Annealing with automated annealers

[roundknob]

I am sure this has been covered but I couldnt find it. I anneal my cases on a benchsource and once they are annealed they drop on a towel to cool off. I am wondering if the heat may be transfering up toward the head and softening the case head. Has anyone tried letting them drop into water and quench them. Im not a metalurgist as you can see dont know if I even spelled it correctly. Would this harden the brass from cooling it to fast?
Steve

 

[hedditch]

The high heat doesn't go down that far to bother the case head. I am not recommending this at all but I have annealed many cases with the primers in them without mishap. (while wearing safety glasses). My cases just drop into a cardboard box.

 

[Nomad47]

As I understand it, the annealing stops the instant the flame is removed.

 

[roundknob]

What I am concerned about is to much heat reaching the case head. I know if they go into a pile or a box they tend to heat up all over. Brass seems to be extremely heat sensitive.
Steve

 

[Stimpylu32]

What I am concerned about is to much heat reaching the case head. I know if they go into a pile or a box they tend to heat up all over. Brass seems to be extremely heat sensitive.
Steve

Once the heat source is removed the temperatures fall so rapidly that it no longer has an affect on the metal and it could not cause an issue with case heads softening up .

stimpy

 

[Killshot]

+1 what Stimpy said. No quenching is needed. That may be what the socket spinners do but it is not necessary.

 

[6BRinNZ]

What I am concerned about is to much heat reaching the case head. I know if they go into a pile or a box they tend to heat up all over. Brass seems to be extremely heat sensitive.
Steve

Once the heat source is removed the temperatures fall so rapidly that it no longer has an affect on the metal and it could not cause an issue with case heads softening up .

stimpy

+2 - also remember it is heat plus time that creates the annealing effect. To satisfy yourself - get a bottle of 450 templaq and coat the outside - anneal the case and let it drop onto the towel - you will see how far the heat travels by the templaq and know that the case is safe.

Using a benchsource I keep 3 cases with tempalaq coatings from when I first set the machine up. Next annealing batch I use old cases and adjust the timer to melt the tempalaq to the same point on the case as my 3 originals. I am then good to go. At roughly 25, 50 and 75% of my annealing cycle I will put a case through coated in templaq to check that nothing odd is going on and my cases are still safe with the 450 templaq melting to the same point.

Note the purpose of this is to check that cases are safe not that I have necessarily heated necks to any particular temperature (for those that will chime in and say templaq on the outside is no good).

 

[roundknob]

Thanks this sets my mind at ease on the heat thing.
Steve

 

[Leaddog]

Metals like brass and aluminum cannot be heat treated like steel. Quenching them anneals them. Brass can only be cold worked to harden. you should quench them. The extra time it takes to cool shouldnt hurt the rest of the case but you are not fully annealing them by air cooling.

Have a reference for that annealing (quenching) statement?

 

[Nomad47]

Once again. As I understand it, annealing stops at the moment the flame (heat source) is removed. In other words, it does not matter at that point whether it is quenched or not.

 

[stebbins243]

I am a tool and die maker and this is my profession. Look in the machinist handbook. It states that non Ferris metails like brass silver copper aluminum.....so on, can not be heat treated the same as steel. Instead they are annealed in that manner. Annealing does start as soon as the heat source is removed but quenching is required to fully anneal the material to its most mailable state. I too have never been the best with annealing and would have poor results until i read thru the handbook and corrected my meathods. I also had our mold and die maker further show me his procedures onto a perfect annealing every time. I keep the base cool by inserting my brass into an aluminum fixture i made. The case holder gets chucked into a simple hand drill. The case sits 7/8 deep and is held in with a screw Thru the side. I spin the brass over the propane flame until the case neck starts to turn red. (make sure its in low light so u can see the first red faze.) then i drop it into cold water and start the next. After i started using this method all my cases now get a rainbow like lapua brass. I also have 12 reload on my cheapo winchester brass. To quench or not to quench. Either way is fine, but heat soaking is a real thing and quenching does yield nice soft brass.

 

[TheSnake]

Stebbins,
I think there are many hand loaders here that can vouch for increased case life and consistent neck tension from annealing without quenching and the proof pudding has been served up may times on that one. What is the difference in the brass that is allowed to air dry compared to quenching? If what you state is true and quenching is required, then why do so many people have desirable results without quenching? Some people state that letting the case neck get red hot causes the brass to be too soft. Does quenching in water counter that effect and make it more consistent?

In reference to the case head getting too hot resulting in a trashed case; Does anyone know what temperature the case gets to in the chamber when fired? I don't think it is hundreds of degrees but I think it is above 100. I have the 400F and know the case head does not get anywhere near that hot during annealing or during air dry but just what is the acceptable temperature for the case head here? They make 175F and maybe less and I could get that and paint down to the case head just to validate. If the case head does not get hotter during annealing than it does during firing, how could annealing done correctly result in a ruined case?

I am seeing various opinions in this thread but I would like to know the facts. Does anyone have any links enforcing the quenching statement? It is easy enough to quench but if there is no reason to do it, I would just as well not mess with drying the cases afterwards.

 

[TheSnake]

Stebbins,
I wasn't trying to be argumentative and I'm sorry if it came across that way. I just want to better understand what I am doing and to make sure I am in-between the too little and too much of annealing.

 

[BoydAllen]

Just to be clear, getting the softest brass possible, in case necks, by annealing, is not the goal of anyone that knows what he is doing. The trick is to change the brass but not loose all of its hardness. If we simply wanted to have dead soft necks, anyone could do that. It is dead simple, and completely undesirable in this application.

 

[stebbins243]

You are correct. I have been reading alot about it this afternoon. We are both right. I am fully annealing my brass and getting the results i wanted (or thought i wanted). Brass will change structure at high temp. As the temp goes up the time required goes down. Thus quenching would keep the time above the required 400 something degrees from changing the structure to much. But i didnt understand the fact that i am making my brass to soft. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I thought the point of annealing was to get fully annealed and soft brass. After downloading some online material and reading up on specific cartridge annealing i realised i am going to soft. When brass goes red phase it has already become to soft. Again i apologize for the misunderstanding. I was bias being in the trade i am, but overlooked the fact there may be a certain hardness to be desired.

 

[BoydAllen]

No need to apologize. No doubt I was being more pointed than absolutely necessary, and I understood where you were coming from. I have a friend that is an engineer that got hung up taking the word annealing in too literal a sense for absorbing what is being done to cartridge cases. We may not know exactly what is going on, from a metallurgical point of view, but experience has shown what works the best, and it is the end result that matters.

 

[TheSnake]

This still leaves this area of discussion, anyone?

In reference to the case head getting too hot resulting in a trashed case; Does anyone know what temperature the case gets to in the chamber when fired? I don't think it is hundreds of degrees but I think it is above 100. I have the 400F and know the case head does not get anywhere near that hot during annealing or during air dry but just what is the acceptable temperature for the case head here? They make 175F and maybe less and I could get that and paint down to the case head just to validate. If the case head does not get hotter during annealing than it does during firing, how could annealing done correctly result in a ruined case?

 

[6BRinNZ]

You are correct. I have been reading alot about it this afternoon. We are both right. I am fully annealing my brass and getting the results i wanted (or thought i wanted). Brass will change structure at high temp. As the temp goes up the time required goes down. Thus quenching would keep the time above the required 400 something degrees from changing the structure to much. But i didnt understand the fact that i am making my brass to soft. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I thought the point of annealing was to get fully annealed and soft brass. After downloading some online material and reading up on specific cartridge annealing i realised i am going to soft. When brass goes red phase it has already become to soft. Again i apologize for the misunderstanding. I was bias being in the trade i am, but overlooked the fact there may be a certain hardness to be desired.

IMO - you anneal to create the desired result (what is the problem you are trying to fix) - so long as the case is safe. I would not be surprised if too soft for some is just right for others. Presumably you have the results on paper/ neck tension feel etc etc you want, if so why change anything?

 

[6BRinNZ]

This still leaves this area of discussion, anyone?

In reference to the case head getting too hot resulting in a trashed case; Does anyone know what temperature the case gets to in the chamber when fired? I don't think it is hundreds of degrees but I think it is above 100. I have the 400F and know the case head does not get anywhere near that hot during annealing or during air dry but just what is the acceptable temperature for the case head here? They make 175F and maybe less and I could get that and paint down to the case head just to validate. If the case head does not get hotter during annealing than it does during firing, how could annealing done correctly result in a ruined case?

Its temperature plus time time. So annealing completed correctly is unlikely to make a case unsafe, it is possible for it to be incorrect for the desired result and wreck a case (neck too soft for desired result).

There are two points to annealing 1./ the appropriate temp for the neck and shoulder to produce the desired effect 2./ safety - ensuring that the base does not get enough heat and time that it makes the base too soft.

Typically if you are not going for a completely soft neck you would have to try hard (small cases you won't have to try so hard) to get too much heat into the base as the heat wouldn't be applied for long enough...however if you were too inconsistent in your approach or tried hard enough to do so....

A metallurgist ( as I understood his quals) in another thread somewhere suggested in the purest sense that using current process we weren't actually annealing but stress relieving.

 

[BoydAllen]

When we set up a friend's annealing machine, we bought Templaq in three different temperatures, 300, 400, and 500 degrees. We then painted thin stripes of each, right next to each other down the body of a case, when we had the time in the torches adjusted so that the 500 degree material had changed to a point that was about a half inch below the shoulder, his magnum cases were in the condition that he was looking for. Necks still had tension, and the hardness of shoulders had become more uniform. resulting in greater uniformity of shoulder bump. for testing purposes, the same case can bee cooled and reused any number of times, by the application of more templaq.