Baking Brass

[Dgd6mm]

I dried about 30 pieces of brass in the oven at 350F.. I forgot about them and of course did not set the timer. About 30 minutes later I took them out. Question, should I scrap them? This is the first time I ever used the oven. I will chalk it up to a lesson learned if the consensus is yes. It will definitely be a shame, this is brass I had to make for a wildcat. Oh well, better safe than sorry. By the way I did a search on here and found information dating back to 2011, I'm just double checking to see if anything else can be learned. We all make mistakes.

Don Dunlap

 

[Shrek]

Should be fine. Annealing doesn’t occur until much hotter.

 

[Doug Beach]

Next time, use 200-250. You could forget about them for a week, and it wouldn’t matter.

 

[D-4297]

You're about 400 - 450 degrees short of junk . Even though they were in 350 , the highest they may have reached was 375 . Good to go , as @Daveinjax said . No worries .

 

[rwj]

A food dehydrator works well for drying brass...

 

[Dgd6mm]

Thanks for the replies. After posting this thread I dug deeper into the Archives and found that I have not harmed my brass. I also see that quite a few people that have done similar also have done it at the same temperature with varying lengths of time. I've also learned that way less heat and time needed to dry if you use the oven method. I did learn of other methods that will do the job. Thanks again, and I will keep a closer watch on this brass of mine. Johnny Cash, almost..

 

[dcali]

They're fine. That's too short a time/too low a temperature to hurt them. That said, 20 minutes at 200 is plenty.

 

[Nick Caprinolo]

I have found that setting the oven at it's lowest temperature and leaving the door slightly open will dry brass in 45 minutes. All you need is a bit of dry heat. You don't have to boil the liquid to eliminate it..

 

[divingin]

Annealing starts in the 500ish range, but it would take forever to anneal at that temp. At 350, or even 400, you could leave them indefinitely with no effect.

Typically annealing is done at higher temps to get complete annealing (temp vs time) in the target area while leaving the case body unannealed.

 

[Ned Ludd]

Don - there's really no need to be drying brass in an oven in this day and age. Get yourself one of these food dryers:

https://www.homedepot.com/pep/Elite...VUPDACh0a4AUSEAQYAiABEgKXw_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

They're cheap, they hold a lot of brass, and they work.

With regard to damaging your brass under the described conditions, as you and others have already noted, probably not. However, it is critical to note that the process of annealing is NOT limited to some specific temperature, below which nothing happens. In fact, brass can be annealed at temperatures of 500 degrees or lower, it just takes far longer - tens of minutes or even hours, rather than a few seconds. Leaving your brass in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or more is starting to approach that region [time X temperature] of the annealing curve, and is a particularly bad idea IMO. Get yourself one these inexpensive food dryers, and any potential issues go away.

 

[Ccrider]

New use for my air fryer. Works like a charm. Only hang up-The Mrs. does not condone me cooking bullets and food on the same machine.

 

[savageshooter86]

I do 200F for about 30 minutes

 

[joshb]

I do 200F for about 30 minutes

That’s my cook time. Salt and pepper to taste! Get all your sizing wax off or they’ll brown!

 

[Longtrain]

I used a borrowed food dehydrator once, it really worked well.
Generally, I dump them in a towel, dry off the exterior water and place them on an old dark beach towel in the sun. In a few hours they are dry and warm.

One time it started to rain so I placed them on a towel on a table in the back porch, figuring that they would dry in a few days. My better half, needed to set the table and just gathered up the towel containing the brass and placed it on a chair. The next day I checked the brass, seemed dry, so it got loaded. As I charged 150 cases for a match, I noticed a drop of water in the tray as I was priming the last 50 rounds. I pulled a couple of bullets from the first 100, and sure enough I had wet powder. Pulled and disposed of the powder and primers, dried them properly and tried again.
It would have been a bad match with wet powder, live and learn. First and last time that happened.

 

[Dgd6mm]

Don - there's really no need to be drying brass in an oven in this day and age. Get yourself one of these food dryers:

https://www.homedepot.com/pep/Elite...VUPDACh0a4AUSEAQYAiABEgKXw_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

They're cheap, they hold a lot of brass, and they work.

With regard to damaging your brass under the described conditions, as you and others have already noted, probably not. However, it is critical to note that the process of annealing is NOT limited to some specific temperature, below which nothing happens. In fact, brass can be annealed at temperatures of 500 degrees or lower, it just takes far longer - tens of minutes or even hours, rather than a few seconds. Leaving your brass in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or more is starting to approach that region [time X temperature] of the annealing curve, and is a particularly bad idea IMO. Get yourself one these inexpensive food dryers, and any potential issues go away.

Thanks Ned. I would be willing to bet if I were to dig thru all the kitchen cooking using gadgets my wife has here and there, she owns a dehydrator that has been forgotten about. I could swipe it from her and by the time she needs it she'll be convinced she got rid of it. ( Sure Honey, you got rid of that a long time ago).

 

[BenPerfected]

I do 200F for about 30 minutes

My set up is a little different as my small toaster oven is set at 375 and is set to shut off in 20 min. Can only get 50-60 pc on the pan.