Did I kill my brass?

[Marksman]

After stainless steel cleaning my brass, I usually throw it in the oven as low as it will go for around 15 minutes to dry it out.

Well tonight the Miss's was baking something and I thought I'd just toss my brass in for 15 minutes. It wasn't until I pulled the brass out that I realized it was set for 400 degrees. Some of my brass started getting a little discoloration, but not to the point of turning purple.

So did I ruin my brass?

 

[Outrider27]

No, but you certainly got it really, really dry....

 

[Sniper338]

I'd be careful like always, but annealing/softening of the brass doesnt take place until 650 degree or so I think... Not sure of the actual number, thats the degree templac I have. But as long as it stayed under the temp needed to soften brass.

 

[NorCalMikie]

Throw it all in a tumbler with corn cobb. That will bring back the shine and you'll be good to go again. Not enough heat from the oven to bother the brass and as mentioned, it DID get real dry.

 

[rmr]

"Throw it all in a tumbler with corn cobb. That will bring back the shine and you'll be good to go again. Not enough heat from the oven to bother the brass and as mentioned"

+1.

I used to dry all of my 50Cal match brass this way and after a couple of trips thru the oven at 250f, it would be a bronze color. a 45min trip in the tumbler with some corn cob, and all pretty again. I wouldn't worry about head strength unless the brass hit 650-700 degrees. Depending on the alloy, it could be as high as 1000f.

 

[gotcha]

Don't think so. According to Ken Light no annealing takes place until you reach 482 degrees F regardless of amount of time. Check out "the art & science of annealing" under "articles" heading.

 

[1066]

Don't think so. According to Ken Light no annealing takes place until you reach 482 degrees F regardless of amount of time. Check out "the art & science of annealing" under "articles" heading.

Although for practical purposes and the way we "stress relieve" our brass you're probably right, however time at temperature is also a factor.

Here's a bit of light reading if you're interested in the subject.

Government research into low temperature annealing of military 7.62 brass.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a094136.pdf

 

[Medic505]

You're good to go if you quenched it in Pabst Blue Ribbon, otherwise I'd say it was iffy.....

 

[Hntndad]

Ovens vary in temp. Some are worse then others.. They also fluctuate +- above and below the desired temp. I bought a cheap food dehydrator years back and now I see Frankford arsenal selling them as brass dryers. I missed the boat on that one.

 

[Frankr]

I do some annealing with a bench source annealer. and I found using heat paint 400 deg inside the neck . when it just melts. and my case never get to 400 deg past the shoulder. I feel I annealed the neck's. I can tell I have more neck tension over ones not annealed. SO if I was you I would load a mild load or two in a case or two and check to see if the primer pocket's loosened up any before I ran a regular load in them..Just to error on the side of caution. I have over annealed some case's in the past and shot them..ha ha yea the heads were big and the primers fell out. it was bad. Back when I tried the old heat them up and nock them over in a pan of water deal.

I feel when I did the same thing with 650 deg heat paint they were too soft and took a firing or two to get them back. so I do what I call a maintenance anneal every firing. I take the neck. to 400 deg on the inside. now understand you have two torch flames contacting the neck for about 1.3 sec. till the heat paint melts on the inside of the neck. now did it go higher then 400 by the time it left the flame? or because the neck is thin and it was intense rapid rise in temp. don't know, don't care all I know is more neck tension tells me I did something. And the seem more consistently accurate.

 

[Killshot]

400 degrees is not enough to anneal brass.

Changes start to occur in brass grain structure at 482 degrees F. To properly anneal brass, the temperature needs to be at 650 degrees F. for several minutes--BUT this will transfer too-much heat to the lower case in that time. So we need more heat for a shorter time. Thus we raise the neck temp to about 750 degrees F. only for a few seconds to anneal.

The lower temperature Tempilaq id to be used near the case-head (really, only affects the short cases) to confirm it is not being heated.

A better way of assessing the temp of the necks is to use a quality (not a $100 one) handheld infrared thermometer.

Brass will begin to glow an orange color when temp reaches around 900 degrees, this is over-annealing which creates necks soft enough to cause extraction issues if the brass does not "spring back" after firing.