Over Annealed?

[searcher]

I find that some brands of brass get overdone by the time one sees them glow red. It is a bit of trial and error. I find that it helps a LOT to not direct the flame on the neck, but rather down just below the neck on the shoulder. The heat will radiate up into the neck in a much more controllable fashion. I find that around 5-7 seconds is all it takes with most brass. the larger the cartridge, the more dwell time - but 30 seconds would be way too much if the flame tip was close to our touching the brass. I'd run the brass though your sizer a few times with the expander ball in it (if your die has one), it will usually work-harden the brass enough to bring it back to gripping again. After you shoot the brass again, it will also harden up quite a bit. I'd not resort to crimping. It doesn't take hardly any grip to hold a bullet adequately for a bolt gun. Good luck!

 

[Webster]

700C not F.

All your numbers are wrong. Red is about 1050F. I use to work with a PHD scientist that was a consultant to the copper industry 1050F was his opinion. The flame color change is related to the electrons in an element gaining energy then losing energy and releasing the lost energy as light. Doesn't indicate the brass temp. The flame color change is not an indication of the brass being damaged or zinc burning off. You will get the flame color change with perfectly clean brass. Junk on the surface may affect the exact color.

There are more complicated explanations on internet.
How the Flame Test Works
The basic premise is that heat from a flame gives atoms enough energy that their electrons become excited. Dropping to a more stable energy state involves the release of photons. These photons have a frequency (light color) that is a characteristic of the element.

Quantum theory holds that electrons around a nucleus are located in discrete energy levels. When energy is supplied to an atom through light or heating a substance, the electrons absorb part of the energy and jump from a low-energy or ground state to a higher energy level or excited state. Consider a single electron. After absorbing energy, it moves faster and farther from the nucleus. The electron is in an excited state. However, the excited state is not stable, and thus the electron ultimately returns to its original, lower-energy ground state.
The electron falls back to its lower-energy or ground state, once previously absorbed energy is released. The energy emitted is a photon of light of specific wavelength or color. A flame test exposes electrons to heat, resulting in signature colors of flame , enabling identification of elements.

Because different atoms have unique electron orbital arrangements, they emit unique and identifiable spectral line patterns. The human eye sees the combined result of the electron energy changes as one color. You may be asking yourself how can a color such as red be limited to one element?

At what temperature does brass change color? interner source not given.
The brass would begin to glow a dull red at round about 700 deg C. And as the temperature rose the colour would become more like cherry red. Depending on the type of brass the t,eprature could not go much higher than 900 deg before it melted. Viewed in virtual darkness the first signs of red appear at around 600 deg C.Aug 13, 2022

Added later; I see a lot of different opinions on when red first appears. I don't care what the temp is. Red for 1-2 seconds and stop.

 

[Webster]

It absolutely does relate to annealing as it indicates a temperature where elements in the brass start to burn and that’s also the annealing temperature.

Bad info.

 

[Dave M.]

I am just posting back to say that I found a solution without crimping the bullet to get the bullets to "stick". The loaded brass I have was annealed after resizing and I needed to crimp the bullets to get them to stay in place. I have another lot that was annealed before resizing and had not been loaded yet. I seated a bullet in the case that was ready for loading and could easily pull the bullet out with my fingers. In fact, I found I could push the bullet in or pull it out with my fingers. So I FL resized it and seated the bullet and found it was seated tight enough that I needed decent force on the bullet puller to remove the bullet. I found that FL resizing provides 5 Thou of "neck tension" (difference between inside case neck no bullet and bullet diameter).

Don’t anneal after resizing. This is a mistake.

 

[Rocketvapor]

I anneal then resize, body only, leaving the neck as-fired/annealed.
Nylon brush the neck.
A small bump zone at the shoulder/body might get worked a tad.
I then run it in Lee Collet die for a 0.002" fit.
About the least amount of work on the brass after annealing.

 

[bobcat93]

650 degree will not anneal brass. It will only stress relieve. Regarding your concern about over annealing brass and what you experienced, maybe something else is going on. I find this test to be very interesting.

This is a fantastic video on annealing..

 

[Webster]

This is a fantastic video on annealing..

Very interesting especially the seating force test. Sounds like people are making it way to complicated.

 

[Fire Dog]

Humm….? never seem to have this problem with my AMP…
Also not worried about setting the house/garage on fire or running out of gas and having to wait till the stores open in the morning.
Just right every time.