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Annealing question

I kind of wish you are right as it would be a hell of a lot less work and cheaper, but…

I don’t think anyone will be mad, everyone has a right to his opinion and you are actually right that there are 2 types of annealer but they are not what you think they are. The two types are

1) those who anneal to reduce their chance of the neck splitting and they are only plinking, so from that perspective, annealing your case unevenly with a drill and socket works just fine. As long as they don’t heat the case so much so that the head of the case goes soft, they are safe and GTO.

2) those who anneal so that they get as perfect as possible shoulder bump and neck tension as possible, these folks use a machine because you can only do this with a machine, and yes, they definitely do not heat the case until it is dead soft. You know you are there when you go through all your brass prep and your headspace measurements vary by less than a thousands, seat a bullet with something like a K&M seating force measuring rig and you find your neck tension does not varied by more than 10 units, and fire your round and you get single digit Sdevs.

What makes you think {actually I already know...it was the money you paid for the big time machine} that I don't get single digit SD, with scorched black or pretty in pink, rainbows and unicorns, slightly annealed cases????? I honestly cannot verify with any device a difference on target or chronograph no matter how I anneal my cases. Sorry guys, I know you need to justify the purchase, I know you want to impress the guys that cant afford it or have a wife that says no, but it just isn't there. Not for me anyways.
 
:DNow now, youngster. We "older guys" have a little more time on our hands, so we CAN over obsess about such things!:cool: I'll lay down good money and bet that most advancements in the field come from guys that do just that!

I am not sure how old you "know" I am, but I am probably not as young as you believe you know. What makes you think I didn't reach my conclusions, not because some genius trying to impress told me so, but because I did exactly what you are describing????
Just because the end result seems too simple to be true doesn't mean it not and doesn't mean it wasn't obsessed over at one time.Just because something doesn't impress anyone with baffling B.S. doesn't mean it cant be an "advancement."
 
What makes you think {actually I already know...it was the money you paid for the big time machine} that I don't get single digit SD, with scorched black or pretty in pink, rainbows and unicorns, slightly annealed cases????? I honestly cannot verify with any device a difference on target or chronograph no matter how I anneal my cases. Sorry guys, I know you need to justify the purchase, I know you want to impress the guys that cant afford it or have a wife that says no, but it just isn't there. Not for me anyways.
Not at all, most people can't but if you can shoot lights out with what you do, more power to you.
 
"What I will say is that the data on very fast annealing times is not terribly easy to come by, but this is my best guess at it given what I know."

I put this chart up on the website about twice a year. I cut necks off Lapua Blue Box 6BR cases and annealed them in a lab quality furnace +/- 2F. The cases had several firings on them. The samples were attached to a fine NiChrome wire and lowered into the furnace thru a 1/2" hole in the top of the furnace to prevent temp loss from opening the door. I had a hard time deciding how long to anneal. I used 15 seconds because I didn't know how long it would take to get to temp and I was only wiling to do about 20 samples on Co. time. Also did 5 minutes. If anything it shows that 15 seconds at 800F there is only a drop of several hardness units. As long as the necks don't get a hint of red in a dark room I don't see how you can damage a case.

An engineer PHD I used to work is now a consultant to the copper industry. He told me that a red color on brass is 1050F. Everyone will interpret light red , bright red ect. differently.
 

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"What I will say is that the data on very fast annealing times is not terribly easy to come by, but this is my best guess at it given what I know."

I put this chart up on the website about twice a year. I cut necks off Lapua Blue Box 6BR cases and annealed them in a lab quality furnace +/- 2F. The cases had several firings on them. The samples were attached to a fine NiChrome wire and lowered into the furnace thru a 1/2" hole in the top of the furnace to prevent temp loss from opening the door. I had a hard time deciding how long to anneal. I used 15 seconds because I didn't know how long it would take to get to temp and I was only wiling to do about 20 samples on Co. time. Also did 5 minutes. If anything it shows that 15 seconds at 800F there is only a drop of several hardness units. As long as the necks don't get a hint of red in a dark room I don't see how you can damage a case.

An engineer PHD I used to work is now a consultant to the copper industry. He told me that a red color on brass is 1050F. Everyone will interpret light red , bright red ect. differently.

Excellent stuff - better than what I've been able to track down which is data on lager samples, which showed that 15 seconds at about 1200 degrees was enough to take a sample from roughly half hard to fully annealed. So what you're saying is not at all out of line at all with what I have seen.

What I'm most interested in is that same data, but holding temperature constant (say, 1100) and varying the annealing time from 1 to 30 seconds. (I know, this is difficult to actually do). I have some data like that (but over much longer time periods and with much bigger samples) that shows that full annealing happens very quickly (under a few minutes), but that data is unavailable below a few minutes, and again, the samples are much larger, so it's not terribly useful. Yours is certainly helpful.

What I suspect is that case necks do anneal fully very rapidly at the temperatures that torches put out - that dull red color. However, I can certainly be convinced that several seconds under a torch is *not* fully annealing the brass in at least some cases. In fact, it makes me wonder how consistently people are annealing their brass, and not knowing it. Or if some of the more folks are just heating their brass and doing nothing.

I really should update that annealing article - I sort of glossed over the time-temperature relationship in an attempt to simplify things. In hindsight, I probably should have gone into more detail. Would you mind if I use this data in a a follow up article? I'm happy to attribute it to it's proper source.
 
Excellent stuff - better than what I've been able to track down which is data on lager samples, which showed that 15 seconds at about 1200 degrees was enough to take a sample from roughly half hard to fully annealed. So what you're saying is not at all out of line at all with what I have seen.

What I'm most interested in is that same data, but holding temperature constant (say, 1100) and varying the annealing time from 1 to 30 seconds. (I know, this is difficult to actually do). I have some data like that (but over much longer time periods and with much bigger samples) that shows that full annealing happens very quickly (under a few minutes), but that data is unavailable below a few minutes, and again, the samples are much larger, so it's not terribly useful. Yours is certainly helpful.

What I suspect is that case necks do anneal fully very rapidly at the temperatures that torches put out - that dull red color. However, I can certainly be convinced that several seconds under a torch is *not* fully annealing the brass in at least some cases. In fact, it makes me wonder how consistently people are annealing their brass, and not knowing it. Or if some of the more folks are just heating their brass and doing nothing.

I really should update that annealing article - I sort of glossed over the time-temperature relationship in an attempt to simplify things. In hindsight, I probably should have gone into more detail. Would you mind if I use this data in a a follow up article? I'm happy to attribute it to it's proper source.

Yes you can use my chart. I realize how difficult it is to find rapid annealing info. That's why I annealed some cases at work where I had all of the equipment. Remember for my data it was for almost a continuous 15 sec or 5 minutes, not slowly going up to temp. I think each factory that does rapid annealing on very small or thin pieces has their QC people work out the details for their particular parts and they don't publish the details. The cartridge manufacturers to my knowledge have never released the annealing details for all of the intermediate steps in making a case. You only see pictures of the final neck/shoulder anneal with a flame. They are probably annealed with a moving belt furnace. You have to remember that if you anneal with a torch for something like five seconds you are going from room temp to 750F. You are at the very bottom of the annealing temperature range for maybe 1/2 to 1 second.
 
Yes you can use my chart. I realize how difficult it is to find rapid annealing info. That's why I annealed some cases at work where I had all of the equipment. Remember for my data it was for almost a continuous 15 sec or 5 minutes, not slowly going up to temp. I think each factory that does rapid annealing on very small or thin pieces has their QC people work out the details for their particular parts and they don't publish the details. The cartridge manufacturers to my knowledge have never released the annealing details for all of the intermediate steps in making a case. You only see pictures of the final neck/shoulder anneal with a flame. They are probably annealed with a moving belt furnace. You have to remember that if you anneal with a torch for something like five seconds you are going from room temp to 750F. You are at the very bottom of the annealing temperature range for maybe 1/2 to 1 second.

Thanks. I'll get to it when I can. What I find interesting is that on your chart, you mention you get a rockwell B hardness of 33 after heating to red for 15 seconds with a torch. That's a bit of a contradiction with your 15 second curve (assuming red is ~1000-1100 degrees), which seems so say you need about 1400 degrees to get there that quickly. Is it possible that your chart overstates the temperature somehow? The five minute curve seems to jibe well with other data, but your 15 second curve is at a higher temperature than I would expect (again, given what very little there is to go on).

Another interesting bit is that hardness and yield strength do not track perfectly. Yield strength drops more continuously as the grain growth occurs, where as hardness stays fairly flat until it takes a more sudden dive. So we might be seeing a situation where hardness is not terribly impacted, but a moderate decrease in yield strength is occurring. And while sizing, it's yield strength that matters ultimately, not hardness.
 
Webster did you ever test the neck hardness of a new blue box case. Wud love to know what it is because I dont think they anneal it much softer than the rest of the case or at least they dont do it as soft as I used to do my annealing.
 
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Webster did you ever test the neck hardness of a new blue box case. Wud love to know what it is because I dont think they anneal it much softer than the rest of the case or at least they dont do it as soft as I used to do my annealing.

Never tested a new case. Didn't have one. i am retired now and no access to testing equipment. My opinion is that if you are annealing around 750-800F for a few seconds you have done very little to soften the case? More likely you are stress relieving it?
 
Never tested a new case. Didn't have one. i am retired now and no access to testing equipment. My opinion is that if you are annealing around 750-800F for a few seconds you have done very little to soften the case? More likely you are stress relieving it?

Tx Webster. I know a guy with a rockwell tester guess I have to sacrafice a few new cases to really get to know what is happening with my setup.

In your opinion do you have to anneal shorter when you anneal after every shot as opposed to anneal after every 5 shots?
 
Tx Webster. I know a guy with a rockwell tester guess I have to sacrafice a few new cases to really get to know what is happening with my setup.

In your opinion do you have to anneal shorter when you anneal after every shot as opposed to anneal after every 5 shots?

If you do this, PLEASE share the results. If proper temperature data can't be had (it's easier said than done to collect), it would be nice to get a before and after hardness test of cases after 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc seconds in the flame. (video would be great too).

Also interesting would be harness tests before and after sizing, and before and after firing. That would (partially) answer your question.
 
Never tested a new case. Didn't have one. i am retired now and no access to testing equipment. My opinion is that if you are annealing around 750-800F for a few seconds you have done very little to soften the case? More likely you are stress relieving it?

You may be right. I had always thought that 750-800 was enough, but it could be higher. How much higher is the question. This thread has motivated me to dig into it a little more to see if there are any more answers to be had.
 
If you do this, PLEASE share the results. If proper temperature data can't be had (it's easier said than done to collect), it would be nice to get a before and after hardness test of cases after 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc seconds in the flame. (video would be great too).

Also interesting would be harness tests before and after sizing, and before and after firing. That would (partially) answer your question.

Yes I will share the info. Hope I can get something meaningfull out of it cause it wont be lab quality results just a guy setting the anneal time with a stop watch and I will have to kill the flame every time and do my best to set it as close to the original intensity as posible, but a bit of scewed results wont hurt more than none at all. What I could gather so far is that not all brands of rifle brass are created equal. Some anneal much sooner the difference beiiing 9sec to 13sec. I do agree the annealing is sudden at 12sec there is hardly any softening goiing on that I can detect for Lapua 338LM brass but at 13sec it softened conciderably that I can detect the softening when necksizing with a bushing neck sizer but up to 14 and 14.5 it roughly stays the same. Thats where a rockwell tester will come in handy

Edit: So much for this test. I contacted the guy but his rockwell tester rockwell no more. He has no plans on fixing it
 
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Tx Webster. I know a guy with a rockwell tester guess I have to sacrafice a few new cases to really get to know what is happening with my setup.

In your opinion do you have to anneal shorter when you anneal after every shot as opposed to anneal after every 5 shots?

I used micro hardness on the cross-section to determine the hardness of case necks and converted to HRB scale. You would have to use a very light load on the indenter with a Rockwell tester and the Superficial scale because the metal is very thin. ASTM spec says the thickness of the metal has to be at least ten times the depth of the indent and no sign of the indent on the backside. Curvature is a problem to. It probably could be done. There can be a small error converting from one hardness scale to another so all the data can be compared from other sources. You would end up with a pile of numbers that might not tell you anything especially if you are stress relieving and not annealing.

My wild guess as to how often to anneal. Every time or else the tension will be a little different each shoot. If you don't see an improvement on the target I would probably do it every 5 shots. Most short range bench rest people don't anneal as far as I know. They shoot the same small number of cases many times at a match.

I really don't think we need to worry about all these details since there is only one way to flame anneal. Shooters may use different anneal times but it probably doesn't matter if it's 5 or 8 seconds as long as you don't over heat the brass and the target shows some improvement I determined how long it took for a case to start to get red in a dark room (11-12 sec) and cut back to 8 seconds for safety. I use a hand held single flame torch. If I crush the case neck of an un-annealed case and an annealed case with pliers they both take the same effort. So I know I still have high hardness and I have not over annealed. My rifle is a Rem 700 Krieger 14 twist 6BR Norma used for GH hunting. It consistently shoots groups under .350 if I do my part. My poor shooting skills hide any improvement annealing might make. I do it to prevent split necks and just because I like tinkering with tools.
 
Many years ago I decided I would anneal a few cases. Instead of hitting it in a dead run I did some research looking for simple methods and techniques, rules and factors. In a very short time I decided to make my annealing equipment using the simple rules, factors and techniques.


15 seconds @ 1,000° is too much time at that temperature. If you were annealing cut off necks with out shoulder or case body there was no place for the head to travel.


F. Guffey
 
Many years ago I decided I would anneal a few cases. Instead of hitting it in a dead run I did some research looking for simple methods and techniques, rules and factors. In a very short time I decided to make my annealing equipment using the simple rules, factors and techniques.


15 seconds @ 1,000° is too much time at that temperature. If you were annealing cut off necks with out shoulder or case body there was no place for the head to travel.


F. Guffey
I think you meant there was no place for the HEAT to travel. dedogs
 

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