Neck annealing
- Thread starter FilippoMo
- Start date
FeMan
Gold $$ Contributor
The purpose of annealing is to relieve stress and restore ductility to the brass; preserving it's life span and getting more uniform and consistent loads. Annealing either before or after sizing is fine, but annealing before sizing is going to aid in better concentricity and consistent neck tension on the subsequent firing.
Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
I don't believe that annealing does anything for case life and if you do it primarily for that reason, you are wasting your time.
In my experience, case life for rifle cartridges is determined by the primer pocket and its ability to hold a primer properly. For other people, case life will be predicated by the thinning of the brass above the web as the case approaches catastrophic failure. If you are working your brass so much that you have cracks and split shoulders and necks, you need to review your loading technique.
I have reloaded rifle cases 8-10+ times without annealing and had to retire the cases when the primer pockets got too big. I get the same with annealing cases at every loading (before I resize them, of course.)
To my mind, the ONLY reason to anneal your cases is to provide a consistent neck tension. Period. End of story. And I still think I'm trimming more because of annealing but I haven't proved it to myself yet and may never be able to.
In my experience, case life for rifle cartridges is determined by the primer pocket and its ability to hold a primer properly. For other people, case life will be predicated by the thinning of the brass above the web as the case approaches catastrophic failure. If you are working your brass so much that you have cracks and split shoulders and necks, you need to review your loading technique.
I have reloaded rifle cases 8-10+ times without annealing and had to retire the cases when the primer pockets got too big. I get the same with annealing cases at every loading (before I resize them, of course.)
To my mind, the ONLY reason to anneal your cases is to provide a consistent neck tension. Period. End of story. And I still think I'm trimming more because of annealing but I haven't proved it to myself yet and may never be able to.
4xforfun
Gold $$ Contributor
bayou shooter said:
You have obviously never loaded for a factory chamber with a very genorissly cut neck.
Example.....factory AR 30 in 338 Lapua. Very genorusly cut neck. Had to size twelve thou just to be able to hold a bullet in the case neck. Cases lasted two firings then split necks. Now I anneal after every firing.....POOF...PROBLEM SOLVED!!
"PERIOD"
Tod
Brians356
Silver $$ Contributor
On another forum, quite some discussion of this annealing technique. A chap used a Tempilstik crayon and twirled the case in his fingers over a candle. Lo and behold, when the crayon "went over" he was still holding the case - but barely. Others tried it as well and verified the desired annealing had indeed set in, and voila!
I haven't tried it myself, figured someone here would have. Guess not.
Apparently the eminent John Barnsness may have popularized it in a "Handloader" article:
http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/printthread/Board/34/main/302525/type/thread
Brian
I haven't tried it myself, figured someone here would have. Guess not.
Apparently the eminent John Barnsness may have popularized it in a "Handloader" article:
http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/ubb/printthread/Board/34/main/302525/type/thread
Brian
Joe R
Gold $$ Contributor
Benvenuto Filippo,
I anneal every time, I do it before I even clean the brass.
1. Anneal
2. Deprime
3. Clean brass, etc...
I'm glad to see you're not asking why but how. Many people debate the value of annealing. Obviously you are comfortable reading English I am attaching a paper on the Science of Annealing Brass, it was interesting reading for me.
Anche io sono italiano.
Saluti,
Joe R.
P.S. The article also explains why you get split necks.
I anneal every time, I do it before I even clean the brass.
1. Anneal
2. Deprime
3. Clean brass, etc...
I'm glad to see you're not asking why but how. Many people debate the value of annealing. Obviously you are comfortable reading English I am attaching a paper on the Science of Annealing Brass, it was interesting reading for me.
Anche io sono italiano.
Saluti,
Joe R.
P.S. The article also explains why you get split necks.
I would think the size of a candle flame would be to small to heat part of the shoulder and the entire neck? Even if the flame is at 2000F it covers a very small area. You need large area being heated. Rotating shouldn't help since the other side is always cooling rapidly. The side away from the flame is cooling at several hundred degrees per second. If I wasn't retired I could try it and measure the hardness change. Why use a candle when you can use a propane touch? Two propane torches on a commercial annealer compared to a small candle flame? The brass is very thin and it looses heat rapidly. Heat is pulled out of the neck and lower shoulder by the bulk of the case.
Don't "think" about it Web, just try it and see what happens ;D.
I don't use a candle anymore but have annealed thousands of cases with one and it works just fine. It's slow. It's messy. But in a pinch it works. I have 357 Herrett cases among many others with 10+ reloads on them and still going strong with nary a split neck. Even ignoring everything else, if a candle wasn't able to produce enough heat they would've split out long ago. You can put tempilaq inside the necks and see the brass get hot enough. So with all due respect to the theoretical arguments as to why it shouldn't work, it clearly does.
Why would somebody use it instead of a propane torch? As you've noted in the past and I agree with it, the temp of the brass is increasing very rapidly under a propane torch, especially so with multiple torches. Depending on the setting, hundreds of degrees per second. That makes the time under flame much more critical than if the time to reach temperature is say 8, 9, 10 seconds with a lower temp heat source. So if doing it by hand, the advantage of a cooler flame is it makes the margin for error much larger.
Again, I'm not advocating that this is a "better" way to do it. Just saying that it can be done if a person chooses.
I don't use a candle anymore but have annealed thousands of cases with one and it works just fine. It's slow. It's messy. But in a pinch it works. I have 357 Herrett cases among many others with 10+ reloads on them and still going strong with nary a split neck. Even ignoring everything else, if a candle wasn't able to produce enough heat they would've split out long ago. You can put tempilaq inside the necks and see the brass get hot enough. So with all due respect to the theoretical arguments as to why it shouldn't work, it clearly does.
Why would somebody use it instead of a propane torch? As you've noted in the past and I agree with it, the temp of the brass is increasing very rapidly under a propane torch, especially so with multiple torches. Depending on the setting, hundreds of degrees per second. That makes the time under flame much more critical than if the time to reach temperature is say 8, 9, 10 seconds with a lower temp heat source. So if doing it by hand, the advantage of a cooler flame is it makes the margin for error much larger.
Again, I'm not advocating that this is a "better" way to do it. Just saying that it can be done if a person chooses.
Sometimes I wish I wasn't retired. At work I had all of the equipment to do metallurgical evaluations. If your at about 500F you may be stress relieving and not annealing. Some people look for a slight red color to the neck in a dark room. Red is about 1250F. 10-15 seconds total time at 1250F should over anneal, 5-8 seconds to reach red keeps people happy with the results. I use Lapua 6BR cases in my varmint rifle about 10-12 reloads no anneal no splits. I tried annealing a few cases in a lead pot at 650F. I don't know if it accomplished anything. It should have stress relieved but I don't know if that's helpful. It's nice if we can exchange what we have done and found without a pissing match. Sofar everyone has tried to comtribute something. The problem is there are many methods how do you choose?
I guess I should say something about heat treating in a lead pot. I have an old Lee pot for molding cast bullets. With the temperature turned as high as possible the lead was at 650F verified with a Harbor Freight infra red pyrometer. I held the cases just in front of the head with my fingers and immersed the neck and the shoulder only. It takes about 8-10 seconds for the case to get to hot to hold. This told me that I couldn't anneal in my lead pot. 650F should stress relieve if it's at temp long enough. Don't know how much time is required. I decided it was too much trouble to anneal for a varmint rifle. I bought 200 cases and I have been using them since 2009, one split neck. 1900 shots. When I start getting splits I'll have to decide to anneal or throw them out. The cost of cases is small compared to my other hunting exspenses. I spend $35 just for gas every time I go GH hunting. My rifle shoots groups around a quarter inch without annealing, measuring or weighing components.
I guess I should say something about heat treating in a lead pot. I have an old Lee pot for molding cast bullets. With the temperature turned as high as possible the lead was at 650F verified with a Harbor Freight infra red pyrometer. I held the cases just in front of the head with my fingers and immersed the neck and the shoulder only. It takes about 8-10 seconds for the case to get to hot to hold. This told me that I couldn't anneal in my lead pot. 650F should stress relieve if it's at temp long enough. Don't know how much time is required. I decided it was too much trouble to anneal for a varmint rifle. I bought 200 cases and I have been using them since 2009, one split neck. 1900 shots. When I start getting splits I'll have to decide to anneal or throw them out. The cost of cases is small compared to my other hunting exspenses. I spend $35 just for gas every time I go GH hunting. My rifle shoots groups around a quarter inch without annealing, measuring or weighing components.
I'm sorry if my post came across as a pissing match. Honestly it wasn't meant to be. Rereading it it looks pretty tame compared to how I've seen some people talk to each other around here recently. I zinged ya a little bit there but all I meant was to just try the technique and see what you think. It was developed by a metallurgist so it at least deserves some consideration.
By "stress relieving" I assume you're referring to recovery annealing. Yes that's all I'm trying to accomplish. I don't see the need for full annealing. Sounds like your getting good results without any additional treatment. Carry on.
By "stress relieving" I assume you're referring to recovery annealing. Yes that's all I'm trying to accomplish. I don't see the need for full annealing. Sounds like your getting good results without any additional treatment. Carry on.
I meant just the opposite. Everyone was making good coments without bashing others. I pointed out last year there is close to zero published engineering data on flash annealing. That's what reloaders are doing. That's because each company that flash anneals has to figure out what works with their part size and furnaces. Flash annealing is done to small parts and sheet for seconds at temperatures above the normal annealing temperature. To long at high temp and the part becomes dead soft. Normal heat treatments which are published are for larger parts and they are almost always one hour at lower standard anneal temperatures. There is enough info on this website to figure it out. If I anneal any cases in the future I will just give them about 6-8 seconds rotating in a propane torch flame and just accept however they turn out.
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