Dissertation & Ideas On Annealing Cartridge Brass.

[JeepHammer]

Deleted

 

[Herr Vogel]

I don't have anything to add, but I wanted to note my appreciation for the amount of technical research you put into this, and to thank you for sharing it with us.

 

[JeepHammer]

Thank you.
That's nice of you.

 

[fender]

I enjoyed the info and appreciate your sharing. I reload some wildcat cartridges and have tried to anneal with a pencil torch and it was a miserable fail.

 

[Brownie]

Mods this Should be a Sticky. Thank you very much for your time and information.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

I enjoyed the info and appreciate your sharing. I reload some wildcat cartridges and have tried to anneal with a pencil torch and it was a miserable fail.

Where do you live.....? And what case or cases are you forming...?

 

[ART338WM]

I am presently using salt bath annealing. I use a Lee lead melting pot and a thermal couple attached to my Fluke meter to maintain a temperature of between 800 and 825*/F and I
I anneal each case a timed 3 seconds. As this is my first attempt at annealing I did a test sampling of 25 each of 300WSM that had been fired 4x each and 35 Remington that have
been reloaded 5x.
I am going to reload them and see how they perform. I will chrono every round and compare my findings to past data to see if my SD's improve as I hope they will. I chose salt bath as it was and is all I can afford in DIY annealing. I am also going to give coating my bullets with HBN as well as my rifle barrels a try and see if that improves my over all accuracy.

Lastly I would love to give the stainless media you suggested a try. Could you please post a link to the source from which you buy your .045" sized media?
Thank you,
Arthur.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

I am presently using salt bath annealing. I use a Lee lead melting pot and a thermal couple attached to my Fluke meter to maintain a temperature of between 800 and 825*/F and I
I anneal each case a timed 3 seconds. As this is my first attempt at annealing I did a test sampling of 25 each of 300WSM that had been fired 4x each and 35 Remington that have
been reloaded 5x.
I am going to reload them and see how they perform. I will chrono every round and compare my findings to past data to see if my SD's improve as I hope they will. I chose salt bath as it was and is all I can afford in DIY annealing. I am also going to give coating my bullets with HBN as well as my rifle barrels a try and see if that improves my over all accuracy.

Lastly I would love to give the stainless media you suggested a try. Could you please post a link to the source from which you buy your .045" sized media?
Thank you,
Arthur.

One of the guys I shoot with uses a salt bath to anneal with, since he has gone to a neck sizer and salt annealing ( every other loadout ) he tends to have single digit deviation and at worst he gets no more than 12 and that's with 338 Lapua, 308 win and 6.5 Creedmore. He has a Labradar to get his results. I'm so impressed with the Labradar I believe I will buy one for myself this Christmas.

I have his Annealeez machine, I like it better than my Giraud.
What I like is, I can load the machine up and walk away and do other projects while it's humming along.

 

[fender]

Where do you live.....? And what case or cases are you forming...?

I live in south central part of Indiana. I really just intended to be a thank you post. I load multiple older cartridges that are made from 308 and 30/06 brass and during the shortage I hoarded up some old military brass. trying to use different aged brass was to inconsistent. I thought if I annealed the neck and shoulders it would help with life and varying bullet grip.

 

[JeepHammer]

Deleted

 

[Hohn]

Jeep, this is GREAT stuff. Keep it coming.

Talk nerdy to me!

 

[Clay Pigeon]

I live in south central part of Indiana. I really just intended to be a thank you post. I load multiple older cartridges that are made from 308 and 30/06 brass and during the shortage I hoarded up some old military brass. trying to use different aged brass was to inconsistent. I thought if I annealed the neck and shoulders it would help with life and varying bullet grip.

We form a bunch of different cases, I tend to anneal even new cases depending opon manufacture before starting the forming process. Hard brass like military and Starline gets done before and after forming and sometimes in the middle.
Forming cases like the little 17's I might anneal a few times during the stages. I've even had good luck with forming little 17's with nickle hornet brass. I do a few automag cases out of mil brass and with annealing I don't loose to many cases with crease's in the neck or shoulder.
Not to long ago I had a bucket of late 70's match LC 308 brass and when loading it the necks were splitting either when sizing, seating bullets or within a few days of being loaded, I tumbled them and ran them through the Annealeez and no more splitting.
I'm a big fan or annealing.

To the OP, great thread.

 

[JeepHammer]

Deleted

 

[Clay Pigeon]

Annealing has come far in the last 10-15 years with the average reloader, it's common place now to discuss it at the shop or range. With forming cases like 357 and 44 automag my father would cut the parent case and put it in a socket and hold it under a old bernzamatic torch and drop them in water. Then I would run them through the dies and he would do a trim and reanneal again..
Years later we argued about him dropping his cases in water..
Do you post on Castboolets? I believe you could have some interesting and great conversation there.
Again, great post.

 

[russc2542]

I find old military brass the most frustrating!
When General Dynamics/ATK/Federal took over Lake City the first thing they did was update the brass alloys, so from 2012 forward LC brass improved greatly.
It's very nearly Winchester premium in alloy and I have zero issues with it.
Function being the last word, and when you get SDs in single digits, one hole groups that's VERY hard to argue with, and let's face it, when milbrass will run with Lupua for 8¢ a case, it's YOU that wins!

I mostly shoot 'Minute Of Groundhog' or 'Minute Of Coyote'...
Most rounds fired at my range are by friends & family that shoot 'Minute Of Paper Plate' @ 100 yds.
Round sponge & ink pad make for quick/cheap paper plate targets, and the natives don't seem to complain!
I find it a pain in the butt to drag all the bench rifle gear down to the range, set up & tear down, age & weather being the biggest factors... We just don't seem to get those perfect spring & fall days anymore...

Since no one just sits and 'Visits' anymore, less & less people mess with everything they come across (more specialized & constantly busy) I figure this is as close as we'll come to passing experience along...

A guy suggested I write a book, I'm not a writer, my wife would buy 12 copies to make me feel better, I'd give away 12 copies, 10 of which would wind up leveling table legs, and the other two that sold would be a mystery, probably bought by mistake ...
Better to throw it out someplace it might be used by the 18 people remotely interested!

I hope it helps someone understand what's going on with the brass, since a reloader is interested in the brass, if for no other reason making it live longer.

I'd be one of the mystery two. I certainly appreciate the knowledge. Certainly has my gears spinning.