Annealing machines, what one for the money?

[skeetlee]

Whats the best for the buck annealing units on the market?

 

[Travelor]

I love my Ken Light annealing machine and would not recommend anything else.

George

 

[Jay Christopherson]

I recently purchased a Model 400 from Ballistic Edge Mfg. (recently featured in the Daily Bulletin). Works pretty well for me and it's pretty too:

http://www.annealingmachines.com/

 

[chris]

I have the one from BenchSource...a little pricey but by far the best I have seen.

 

[kitsap]

Lee,

I own a Ken Light (KL) machine and have used it for 10+ years. I am able to achieve outstanding results. It is a PITA to set up, but once done it will crank them out as fast as you can feed it. It takes as long to set it up as it does to run 50 cases. Also the KL requires a different wheel for each cartridge family such as 222, PPC, BR, etc. Anything that uses a flame heat source will be somewhat of a similar PITA to set up for each session. The new Bench Source seems to have solved the wheel problem.

A Bench Source type platform with an induction type electrical heat source would be ideal.

Check this out if you have not already done so. -- http://www.6mmbr.com/annealing.html

DougF

 

[Steve Blair]

I have a Ken Light machine, too. I cut some wood blocks to size and put them under the torch head tubes when adjusting the height. They are each marked with a Sharpie to indicate the caliber. The flame size is now well known to me and I can adjust them in a minute to the right size. It takes me about five minutes to set up for a given caliber.

BTW, the setup blocks would also work fine with the Ballistic Edge machine.

I am unconvinced that the Bench-Source unit offers sufficient protection from heating the case head. It is probably ok, but I prefer the enclosed approach of the Ken Light and Ballistic Edge models.

 

[robbin]

I've got a bench source, it's awesome....

 

[kitsap]

I have a Ken Light machine, too. I cut some wood blocks to size and put them under the torch head tubes when adjusting the height. They are each marked with a Sharpie to indicate the caliber. The flame size is now well known to me and I can adjust them in a minute to the right size. It takes me about five minutes to set up for a given caliber.

Steve,

Thanks for sharing your set-up method. I anneal several different length cases. I will use your wood block method.

DougF

 

[snoog37]

I thought that the Ken Light system's wheel was supposed to pre-HEAT the brass before flame time? Not protect as gator mentioned, since they don't get much flame time with the KL unit. Maybe im wrong.

 

[Steve Blair]

I thought that the Ken Light system's wheel was supposed to pre-HEAT the brass before flame time? Not protect as gator mentioned, since they don't get much flame time with the KL unit. Maybe im wrong.

The wheel, when filled with boiling water, preheats cases to a higher temperature. As the unit is used, heat transfer from cases maintains the water temperature. I have even seen some bubbles appearing in the reservoir while annealing 200 .30-'06 cases.

So, Ken designed the wheel to serve both functions, preheat and protect by serving as a heat sink.

 

[snoog37]

Cool. Gotta appreciate multi tasking. If he took credit cards, I would already own a unit.

 

[RAGGED]

Whats the best for the buck annealing units on the market?

Make your own!

 

[hawghunter]

RAGGED, more details please

 

[monel12]

Give Randy Gregory a call. He has a VERY reasonable one that works very well.....
Jim

 

[RAGGED]

RAGGED, more details please

Biggest detail is it only exists in the digital realm! But I do have working prototypes of the drive system, just need to do a few final tweaks to the design and then I can mill it up. Without saying too much I can honestly say it’s going to be the nicest one I’ve ever seen, that includes the BS unit (man that thing is noisy!)

 

[Steve Blair]

Make your own!

It would help if you bought some real MCAD software.

Before you wind up, my department manages 28 seats of Solidworks and 31 Pro/e. We use them both.

 

[RAGGED]

Make your own!

It would help if you bought some real MCAD software.

Before you wind up, my department manages 28 seats of Solidworks and 31 Pro/e. We use them both.

We have 1 seat of ProE for every seat of SW, but the past 3-4 years I'd say 80% of the people coming to us want work done in SW, so I guess I'm just in that mode. 8)