Annealing with gas: do you folks drop the cases into water?

[riflewoman]

A+ in creative writing.

Read the paper I posted earlier in the thread.

Joe

I love this forum: You guys really know your onions! Many thanks! (one day, us Limey's will kick your butts on the F/TR scores!

@ Joe R & Riflewoman

IMO, Joe is spot on. The article that Joe has given to us clearly states that at 700c no further material "grain" growth will occur, therefore quenching seems to be a waste of time.

Cam

The paper Joe presented listed the temperatures in Fahrenheit NOT Celsius. So 700C is 1300F. At 700F (375C) you are stress relieving not annealing. Big difference metallurgically. Annealing, recrystallization and grain growth are dependent on amount of cold work, the temperature and the time at temperature.

In this paper there is a series of tables showing the hardness reduction and grain size for brass with varying degrees of cold work, annealing temperature in degrees C and time at temperature.

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bit...9/engineeringexperv00000i00359.pdf?sequence=3

In the old days, we were advised to heat the brass neck until you could just barely see it glow a dull red in a darkened room. That was about 950F (500C). We we then advised to drop the case into a pan of water to stop the heat from softening the body. This was from the metallurgists at Frankford Arsenal. Still valid today.

 

[Falfan2017]

Anecdotally I find thinner necks (turned) and higher neck tension makes annealing less important. With a no turn neck 6br and only 1 thousands neck tension if I didn't anneal I had bad results with large variations in seating pressure and it showed on targe.
With turned neck brass and .003 neck tension it doesn't seem to affect results on target.

Either way I don't think quenching is required because the brass cools very rapidly once it leaves the heat and it takes a lot of sustained temperature to continue annealing.

In another thread "redneck annealing test" I roasted a 3006 case neck with a propane torch for a full minute and 30 seconds way longer than anybody would anneal and with my simple testing technique it didn't meaningfully alter the strength of the case web. No i didn't try to load and fire that case.

 

[fguffey]

- time or temperature

Yes, time is a factor and temperature is a factor.

F. Guffey

 

[Lucky Shooter]

Different method------no claims to be better

I used this method a few times when it was obviously time to anneal.

A flat/shallow pan of water-----just deep enough to reach up to the shoulders of standing cases.

Heat the pan on stove top to the point of beginning to boil------bubbles forming on bottom of pan

Stand all cases up-----heat case neck until it glows or until bubbles form around case------tip case over.

I just never thought about not tipping the case over-----but now don't see a problem leaving it standing.

The barely boiling water serves as a heat sink that prevents the case body from overheating----limits
it to 212 deg F.

I think this worked when I used it-----would probably use it again if annealing becomes necessary.

A. Weldy