Hey guys, been playing with a 28 Nosler, annealing after every firing. I’m using a benchsource annealer with two torches, both on the neck. I don’t know how many firings on brass, I’m going to guess five but on this last batch that I fired, I noticed a couple were a little tight when closing the bolt. These are all full length sized .0025 shorter than chamber size. Anyway, I’m wondering if the annealing isn’t going down the shoulder far enough to soften the brass with the way I have the torches setup, both being on the neck. Should I put one torch on the neck and one on the shoulder?
Annealing big cases
- Thread starter aer21
- Start date
A couple things to consider if you already haven't are brass spring back, small base FL die, increase shoulder bump .001/.002., FL size every time. Not all my brass feels exactly the same upon bolting even though the sizing procedure is the same for all.
You say that you are sizing shoulders back .0025. Remeasure the cases that are tight chambering base to shoulder, then remeasure some fired cases. Compare if they are longer. It might not be a case length issue. If your sized cases are shorter than a fired case, then compare the case width just above the base. It could be that your cases have expanded and your die might not size the base enough.
At this point all I have is fired cases because I fired them anyway so I’ll have to check it on the next session but I can check the case base width.
I anneal after firing, before resizing.
Here is what I think is happening. I fired all the brass, measured them and set my die so it would set the shoulders back .002-.003 every time and then stripped the bolt and checked to see if the bolt would just barely fall freely. It did so that’s where I locked the ring down. Then I anneal after every firing so I don’t have to try keep track of where they’re at and I do it with two torches, both on the middle of the neck. I think the top of the case at the shoulder has work hardened and needs to be annealed so that my original setting on my die will work, so the cases will have the same shoulder setback. I think what I could do to fix it would be put one flame on the middle of the neck and one on the shoulder but I don’t know. One other thing I forgot to mention is out of my batch of 20 rounds, 6 of them have soot or carbon down to the shoulder, the rest have are just to the bottom of the neck which makes me think they are not expanding to seal off the gas. What do you all think?
Just Dave
Gold $$ Contributor
Maybe it's because of the one torch head, ( Giraud) but I have always aimed center of flame right about where I would have stopped turning the neck.
Using 750 tempilaq in the neck, and I time them, so the paint just turns as it's rolling off the shelf, assuring me that temp level or higher has been reached at the shoulder, and slightly past.
.I put a drop of 450 about half way down the case, to make sure heat has not crept down too far.
Using 750 tempilaq in the neck, and I time them, so the paint just turns as it's rolling off the shelf, assuring me that temp level or higher has been reached at the shoulder, and slightly past.
.I put a drop of 450 about half way down the case, to make sure heat has not crept down too far.
You should see a little color change below the shoulder on the body. I anneal by hand with a propane torch and move back and forth a little neck to upper shoulder. The case is in a K&M shell holder on an electric drill. The small blue needle point flame is the hottest part of the flame. I go farther into the flame. It breaks up the hot zone and you get a wider flame and more even temperature.
DJSBRS
Site $$ Sponsor
With a case that large, I put both flames on the shoulder nearer to the case wall. This will allow the heat to move up and down so the case will relax an enable you to FL resize every time and have a consistent resize.
The key is to heat fast enough so the heat doesn't go too far down the body. Heat will stop rising after it reaches the top.
Larger cases take more time and more attention during the annealing process.
DJ
DJ's Brass Service
The key is to heat fast enough so the heat doesn't go too far down the body. Heat will stop rising after it reaches the top.
Larger cases take more time and more attention during the annealing process.
DJ
DJ's Brass Service
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