Annealing brass, opinions VS facts &

[savagedasher]

I use the same method Joe R does with one change, a old wet rag in the bottom of the pan. They will cool to the touch quicker.

I flip mine in a pan of water . Air cooling is fine . Re loading is fun . So speed doesn't matter . Larry

 

[Art Dirindin]

Arthur,
You're making things way more complicated than they really are.

If you're annealing 50 pieces or less at the time. The socket and drill method is the only thing that makes sense for you.

1. Its simple.
2. Its cheap.
3. its reliable.
4. Easy to setup and take down.
5. Takes little storage space.
6. All you have to do is count to 7 Mississippi.

The machine annealers make sense for guys that shoot a couple hundreds of rounds a month or more. I've owned and used the Annealez, Benchsource, AMP, Giraud, MRB annealer (my current favorite) and Skip's home made one. They all have pros and cons, but for your volume IMO the drill is the way to go.

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Joe thanks for the advice. If you would please what is the exact type and manufacture of the propane tip you are using to anneal your brass in your pictures.
Thanks,
Arthur.

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Good luck,

Joe

 

[Art Dirindin]

Joe would you please be so kind as to list the exact type and manufacture of the torch head and tip you use in the photos? The propane torch head I have in my opinion produces a flame much to large and hot for maintaining a precise heat application when annealing.

Thanks,
Art.

 

[Joe R]

Art,
Its your basic Benzomatic Pencil tip torch like this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00008ZA0C/?tag=accuratescom-20

You can find it at most Home Depots.

Joe

 

[Shaggy357]

Joe R has an excellent post. I have one of the little butane torches with push button striker. Flame can adjust from about nothing to about 6" long and hotter than.....anyway, $4 can of butane will fill it a dozen times. One fill will do several hundred cases. 50 cases done in method Joe R shows should take less than 30 minutes, start to finish. I am not talking from lighting the torch to putting it out, I am talking from getting the materials together, setting up, annealing, and then doing clean up and putting things away. 3-4 seconds per case. Average "Joe" can do 8-10 per minute....doesn't take long.....I did 1000 cases the other day in a couple of hours....but had to use my spendy set up for that many. Good luck with your choice.

 

[tillroot1]

To Each, His Own --- for the small amount of brass you're talking about, send it to someone who has an AMP unit setup in his brass service. Turnaround is fast and results are very consistent.

I also can see why someone would want to develop his own method for annealing and that's fine. Consistency is the key to any method and you would have to attain that for good results down range. Some people have good results from their drill/torch method, others not so much. Have a go at whatever method you choose, the target will tell you how well you're doing.

Can I ask who does this type of service?

 

[Emmett Dibble]

If you are even remotely handy AND I use it on other things too.

 

[Dave M.]

Keep the heat up high and do not get the lower case hot and weaken it. Just play with a few throw-aways first to learn on. I've had to anneal new brass because it wouldn't straighten in the die. I had .007-.009" runout on turned necks and after annealing and resizing, it averaged .002".

I anneal all of my brass before I do anything to it.

 

[K22]

I'm not going to disparage annealing because I've never done it so I cannot comment on the best methods or its usefulness. I'm only going to state the "facts' of my experience of not annealing.

I've been reloading now for close about 50 years and I've never annealed bottle neck rifle cases. I've gotten about 15 to 18 reloads in calibers such as the 223 Rem, 22-250, 243 Win, 308 Win. Normally I have to retire the 223 cases because the rims become thin and extraction issue begin to arise. I will see a few neck splits alone the way to the 15 to 18 reloads. If I judge these to be isolated which most of the time they are, I keep reloading that lot until I reach the 15 to 18 thresholds. I will retire a group of cases once loose primer pockets are encountered.

For me, I have amortized the cost of the cases and have obtained a decent amount of case life without annealing. As far as precision (accuracy), my varmint / predator rifles typically group in the 1/2 moa area.

Perhaps I could get more reloads by annealing but I just don't want to spend the effort.

 

[Enosiophobia]

If you are even remotely handy AND I use it on other things too.

I tried this exact version. 2 induction units later I could t make it work. Believe me, I tried. Did the torch / socket method for awhile. In the end I spent around 500 on a used Benchsource. Very happy. Any flame method takes practice as the variables in the torch setting and location within the flame produce different results. No matter what you do, there is no set dwell time in the flame. Each manufacturers brass is different. My Lapua brass cook much longer than Hornady, Winchester. Etc.

 

[DocCarbon]

You're NOT annealing brass cartridge cases but rather making them malleable .
The term annealing when used with brass is to actually CHANGE the Crystalline alignment within the brass .

Technically IMPOSSIBLE without RUINING the entire case . Temperature Time continuum PROHIBITS that from occurring .

Regardless of the method you decide on pursuing ,just make certain you do it CORRECTLY ,so as to achieve the goal of shoulder and neck malleability . Excessive conducted heat through a case's body and head is asking for TROUBLE !.

These are Lapua and MY cases ,virtually identical side by side . A Single Open pin point propane flame ,directed at the shoulder towards the neck . I Don't recommend pointing flame the other direction ,as excessive heat travels down the case body and is totally unnecessary . Different calibers will dictate different dwell time . The simple Idea is to heat brass shoulder and neck until just before turning orange in color ,which indicates near 750 Deg. F . I suggest purchasing either a pen or bottle of 750 Deg. tempilaq placing a ribbon inside the neck of old no longer viable cases and practice . You'll find using a keen eye and watching for color or a timer in seconds . Have fun . It's totally unnecessary to place cases in a pan of water or tip them over ,as MY cases reach 185 Deg. F. at the base have Never exceeded 210 F. ,400 Deg. F or greater anywhere along the body 0.5" below the shoulder is a RED FLAG

 

[DocCarbon]

FYi : These are fairly inexpensive and work really well . And if you're handy can be built for less than Half the cost .

https://annealeez.com/product-category/annealing-machine/

 

[sharp.shooter.ser]

I tried this exact version. 2 induction units later I could t make it work. Believe me, I tried. Did the torch / socket method for awhile. In the end I spent around 500 on a used Benchsource. Very happy. Any flame method takes practice as the variables in the torch setting and location within the flame produce different results. No matter what you do, there is no set dwell time in the flame. Each manufacturers brass is different. My Lapua brass cook much longer than Hornady, Winchester. Etc.

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I agree. That is why I didnt use digital PWM with the annealer units I produce. Every brand uses different brass, and it takes different time to achieve proper temperature in the case neck, plus the flame setup, its hard to set it same way every time. For a moment I wanted to use digital pwm's but luckily good folks here talked me out of it

 

[Fuj]

You're NOT annealing brass cartridge cases but rather making them malleable .
The term annealing when used with brass is to actually CHANGE the Crystalline alignment within the brass .

Annealing is a heat treatment to reduce hardness, and increase ductility.
Ductile would be a more proper term over malleable.

 

[JSH]

I'm not going to disparage annealing because I've never done it so I cannot comment on the best methods or its usefulness. I'm only going to state the "facts' of my experience of not annealing.

I've been reloading now for close about 50 years and I've never annealed bottle neck rifle cases. I've gotten about 15 to 18 reloads in calibers such as the 223 Rem, 22-250, 243 Win, 308 Win. Normally I have to retire the 223 cases because the rims become thin and extraction issue begin to arise. I will see a few neck splits alone the way to the 15 to 18 reloads. If I judge these to be isolated which most of the time they are, I keep reloading that lot until I reach the 15 to 18 thresholds. I will retire a group of cases once loose primer pockets are encountered.

For me, I have amortized the cost of the cases and have obtained a decent amount of case life without annealing. As far as precision (accuracy), my varmint / predator rifles typically group in the 1/2 moa area.

Perhaps I could get more reloads by annealing but I just don't want to spend the effort.

All I will say is it can give great returns with a lot of cartridges. Not so much about case life as accuracy and consistency. My flyers all but disappeared. I find it well worth while as any other case prep.

 

[K22]

All I will say is it can give great returns with a lot of cartridges. Not so much about case life as accuracy and consistency. My flyers all but disappeared. I find it well worth while as any other case prep.

Annealing does seem to offer consistency which is aids in precision reloads, this I do not dispute.

Until about 2 years ago or so I never experienced flyers that I could positively attribute to reloads / firearm issues. Oh, I had flyers for sure, but I believed they were due to me since there was no consistency to them and they random and rare.

About 2 years ago I changed cleaning solvents due to offensive odor of the solvent I was using, i.e. Shooter's Choice. I switched to Bore Tech C4 (carbon) and Cu+2 (copper). Both products performed extremely well. It became clear that Shooter's Choice was only removing only limited amounts of copper.

However, I began developing consistent first shot flyers and the need to shoot several rounds before achieving consistent point of impact. I was confused, frustrated and began an exhaustive search for answers since the change seem to be due to the change in cleaning procedure which didn't make sense since I was cleaning more effectively, especially removing copper.

After a long quest I determined via my research and testing that I was removing too much copper creating what some of the sources claimed was disturbing "copper equilibrium". At first, I was extremely skeptical because everything I ever read asserted that removing copper was essential to preserving accuracy which made sense to me.

However, after changing my cleaning process to just using C4, which does a great job of removing carbon and some limited copper much like Shooter's Choice without the odor, my rifles return to consistency and the first shot flyers disappeared.

I know this goes against everything gospel in precision rifle cleaning but I'm just reporting what I discovered with my rifles.

PS. Yesterday I bagged a ground hog at 248 yards from a clean barrel shot out of my Rem 700, 223. This is a long shot for me at my age and using a shooting cross stick.

 

[JSH]

I have witnessed pretty much the same, some barrels take more to foul in than others.

My whole thought on a clean barrel, I start clean and know what to expect every time.
A partial fouled bore, where and when does it go bad, then how much do you take out to get it back to partial clean that it seems to like? I used nothing but Kroil and JB’s for quite a while, never really cleaned anything just made it smooth.

Cast bullets, I won’t open that can of worms. Lol, what I do works for me and makes me smile.

 

[Dave M.]

I'm not going to disparage annealing because I've never done it so I cannot comment on the best methods or its usefulness. I'm only going to state the "facts' of my experience of not annealing.

I've been reloading now for close about 50 years and I've never annealed bottle neck rifle cases. I've gotten about 15 to 18 reloads in calibers such as the 223 Rem, 22-250, 243 Win, 308 Win. Normally I have to retire the 223 cases because the rims become thin and extraction issue begin to arise. I will see a few neck splits alone the way to the 15 to 18 reloads. If I judge these to be isolated which most of the time they are, I keep reloading that lot until I reach the 15 to 18 thresholds. I will retire a group of cases once loose primer pockets are encountered.

For me, I have amortized the cost of the cases and have obtained a decent amount of case life without annealing. As far as precision (accuracy), my varmint / predator rifles typically group in the 1/2 moa area.

Perhaps I could get more reloads by annealing but I just don't want to spend the effort.

In all fairness, for guys that are shooting 100 & 200 yard benchrest, 1/2 moa simply won’t cut it. For F-Class it wouldn’t be competitive only shooting 1/2 moa at short range.

 

[K22]

In all fairness, for guys that are shooting 100 & 200 yard benchrest, 1/2 moa simply won’t cut it. For F-Class it wouldn’t be competitive only shooting 1/2 moa at short range.

I understand - I'm just a ground hog and predator hunter, and short range (300 yards and under) by today's standards.

 

[Hohn]

If you are even remotely handy AND I use it on other things too.

This is what I did, based on the same video. Works fantastic and was $220 total. On a 300wsm, it’d pay for itself in brass pretty fast.

Pros of this setup:
-affordable
- fast, about 10 cases a minute
- probably more consistent than manual torch (it was for me)
- easy to assemble/build.