I recently picked up a 218 Bee. I am planning on making up some loads for it soon and i am interested in learning about annealing. Especailly since 218 Bee brass is so hard to come by. What do you recommend if i only plan on annealing 200-300 pieces of brass per year on the cartridge. I hate to spend hundreds of dollars for a high end set up just to do this few of cases. Whats my best options for such small batches?
Annealing Help Please
- Thread starter fredhorace77
- Start date
Fred,
For such a small batch I would consider sending it to DJ's brass service and let him take care of it.
Regards, Paul
www.boltfluting.com
For such a small batch I would consider sending it to DJ's brass service and let him take care of it.
Regards, Paul
www.boltfluting.com
Thats actually not a bad idea that i havent thought about. Thanks.
If you only shoot 300 rounds a year, you may not be able to justify an annealing machine. But if you mean to say 300 pieces of rare brass and you also shoot a lot using ordinary brass in several calibers, then why not anneal it too? You can easily triple the life of your brass (or more) by annealing, plus you may enjoy more neck tension consistency if that's important to you. In other words, it doesn't take long to pay for an inexpensive machine.
I built a fancy version of Skips DIY automatic annealer which works better than most commercial units. It cost me about $150 because I don't have many tools on hand, but most are built for around $100 and many less fancy (but still very accurate) versions have been built for fifty bucks.
Look here for everything you need to know.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_42/434088_DIY_Annealing_Machine.html
I built a fancy version of Skips DIY automatic annealer which works better than most commercial units. It cost me about $150 because I don't have many tools on hand, but most are built for around $100 and many less fancy (but still very accurate) versions have been built for fifty bucks.
Look here for everything you need to know.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_42/434088_DIY_Annealing_Machine.html
If you have access to someone with a lathe and you can come up with some round stock about 3 inches long and 3/4" diameter you can make a rotating holder and do your own. (Turn one end down to .375, drill a hole in other end about .020" larger than the case you want to anneal. Try the case in it and stop drillling when the body of the case (below the shoulder) is still showing about 1/4". There was a segment on the history channel they did on Olin and it showed the rounds coming down a line and going through a line of torches and out the other end and dropped into a big buggy.
The above tool used to be on 6MMbr.com but I looked for it a couple days ago and it has been removed.
Col Hackley was the last Commander of Frankford Arsenal and he has the process file on annealing cases and he looked it up for me and the cases rotate at about 30 RPM and are in the flames about 7 seconds. (30.06/ 7.62).
A variable speed drill works well or a single speed drill if you have a Variac. (adjustable transformer where you can adjust voltage going to drill and find adjust the RPMs to exactly what you need.
I clean my cases in stainless steel pin media which removes the factory blue (military cases) and I can re-anneal them to duplicate the same blue tint that LC and FA put on 7.62 and 30.06 cases. I have one 30.06 LC Match 1963 case I have reloaded 157 times and it is still doing fine. I annealed every third shot.
The above tool used to be on 6MMbr.com but I looked for it a couple days ago and it has been removed.
Col Hackley was the last Commander of Frankford Arsenal and he has the process file on annealing cases and he looked it up for me and the cases rotate at about 30 RPM and are in the flames about 7 seconds. (30.06/ 7.62).
A variable speed drill works well or a single speed drill if you have a Variac. (adjustable transformer where you can adjust voltage going to drill and find adjust the RPMs to exactly what you need.
I clean my cases in stainless steel pin media which removes the factory blue (military cases) and I can re-anneal them to duplicate the same blue tint that LC and FA put on 7.62 and 30.06 cases. I have one 30.06 LC Match 1963 case I have reloaded 157 times and it is still doing fine. I annealed every third shot.
Where are you located? I am in Colorado Springs and have an annealer.
I appreciate the offer but im in oklahoma
Like several have mentioned, im thinking ill maybe build one.
I just mount my cases in a cordless drill and spin them in the flame of a torch. The Lee Case Trimmer shell holder and lock stud work well to do this. The hard part of course is determining how hot for how long. Probably the most accurate way to measure the temperature is Tempilaq inside the neck. The problem remains as to what temperature to target. It is my opinion based on a literature search and some testing at different temperatures that almost no annealing gets done at 700 F, and the time required at 750 F is too long. You need more like 850 F for 4-5 seconds.
I have recently experimented with using room light level to determining the actual required temperature. I still need to do some more testing to confirm, but I am settling on a light level of about 1 EV100 as measured by my camera on a grey card. That is a pitch dark shop with no windows, and a single 13 watt CF bulb about 20 feet away, with my back to the light to cast a shadow on the drill and case which is held in a vice. I would say in this very dim light the correct anneal is to bring the neck shoulder up to a slight dull red glow and hold for 4 seconds. Then remove the case and drop in water.
This of course requires some skill and practice. If you want to try it, then start with some scrap brass. A self igniting torch makes it easier too.
The heat is what does the annealing. Water quench does nothing to the annealing of brass - it only cools it faster. When working brass in a commercial process speed is important so water is used to cool it so the process can continue. Your cartridges are so thin that cooling is done in the air fast enough that you can start loading the brass without drying them after a quench.
Water quench does not hurt the process of annealing so you can use a water quench and then dry the cases if you want.
Water quench does not hurt the process of annealing so you can use a water quench and then dry the cases if you want.
Check with Mozilla. He built a real nice one. I think he had a list on here. PM HIM AND ASK. MATT
TAJ45
Silver $$ Contributor
Use the "socket on a cordless drill" in a dark closet or shop/basement. I did that for years.
Josh, you say "closet"? Just be sure to remove the rayon Leisure Suit.....
They tend to go up pretty fast. Heh heh.
My problem with most of the automatic annealers that I had seen was their complexity. The simplest one I found was "Skip's" annealer and it uses a power supply, two motors and two speed controllers. I finally designed my own and it uses one motor, that is an AC synchronous motor, three pulleys and an o-ring used as a drive belt. It looks and operates just like Skip's except the motor always spins at 12 rpm. I have a lathe that I used to make my own pulleys, the heating drum is made from a 6" coffee can and the feed spool is made from two plastic casters I had laying around. It's not pretty and it doesn't have LCD displays just one on/off switch. I control the heat by moving the torch head closer or farther away from the case but my annealer does everything from 223/556 to 358 cases and all I have to do is load the shells in the magazine and set the torch.
joshb
Gold $$ Contributor
Despite what my lawyer tells me, my wife thinks she owns our house. I'm allowed a walk in closet and the desk in the sunroom for my "reloading crap". No worries, I'm a jeans and flannel shirt guy. I do have to be careful when cleaning my guns in the closet. Sometimes I get a little dizzy from the fumes.
Your single motor approach was my first thought after reading about the dual motor "Skip Design" machine. Two motors went against what I learned so many years ago in a "Design Elegance" college class.
But after costing out the time and expense of a single motor with a toothed belt drive or something similar, I realized the advantages of the two motor design. It's cheap and simple and easy to build. Yes, the feed drum and annealing pan can get out of sync, but that's solved by wiring in a $3 proximity switch.
The nice thing about the components listed on the AR-15 forum is that they're inexpensive, have nice LED read outs, and come with the appropriate speed controller which can adjust the rpm to set the dwell time in fractions of a second.
Once you get inspired by the "Skip" design, is you can build one quickly and inexpensively if you have stuff lying around the shop and especially if you have a lathe and/or milling machine. I don't have fancy tools, so I purchased some pre-made hubs, I cut the feed slot in the drum using an ordinary Forstner bit, and made housing out of thin plywood I could cut with a hand saw and true up with my low angle block plane. It cost a few bucks more, but it was my way of skinning the cat. There are countless variations, but the key to good annealing is good heat control and accurate dwell time.
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