Annealing, issues and advice

[ADIDAS69]

Those who reply to following i would warn you that i will not change my mind about weather or not to anneal.

For those of you who do anneal your brass I have a couple questions that i would appreciate thoughtful input in answering. Humorous input is also welcome.

I have been reloading for about two years now and have come to the point where my brass (308 Win) is refusing to go through the resizing die. I studied up on brass and annealing brass casings (6mmbr.com/ "the ABCs of reloading"). at present i am using the hornady aluminum cups and a hand drill. Tedious to say the least. I am thinking of investing in a Ken Light BC1000 but have been recently made aware of the Brass-O-Matic.

Question the first: which machine is better? I note that the Brass-O-Matic does not use water to maintain temperature control below the shoulder.

Question the second: I have not yet experienced a significant improvement in ease of resizing using my current annealing practice. What am i doing wrong?

note i use the Lee Precision Load Master for seven different calibers and it works great save of course the priming system. Also i have not yet begun to anneal other calibers as i have not figured this issue out.

Thanks to those who reply and double thanks to those who reply with useful info

[Unclenick]

Welcome to the forum.

I've never found the weather mattered to annealing; the torch takes care of that!

Water is not needed for annealing. The manufacturers don't use it, depending instead on timing of the flame exposure. As long as the heat is not applied long enough to find its way down the sides of the case to the head, you are safe. The leading edge of the surface discoloration will tell you that. Look at some new military or Lapua brass to see how they should look when you're done. Being able to see that discoloration is a reason to clean the cases before annealing.

If you are using the Hornady annealing kit, I've noticed that they supply Tempilaq that has its melt temperature at the bottom end of the brass stress relief range. I don't know why? Most of us buy 650 degree Tempilaq for case annealing. It will soften the brass more to get it that temperature. So, if you are using Hornady's materials, you may not be getting quite warm enough?

You didn't say whether you were full-length resizing or neck sizing only? In the latter case, it is normal for cases to get too tight and need to be full length resized or to have their shoulders bumped back in a Redding body die or a Forster bump die, or the like, once every so many reloads. 4 to 6 or so. If you are already full-length resizing, then you likely are just running into work hardening. IF you are using the Lee, try a different case lube. STP oil treatment works well.

[ADIDAS69]

So as an experiment i ruined seven or eight cases by torching them for roughly 45 sec. to the point where the neck nearly collapses. still i get this kind of "sticking" plus a groan in the (answer #1) full length resizing die. I have tried One Shot sizing lube and have found it to be a total joke for casings above 5.56 NATO. An associate of mine works at the local Lexus dealership and keeps me in a steady supply of their OOber awesome synthetic motor oil which i soak a cloth and then roll highly polished casing across before resizing. I still use the 450 stuff that came with the Hornady equipment though i am familiar with the rainbow of which you speak. I tried some 550 and have found that about 12 sec. casing in flame is technically correct. The reloading press shakes so muck the the locking nut for the 5 Hole disk rattles loose. Two of the other seven clibers that i reload are 300 win and 30-06 Spng Fld and i have no trouble with them.

If you can think of anything i might try that would help let me know. I build homes for a living so lately i have had a lot of time on my hands.

[jmorris]

I liked how simple the brass-o-matic design was but thought it was priced too high and needed a case feeder added to it. So I built the one below.

http://s121.photobucket.com/albums/o...etal/annealer/

Is the link to the album complete with videos and photos.

[greensteelforge]

You are probably looking at casings in which the head has expanded beyond your die's ability to resize. I had a batch of hot 7.62 NATO loads do it. No amount, type, or method of annealing will fix it. I'll point out that I am an experienced metal worker and blacksmith, and that brass will anneal pretty easily, and is pretty hard to screw up (leave melting). Check your casing heads against SAAMI specs with a micrometer, if they are too far out of spec, toss them, and start over. Your chamber could be a little on the generous side (this would explain over-stretched heads in the absence of hot loads).

[ADIDAS69]

On the basic idea that i am the greatest thing ever i load the majority of my cartridges to their NEG charge. The 308s go through a DPMS which will eat anything so i wouldn't be surprised if its the culprit. These pieces of brass have been reloaded 6 times and i have just started to anneal them. This latest batch did manage to get through the sizer with some particular encouragement. I will try dialing back the charge and run a few rounds through my Rem. 1100.

JMORRIS, I totally dig your new toy! Time to bust out the old Miller 180.

[ADIDAS69]

Rem. 700

[Kawabuggy]

Here's another idea that may help to some degree. Try removing the decapping pin from your full length sizing die, and then using a bore mop (for shotgun cleaning .410 gauge) & Flitz metal polish, polish the inside of the die. You won't be removing much material from the die, but you should notice that the brass works much easier through the die after that. You can take the inside of the die to a mirror finish if you like.

In regards to annealing, I anneal all of my cases after every firing. I am presently on my 7th reloading for my 7MM Rem. Mag, and on my 15th reload on some 30-06 cases. These cases were purchased new and have been neck-sized ONLY. I have yet to have to FLRS these cases. I understand that you are shooting a semi-auto so you HAVE to FLRS each time.

I have no experience with the machines you were inquiring about so I'll make no comments. I simply hold my cases by hand. Fast, efficient, simple.

[ADIDAS69]

I will try the straight de-priming pin, do you recon having to put the casing through a straight die with the tapered pin. I am going to start after every firing for sure. This whole nonsense started cause i got a 308 casing stuck in a sizing die.

[ADIDAS69]

I seemed to have figured this giberish. I polished the hell out of the inside of the die and still managed to weld a casing to it. So new die and a hardness test kit and I found that this brass is not only rock hard but is thick as hell and takes about twelve seconds per case to be properly annealed. Also I have taken to swabing the inside of the case neck every five rounds or so and that seems to help a ton. As it turn out quenching the casing in alchohal also dries them out like you would believe.

Thank you kindly for all of the advice gents.

[amamnn]

Just to avoid at least one or two of the many misunderstandings about annealing--which are rife and ridiculous --especially since fools on the INTERNET can now disseminate misinformation and half truths with the click of a mouse--Nick (who is NOT a fool in my experience) is both right and wrong when he talks about the use of water in annealing.


There are manufacturers of rifle brass that do use water baths when annealing cases--this is how the silly idea that we at home who may be using a single propane torch to anneal should stand cases in water. If you've seen Larry Potterfield's Miday USA commercials, you may have seen him promulgating this myth. It does not work; the water acts as a heat sink and prevents the propane torch from heating the neck enough to reset the crystalline structure of the brass alloy used in the case. I've been on one manufacturing line and seen films of another. Both used water baths to prevent over annealing of rifle cases on the factory line. BUT-BUT--BUT they were not using a single propane torch to heat the necks. They were using methods not available to the vast majority of at home annealers--which heated the necks a lot more quickly and a lot hotter that we can at home.

So, the water bath is not useful to us at home--it will do no harm but it will prevent annealing of casenecks. Additionally, the practice of holding the neck in a propane flame--rotating it until your fingers begin to scorch and then dropping it into a bucket of water is much the same. Arresting the annealing process is not necessary nor desired except in some special cases.

Ideally, we would heat the neck up very rapidly and allow to cool slowly. Fingers are not a real good measuring tool for the heat applied and so we can easily under anneal using this method. The water bath at the factory is used because --folks--in business--time is money---you do know that, right?

A double torch method seems to get us the best we can get at home--failing the availability of a very expensive commercial grade induction heater. If you are using a very thin neck wall on a short small bore case you may find that you'd like to stop the process once you're SURE that you have annealed the neck. Even so, I know some folks who anneal .223 and 6ppc cases on the Ken Light annealer or home made machines without quenching. The newer KL machines have a heavy shell plate made for these kinds of cases and which act as heat sinks to accomplish the same function as quenching.


http://www.6mmbr.com/annealing.html

http://www.lasc.us/CartridgeCaseAnnealing.htm