Removing the hardness to a sizing die.

[MGYSGT]

Already voted. Got my early ballot last week and Voted for the "locker room foul mouth". Then I carried it down and put it in the box. Before I forget. Shortgrass, if you don't like what I post, don't read it. You remind me of my X wife. She always could read my mind or knew what I was going to do. At least that is what she would say. Most of the time she was wrong.

 

[hogpatrol]

Heat it up cherry red and then throw it in a bucket of ice water. If you're going to ruin it, you might as well do it quick.

 

[jfseaman]

I bought a passel of dies that were old and for obscure chamberings just for the purpose of trying out cutting with Carbide and annealing.

Shortgrass is being such a cynic it invites rebuttals.

1 they are my dies!
2 if "information" is correct or incorrect does it really matter that much?
3 what is your professional or lay experience with annealing?
4 I didn'the see the ballot electing you Internet sheriff of posting, did I miss something?

Just joking, the point is that shortgrass might lighten up. Sounds a bit like "don't take the car, you'll kill yourself ". LOL

 

[butchlambert]

On my BR and PPC cartridges I spec a die reamer that is .003" less at the base and .002" less at the shoulder and ream my own sizers and have them melonited.

 

[Kings X]

If you are wanting to shorten the die a few thousands - I suggest you machine the top of the shell holder. RCBS are soft.
But I have annealed RCBS dies for years as described. Cut 308 to 1-1/2" 308 before there was 30 BR.
Reamed 221 to 30 Whisper.
I saw no need to re-harden as I was only doing a few hundred cases a year.

 

[MGYSGT]

Thanks for all the info.

Tom

 

[ireload2]

Annealing a RCBS die is as simple as putting it on the burner of a natural gas kitchen range and heating it for an hour or so on high.
Then turn down the flame a little now and then. Eventually the flame will be so low you will have to turn it out. Let the die cool where it sits.
This removes the heat treat from the entire die.

Or if you need to work on a localized area you can grind through the skin.

Or if you have a rigid lathe or mill and carbide cutters you can machine it as is.

This worked 45 years ago.

The steel in the loading die is not through hardened so it is case hardened about .010 to .020 thick. Under the case is soft steel. You can machine through the case hardening with carbide. My 20th edition of Machinery's Handbook has quite a bit of material on heat treating.

Some things are not very critical like horse shoes, hand grenades and thermonuclear weapons.
Close counts.

Go ahead, play with annealing a die. When you succeed or fail you'll return to the interdnet giving some off the wall reason why you failed or succeeded, that won't make a lick of sense to anyone who knows anything about heat treating. You will help spread the mis-information that seems to 'swirl' about on these forums. Ever wonder why more and more of the "old timers" no longer post? Could it be because of the absolute nonsense that seems to have taken over? Everyone wants to be the local 'expert' without putting in the time. Why not "fill up your days" with your nose in some reference books getting some actual fact and then proceed from there? I warn you ahead of time, published heat treat information can be hard to fine, especially when you don't know what steel you have in hand.......