Do you anneal your cases?

[Trickymissfit]

I use the Benchsource annealing machine. I anneal after every firing because it's so easy. I use it on my hunting and competition brass. No water quenching necessary. Awsome machine!

YouTube - Bench-Source Case Neck Annealing Machine

if you do not quench the case in water then how do you stop the anealing process from entering the shoulder and beyond?
gary

 

[Derek M.]

if you do not quench the case in water then how do you stop the anealing process from entering the shoulder and beyond? gary

Removal of heat

 

[johnnyk]

Yes, about every 3rd firing. I haven't always done it and just recently started. There was always a lack of or misinformation about it, hence the hesitancy.
I use a battery operated drill and perform the operation in a dimly lit room. The amount of time it takes to get the cases where I like them varies but usually runs under 10 seconds per case. I drop them in a tuperware bowl of water when they're there.
After I'm done I set them up at a angle so that the mouth of the case is down. I let them sit for a short length of time and then sling the water out of them. I bag 'em and use them as I need them.
I have done all the prep work before this stage and see no reason to resize them afterwards. I have not seen accuracy drop off at all by loading immediately after annealing.

Here's what I use. Picked it up at ACE Hardware for less than $10.00. Had the drill.

Here are some 7Mag Norma cases that I annealed.

Safety Tip: Do not anneal your brass after you've reloaded it (with powder and bullet in it)

JohnnyK.

 

[Loner]

There are some here that think they are annealing and aren't coming close. A read
of the link to the "science and art of annealing" would be in order. Temps and times
are critical and if you have never studied the subject it would be a good idea. Not to
step on toes but to help.

 

[justgoto]

I'm glad this thread is here, I wanted to post a comment like this in another thread but it wasn't "on topic" enough for that thread, so I didn't.


After reading about everything I could find on annealing a month or so ago, I concluded I wasn't annealing hot enough or fast enough.

I used to anneal in the pan of water but it was far from uniform so I went to a deep-well socket spun with my fingers, (I'm gonna rig up something like johnnyk has there.) I would anneal until the flame turned orange, rotate one turn, then quench it. All in all taking maybe 11 seconds.

I figured the case wall was getting too hot softening it somewhat; so I turned up the heat to get the neck hotter sooner.

I also figured the necks were not getting hot enough to affect the grain, so I am letting the neck get like a pinkish red, and for maybe a second longer than the one whole turn as before. The process may take 6 to 8 seconds at the most this way.

I've noticed the neck tension has improved, to soon to gauge case life. The old procedure I had gotten over 40 reloads with the 30-06, over 50 with the 30-30, and was still counting with both. I've been annealing every 7 shots, which might change if I feel the neck tension falling off.

 

[Gene]

No doubt work hardened brass must be annealed at some point in time to return it to a malleable state. Without a Brinell tester, it is impossible to know when to anneal or to determine whether each piece of brass is consistently improved. Until I see evidence that annealling with a $300 machine is state of the art, I will continue to do mine with MAPP gas, rotating the flame on each neck for 6-7 seconds and removing the flame before the color is bright red, dropping it dry into a pan. Only the necks need to be softened.

 

[Trickymissfit]

The actual temp of the neck is very critcal when anealing brass, but you absolutely do not want to get much if any heat into the shoulder. Then you must have a rapid quench to stop the heat from transfering into the shoulder. Ice water is the perfect medium for the quench. The temp stick (looks like a crayon) is extremely accurate, and will tell you when you reach the ideal heat no matter how you do this. The plates I use was not my idea, but a method used by one of the winningest benchrest shooters in North America. Once the plate is hot your done, and all you need to do is to place the cases upside down on the pins. When the temp stick line melts you quench them. Very simple!
gary

 

[ken snyder]

Boy o Boy did I open up a can of worms on the annealing poll. It was and is my opinion that works very well for me!, That same opinion may not be valid under different circumstances. I use custom dies and spec ordered chamber reams, even the average thicknes of the brand of brass I intend using is considered. There is no over working of the brass. I do not shoot high pressure loads. I do shoot very long barrel eating bullets. 100 pieces of brass last me longer than peak barrel accuracy. Neck tension is important to me, not a particular tension, a consistant tension, having necks that are in good shape long after the brass has turned into a bannana is no value to me. The reason I dump my wild cats in water is not to soften the neck I do this to make the shoulder tougher, it goes a long way in keeping the neck from forcing into the shoulder and creating really bad doughnuts at neck shoulder and body shouder. As I flip through my machinerys handbook I find no guidelines for temp, color or time charts for annealing witches brew brass. If what you are doing works well for you, do it.

 

[Loner]

No can of worms. We all have had to learn this stuff. Some mechanical properties
of brass can't be changed.

Brass begins to anneal at 500 degrees. But only a lab could see the difference in grain
at that temp. 600 degrees for one hour will completely anneal it. Ruining it for our
purposes. 660 degrees for 15 minutes would anneal the necks properly but how would
you stop the heat from traveling down the case? 750 to 800 degrees gets he job done
in a few seconds. Brass glows a faint orange at 950, completely ruined at that point
for cartridge use.
A check I use is to place an annealed case neck in my calipers , measure it, then gripping
the blades at the point on either side of the neck I squeeze it .002 of an inch. It should
fully return to it's previous dimension. If not it's junk. If if is at all hard to squeeze it
hasn't been annealed. But that is usually apparent without testing when you trim or
seat a bullet.

 

[tlk]

I had started a thread here a while back about lead annealing of cases, and it turned upsome really good info, graphs and all. I took those graphs and plotted temps and hardness, found out that 700 - 750 is "the zone" and produces the most consistent hardness across the widest temp range. Looking at those graphs you realize that you can go to 800, but you are approaching an area where the case mouth is negatively affected. Pretty high yield thread, and I use that info in my process. That info is good regardless of your method I would think.

I lead anneal, lead never gets below 700 or above 750, prefer 700-725. Tension from case to case is as consistent as I believe it can be because I have controlled everything that I can measure. I do have to clean the cases after the annealing is done, though. I dont think too many are lead annealing so there is relatively little info available on the process.

Hope it helps.

 

[Marine sniper]

I anneal all my long range precision stuff. I use the basic electric drill with a deep socket set up and when I first started doing this I thought I would need to find a better way, but single digit ES say otherwise.

On an interesting side note Dave Tooley is building a custom long range 338 Yogi for me. All the high dollar stuff, Bat HRPIC, etc. He knows I want to shoot this rifle 2000 yards and he advised against annealing the brass. You would think he would know.

 

[tlk]

Did he explain why he advised against it? His opinion/findings would be interesting to know.

 

[Trickymissfit]

No can of worms. We all have had to learn this stuff. Some mechanical properties
of brass can't be changed.

Brass begins to anneal at 500 degrees. But only a lab could see the difference in grain
at that temp. 600 degrees for one hour will completely anneal it. Ruining it for our
purposes. 660 degrees for 15 minutes would anneal the necks properly but how would
you stop the heat from traveling down the case? 750 to 800 degrees gets he job done
in a few seconds. Brass glows a faint orange at 950, completely ruined at that point
for cartridge use.
A check I use is to place an annealed case neck in my calipers , measure it, then gripping
the blades at the point on either side of the neck I squeeze it .002 of an inch. It should
fully return to it's previous dimension. If not it's junk. If if is at all hard to squeeze it
hasn't been annealed. But that is usually apparent without testing when you trim or
seat a bullet.

most folks I know anneal at 400 to 450 degrees to saturation. Five hundred degrees will probably extend heat into areas you don't what heat into. Six hundred degrees for sure when your looking at a .015" thick piece will destroy it. Nine hundred degrees is the start of the anneal process for steel (although on the low side), and eleven hundred degrees is about the norm. Most lead melts in the four hundred degree area, depending on the actuall alloy mixture. One of the problems with annealing brass or steel with a small torch is the heat concentrate, so a machine with a steady rotation would be the prefered method to get an even heat. Unlike steel where you quench in oil or another prefered medium (even heated oil is prefered) or simply allowing the steel to air cool in some cases (usually known as normalizing); you must shock brass to stop the heat transfer. Thus the use of ice water. Heat treating metal is not a guess work game, but precision science. Have you ever looked at something like a good 30-06 case and noticed the discolored blue area on the neck? If you take a good look at it you'll notice that the blue discoloring only goes about two thirds to three quarters of the way down the neck towards the shoulder. There's a reason why! Splits almost always start at the lip of the case neck, and thats the part that tends to harden first. You do not want heat to go all the way into the shoulder.
gary

 

[Derek M.]

You do not want heat to go all the way into the shoulder.
gary

It must be going beyond the shoulder on all Lapua cases as the visible color change is obvious.