a nutdriver onto which 1/4" sockets are placed, chosen to hold the various calibers of brass.
5. I start the torch, turn the neck right at the tip of the inner blue flame until the VERY FIRST DARK RED can be seen in the brass. The propane flame also turns a different shade at this moment. I immediately drop the brass into a bowl of water. That is all the annealing they need. If you let the brass get hotter (by mistake) it will glow brigher and brighter red, then orange and you are ruining your brass. If you overheat the body or head, you risk having a case blow apart on the next firing.
6. I forgot to say, I deprime before doing this. Once, I accidentally forgot a live primer....needless to say, it was LOUD.
7. I shake the water out of the cases, and then place them in a porcelain bowl and dry them in a temprature controlled kitchen oven at 200 degrees (no hotter!!!) for 30-40 minutes. The critical temp is somewhere above 400. Below that, absolutely no change occurs to the brass. NEVER take the body of the brass above 200. Some people advise just putting them in direct sunlight on the patio, which probably takes them to 150 or so F.

I have been doing this for 2 years I think and probably over 500 cases annealed with good result. Recently I was challenged to get very good consistency of velocities, and I was able to get them within 10-15 fps, some groups in the single digits.

Here's the page on annealing that you should study carefully: http://www.6mmbr.com/annealing.html

 

[docsleepy]

Additional warnings:
watch out for carbon monoxide. A headache is an iniitial sign.
I set my propane for about a 1 or 1.5" flame. Too small a flame takes too long to heat the neck, and the body of the case gets too hot. You want to get the neck up to dark red in about 10 seconds. I use the rotations of the electric screwdriver as a rough guide to the time, because you can easily hear them.

Manufacturers anneal their brass multiple times in the process of creating a case.

You'll learn a lot if you read the page on 6mmbr

 

[243winxb]

http://www.shootersforum.com/handloading-procedures-practices/69052-annealing-brass.html I like this one the best. (Lazy Me)

instead of a torch, fred used a simple paraffin candle. Believe it or not, the tip of a candle flame produces over 1,500 degrees f. By applying heat-paint that melts at 725 to 750 degrees to the neck of the case, fred eventually found holding a typical rifle case about halfway up the body, then turning the neck in the tip of the candle-flame until the case grew too hot to hold, produced the right amount of annealing.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/On+the+softer+side%3A+cartridge+case+annealing.-a0241516148

 

[Kp321]

Stand the cartridges in a water filled cake pan, heat the necks with a soft flame on a propane torch till they are a dull red, and tip them over into the pan. The water needs to come at least half way up the cartridge. Personally, I would never heat a cartridge case in the open air for fear of overheating the head.

 

[TonyT]

I never anneal brass for the normally available cartridges. I only annealed brass when fire forming to a different caliber. In those days I stood the cases in a pan of water and played a propane torch over the case neck and quickly turned the cases over into the pan of water.

 

[dmazur]

Before I sprung for an annealing machine, I used the Hornady kit, with the little case holders that you mount in a battery-powered drill.

The idea isn't to use the Tempilaq on every case. It is used to get the timing down. So you only have a case or two to clean the stubborn stuff off.

Also, while tipping cases into water doesn't hurt, it is apparently unnecessary. The production annealing machines just drop the cases into a box.

(And I used Tempilaq to convince myself that the head of the case doesn't get hot if the flame and timing is adjusted correctly... )

 

[Maj Dad]

Stand the cartridges in a water filled cake pan, heat the necks with a soft flame on a propane torch till they are a dull red, and tip them over into the pan. The water needs to come at least half way up the cartridge. Personally, I would never heat a cartridge case in the open air for fear of overheating the head.

This is how I've done it for 40 years, in a dark or very dim room, but I no longer tip them into the water, but rather let them sit until they can be handled. The dull red can extend down the shoulder, but shouldn't go down it farther than a few mm/0.01". I started annealing when I was forming cases from other calibers (7x57 from 30-06, e.g.) and also use it for cases that are in short supply.

 

[homatok]

Annealing case necks in Lead
Annealing case necks by dipping them into molten lead that is held at about seven hundred degrees ‘F’ works well. Wheel weight alloy, which is approximately eighty nine parts lead, one part tin and ten parts antimony, melts at six hundred and nineteen degrees ‘F’ so you can safely set your lead alloy temperature at seven hundred degrees ‘F’. The use of a thermometer will take any guesswork out of the process. The reason for using lead for annealing is to keep the temperature low enough for proper uniform annealing, and that is simply not possible using the torch method. With a torch the case is often heated on one side more than the other, temperatures are not readily repeatable from case to case, and in falling over into the water, one side is quenched before the other.

To minimize the likelihood of lead ‘soldering’ itself to the brass case it is best to use as close to pure lead as possible (although any lead alloy will work). Anneal your cases with the fired primers left in, as that forms an airlock that keeps lead away from the inside of the case. With respect to annealing cases using molten lead, basically you: set the thermostat on your pot at seven hundred to eight hundred degrees ‘F’ pick up each case by the head and dip the neck of the cases about a quarter-inch into some powdered graphite or light oil (vegetable oil is fine). The oil keeps lead from sticking to the brass but, any lead that does stick is easily removed by a quick twist in steel wool while the case is still hot. Shake off any excess oil, dip the neck, shoulder, and about a quarter-inch of the case body into the molten lead and just as you begin to feel an uncomfortable degree of heat in your finger tips, drop the case into water. If you hold the cases in some other way than with your bare fingers, leave them in the molten lead from eight to twelve, but not more than fifteen seconds. When the case is hot enough that the lead does not cling to it, it is annealed. Pull the case up out of the lead, tap on the side of the case to remove any bits of lead (if the lead is really sticking, the case isn't annealed!), then drop it mouth down (straight) into a container that is mostly full of ice water. Following the anneal, it would be wise to closely inspect the inside of the case both visually and with a bent paper clip just to make sure there are no lead drippings adhering to the inside the case.

If you are left-handed, have the cases on the right side, the lead in the middle, and the ice water on the left. The cases go only one direction, to the left, and you use only one hand. If you are right handed, reverse the set-up. Because it only takes a few seconds per case, you can anneal hundreds of cases in an hour with this method. After the annealing process, remove the cases from the water, shake them out and use a piece of bronze wool to clean the annealed portion. This removes any residual lead and/or burned oil. Then, dry and tumble the cases to remove any traces of residual oil and they are ready to process.

 

[jmorris]

You don't need any "glow" in any color of any sort, of the case, at anyoint. In fact you don't even want the flame color to change from blue to orange, if you are using propane.

These are videos, click on the photo to play them.

Too much. Note the change in the flame color.



This is what you want. No change in flame color, perfect color of the annealed case and cool enough to hold by the bottom portion of the case right out of the flame.

 

[peels]

It was jmorris's annealing machine posts what got me interested in building my own. I didn't have the precision machining to duplicate his design, and I wanted to spin the brass in the flame, so I went a slightly different path.

I more or less tried to duplicate this beauty:
http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/20450

This was supposed to be my prototype, but it ended up working so well I never bothered to spend the extra money to send it off for final production. The final production turn table would have different size holes for different brass and would be machined from aluminum.

It is not exactly "cheap" but as it stands, the completed proto with motors, controller, LCD, etc. cost a total of about $188. Prob could be cheaper if I shopped around for some of the components.

Motors, servo disk, hubs: $70
Aluminum plate: $10
Arduino controller: $20
Motor Shield: $15
LCD Shield: $20
Bunt bearings: $18
Torch kit: $25
Potentiometer: $4
Rocker Switch: $3
Limit switch $2
Pipe hanger $1
Minor cost for pull up resistors, jumper cables, bolts, etc.

There is a hole cutout that would drop the brass as it advances after the flame. The arduino and motor shield controls the motors for turn table control and brass spinning. A simple relay could have been used to control the turn table, and the spin motor could just be spinning continuous...but I wanted the motor shield anyways

The potentiometer is used to control the annealing time. The LCD outputs the dwell time in the flame, as well as reminder of what the dwell time of different brass brands are from testing for a given caliber. Caliber is selected using the push buttons on the LCD shield.

From reading the 6mmbr site, I've arrived at annealing time by observing the brass color in a dark room. Figure out the time it took to get the brass just to start to glow a hint of red. I take that time and subtract 100 milliseconds. The result is that the amount of time spent in the flame is NOT enough to get the brass to glow red (not even a hint). The brass is then air cooled. Orange flame is also never emitted as the brass is not heated high enough to burn off the zinc.

 

[Elkins45]

I just hold the cases by the heads with my fingertips. As soon as I feel any warmth I drop them in the water. This is how I make my 257 WBY cases last more than two firings and it has proven to work very well.

If the heads were being softened it would be noticed in the 257 I assure you.

 

[jmorris]

[It was jmorris's annealing machine posts what got me interested in building my own. I didn't have the precision machining to duplicate his design, and I wanted to spin the brass in the flame, so I went a slightly different path./QUOTE]

I also built the one above to get past the problem of precision machining for us DIY guys.

A bunch of folks have built them from the "blades" I provide.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?48611-finished-the-auto-annealer-today

 

[CountryUgly]

About every other or third firing I just line the deprimed brass up in a pie tin full of water, hit them for several seconds ( I actually count slowly to 6) with a MAPP torch and just knock the case over into the water. It's cheap, crude, quick and I've had ppl tell me how this is sooooo wrong but it does work so I keep doing it.

 

[Clark]

I have given up on annealing.

I will buy no turn neck reamer and I will pay to have a neck die honed.
Cast necks treated to those will last more times than I will ever use them.

With standard chambers and standard dies, I will just buy new brass.

But I am not going to spend my time annealing.

 

[StretchNM]

I hold the brass in my fingers like Elkins45. Then drop them into a bucket of water. They get shaken out, blown out with compressed air, and placed neck down in loading trays to finish drying. Most calibers I anneal after every fifth firing.

I have had zero problems.
- A batch of 22-250 cases lasted 16 firings before I started to see cracks.
- A batch of 25-06 cases are on their 12th firing and still going strong.
- A Batch of 30-30 are on 9th firing. They have NOT been annealed.
- A batch of 30-06 are on their 10th firing. Still going strong.
- etc.

I attribute the long case life to annealing. The easiest way for me to tell when it's time to anneal is you'll feel it when trimming. I determined that, for me, every 5th is about when most of my bottlenecks are ready for annealing.

 

[GP100man]

Here`s some 357mag brass , YES ,I said 357mag brass .

I annealed for a 3 count with a propane torch on low , very little discoloring but sure did the job ,it brought the bullet pull back to very consistent ESs over the chrony.

I did it by sliding em in a socket & spinin em on low speed with my cordless drill. Very easy to get acceptable results.Your results will vary from burner type or flame heigth.

I bought a set of 3 socket drivers that fit into the driver ,so I`m covered as far as socket size needed.

Here`s a pic of the brass & ya can see very little discoloring, but the stresses in the brass was relieved. I did not drop em into water ,as mentioned it`s not needed but if it makes ya feel more comfortable with the process ,do it .

 

[deepskyridge]

Annealer

I am in the process of building a annealing machine using Jmorris blade.

Beats throwing away brass after 3-4 round trips.

Gary

 

[docsleepy]

I want to confirm jmorris comments above: recent data from my annealing process demonstrates that my brass became overly soft with dark red color in. darkened room. However, in that situation, full length sizing the brass less than five times was sufficient to return the bullet seating force completely normal.

I'm going to give a try at using temperature indicating systems to a anneal Less thoroughly. The mechanical systems above look pretty neat!