Hand annealing brass

Y

Yosemite Steve

New member
I have a very reliable batch of brass that finally lost one of it's members to a split neck. I do not own an annealing machine so I went ahead and annealed by twisting it back and forth with my fingers until the shoulder turned silver and dropped them in the water.

Has anyone else done it this way? Does it have to be mechanized to be reliable?
 
You don't need a machine, including a drill. You need a propane torch(about $20 for a kit) and a pan of water. Case in the water up to just below the shoulder. Do not heat to red hot. Red hot is too hot.
Brass does not turn silver when it gets annealed either. Nor do you need to twist, turn or rotate 'em.
Brass anneals at approximately 650-700 Fahrenheit. You can't hold a case with your fingers at those temperatures.
Read this.
http://bisonballistics.com/articles/the-science-of-cartridge-brass-annealing
 
Brass does not turn silver when it gets annealed either. Nor do you need to twist, turn or rotate 'em.
Brass anneals at approximately 650-700 Fahrenheit. You can't hold a case with your fingers at those temperatures.
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I meant discolored, I guess, looks sort of silver to me. We can call is a lighter shade of brass if you like.

And yes I can hold them. The case head remains mostly cool while the top gets annealed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Url1QguVhHE
 
Steve, I don't believe your initial post was very clear. I laughed when I read it. It read as though you twisted the round between your fingers [your fingers causing the friction and heat]....

That's probably what T was referring. :-)
 
Yosemite Steve that's how I do it. about 10 - 12 seconds till it just turn s colors. Work good for me.
 
In Fred Barker's July 1996 Precision Shooting article, he felt it was easy to over-anneal which just makes the brass softer. All you need to do is get it warm enough for long enough to stress relieve it (aka, partial annealing). I can tell you from having tried to use a double-tipped acetylene torch in my younger days, and got several fused case mouths before realizing it was way faster than I could control, that too hot does, indeed make the brass so soft you can bend it easily with your thumbnail.

Barker advised two methods that were slow, but known to be temperature safe:

" (1) Lead Pot Method: heat lead to 725°-750°F; dip neck into powdered graphite and then holding body of case in fingertips into molten lead: when case body becomes too hot to hold slap case into wet towel; or

(2) Candle-flame method: Hold case body in fingertips, place case neck in flame and twirl case back & forth until case body is too hot to hold, then slap case into wet towel; wipe soot off neck % shoulder with dry paper towel or 0000 steel wool."

Fred Barker, Precision Shooting Magazine, July 1996, pp. 90-92
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Note that the wet towel is used to cool it enough for handling. Unlike steel, whose hardness is affected by quenching in water, brass's is not. There is also no need to stop the annealing with water if you are still able to hang on to the head of the case. The simple sensible heat of the thin neck and shoulder walls is not great enough to spread annealing temperatures to the rest of the case, so it won't soften too far down, as long as the heat source is removed in time (before it burns your fingers).
 
I couldn't find the one I wanted.

Critical is you never get the base of the case hot. Anything else either does no good or no harm. Heat kept above mid way.

Any glows and its over done (ok, it won't blow up - its just lost its spring back (gone plastic) and from the number that do it wily nilly most of them have to be in that category. )

I am not a torch annealer, I have a major bias to induction (totally actually)

Annealing is not a temperature, its a condition. The only way to truly know what yhou have achieved requires a mini lab.

You can anneal at lower temperature (600) but it takes along time and the whole case can heat up. Put in water and an oven at 600 (right) and the water heats up to.

Ideally you heat them to 750 to 800 degrees for a very short period of time.

Getting good temperature control even with induction where you have good control over the variables (or proving it) is not easy.

I tried the torch and gave up. I believe I way over did it. The brass did ok shooting still.

I went with the Annie induction annealer setup and it still took some time to get the quality of heat and the indicators for that down good.

Others swear by the torch. If they are happy and safe that is as good as it gets.

I was safe but unhappy until I nailed down a method that worked for me.

note: I often do see that hint of a silver blush as they are coming out. It does not stay.

Back in the day of the original 1903 they had major issues as they were trying to heat treat by eye. Due to varying light conditions and the flame, that is not easy.
 
Unclenick:

I wonder how many burned fingers you get before you give up those two methods?

Or get enough scar tissue you can't feel a burn?

I burn mine often enough I know I am a 20th century wimp - though my dentist told me I was the most pain tolerant patent he ever saw. Might have sensitive fingers?
 
Yeah. I hear you. You just have to let go of it a little earlier than actual burning would occur at. You can take a dowel stick it into the primer pocket as a way to hold and rotate the case in the flame and use an IR thermometer to decide when it is cooked. You still have to do one with the fingers to learn what the thermometer will actually read when you get there, but it should be around 130 degrees F.

I put a thermocouple in the primer pocket of a .308 case I was annealing with the relatively low flame on our gas stove, a la the method Denton Bramwell used to have a video on. Even with that heat source, with a .308 case I could not get the head hot enough to start to stress-relieve in a reasonable time frame. That is when I gave up the idea of water quenching. I think it's a holdover from the old method of setting cases in a pan of water just high enough to cover the heads, so they couldn't heat at all, then hitting the case necks with a torch and knocking the brass over into the pan, as much to get it out of the way as anything else. I was doing that with the double-tipped torch as a way to get around having to go around the case with the flame. But it's too hot with acetylene. That gas puts out more Btu's per pound than any other torch gas.

One of Barker's comments was that if you over-anneal, your necks will start splitting again prematurely, forcing you to anneal more often. That's the surest indicator I know that the brass is getting too hot.
 
Tough way to anneal regardless.

I never shot the poorly done cases enough to see what would happen.


I know Houndawg is happy wit the torch method, once I got past the paint on Tempiaq inaccuracy (annealing) and went with the pencil, the Annie seems to work well.

I did spend a lot of time on positioning consistency as well.

I shot for just barely a clear melt at 750 and none at 800.

Back checked in the dark to ensure there was no glow.

Standing in the water ensures the head won't heat up, I think like a lot of things then people started to knock the cases over, quenching theory (heat treating) or stop heat though the case head can't heat up under water.

Then I think it just fell into urban legend and the reasons spiral.
 
I've done fine spinning them on a chopstick over about 1 1/4" propane torch flame. 5-7 sec is about right for most 30 caliber'ish cases. Turn the lights down low; should get just a faint dull red.

I used tempilaq to calibrate my technique. But the dull red turns out to be a sufficient indicator IMO.
 
I built the $75 DIY case annealer for $86 which included the 700 degree liquid Tempilaq. I did use a lot of parts I had on hand. The controller and motors were the only parts I had to buy as I used an old laptop power supply, some scrap aluminum, one of my wife's small cake pans (that she hasn't missed - I think I got away with stealing it) and hardware that I had on hand.

My 6.8SPC brass would crack on the 4th or 5th cycle without annealing. I am annealing every other load now. I have 25 cases that have been reloaded 12 times without a case failure.
 
I use a cordless drill with my LEE case trim holders, propane torch and a 650F Tempilaq pen. Nothing exuberant, just slowly spin casing in drill heat until the pen mark sticks just below the base of the shoulder and drop in water. Done.
 
I will pass on the holding in the fingers method, just me but I am a wimp.

I achieved over 20 loadings from a lot of Lapua .308s using the drill an socket method a few years back. The primer pockets loosened before the necks went south. I would imagine that anyone that can afford to shoot enough to need to anneal could afford a cheap drill and a socket.
 
I've done very little but the drill and socket method works well. I kinda prefer hand spinning to test for heat- but you can only spin back and forth. I like that the drill gives a consistent rotation. Like others mentioned lights down low and stop just before it glows. Definitely a situation to err on the short side-- worse case scenario you under anneal.
 
Steve, I don't believe your initial post was very clear. I laughed when I read it. It read as though you twisted the round between your fingers [your fingers causing the friction and heat]....
Click to expand...

LOL! That's pretty funny.
 
Any glow is too much.

Road Clam has my approval (you get to decide what that is worth) as he shoots low, some annealing done and if you do often enough it will hold or creep the brass up to normal.

Water is not needed but its hot brass so that or a towel for a soft landing as you shuck it. Once the heat is off it won't keep spreading where you don't want it.

I would creep up to 700 degrees with that method but no higher.

Even with what I think is a pretty solid quality control of my induction process I use 750 as the benchmark. I just anneal every 3 or 4 cycles.
 
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