baking brass

andygumpers

andygumpers

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Today i de primed and washed off about 200 cases. I wanted to load them so i put them in the oven ( mother was not impressed) but i baked them at 350 for 30 mins and wow it worked grate. So I am feeling pretty proud of my idea does anyone else do this?
 
Sounds like a great idea if your trying to kill yourself. A little hotter than that and the brass will start to anneal. A soft case head WILL rupture real ugly. IIRC 482`F is the point at which brass starts to anneal. However temp and time are important if the temp is low. The oven thermometer shut the element off when it reached 350 but what temp did the bottom of the pan reach?

Your on your own dude.
 
Repete, barss will harden by working it and soften by heat.

FWIW, quenching has NO effect on brass hardness/softness. People quench either because they don't understand or they want to pick it up right away. I don't quench and therefore don't have to deal with wet brass.
 
I've gently baked off a ton of brass in the past after washing. Absolutely nothing to worry about. That slight discolouration is simply caused by the oxidation of the rapidly drying water. It does not affect shooting at all.

FYI, I have a batch of LC 69 brass which I've fed through my Garand at least 12 times now. Because the Garand tosses the empties into the dirt, I used to wash these cases and dry them quickly in the oven.

Just don't let it get too hot or keep the brass in there too long. All you want to do is dry the water off. Hell, if you're feeling really squeamish about this, just stand the brass up while wet and use a blow dryer for a minute or two.
 
yes but in hardening steel or other metals you quench them in water, brine , or air cool, this all have different effects on the hardening process,(not 100% up on my brass metallurgy) but when you get into softer metals heat added will anneal them (making them soft) a way it could be explained is a spark plug gasket on a airplane get hard over time because of the heating and cooling process that takes place in flight, at inspection time when you have the plugs out for service, you anneal the copper gaskets (done by heating them cherryish red and quenching them in water ) the purpose is when you reinstall the spark plug the gasket will form a tighter seal with the aluminum head because it is soft not hard

hope this mite answer your question
 
andygumpers said:
So is this the same idea as harding steel? case harding or tempering
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No, just the oposite.

To repete myself, brass gets harder when you work it, work means to change its shape such as resizing it.

Heating brass anneals it, which releaves the stress built up by working it. Annealing basically means to soften.

When the brass was made it was soft in a plug form. Sizing it into shape hardened it. All processes considered, the hardness of the case head is just how they want it when finished. Sometimes you see factory brass that has its necks only discolored. The factory annealed the necks because they were too hard but left the head alone.

Cheers
 
If you want to dry brass in an oven, you put it in a pre-heated oven at 200F for five minutes. You do not put it in a 350F oven for 30 minutes.

350F will not hurt the brass, but if your oven is electric, it heats by resistance elements that get much, much hotter than the oven is. These can heat objects in the oven by radiation, which is how the oven works when set to broil.

In the 30 minutes your brass was in the oven, the odds are very, very good that the heater turned on at least once, and may have heated the brass to well above 350F through radiant heating. If your brass spent even a couple of seconds at 600F, it will be dangerous to fire.

I will not stand anywhere near you when you shoot cartridges loaded with that brass.
 
I would keep baking all my brass including shotshells. Like certain cuts of meat, they may become tender if baked slowly at low temperature, basting may keep them from drying out.
 
.223Sniper said:
yes but in hardening steel or other metals you quench them in water, brine , or air cool, this all have different effects on the hardening process,(not 100% up on my brass metallurgy) but when you get into softer metals heat added will anneal them (making them soft) a way it could be explained is a spark plug gasket on a airplane get hard over time because of the heating and cooling process that takes place in flight, at inspection time when you have the plugs out for service, you anneal the copper gaskets (done by heating them cherryish red and quenching them in water ) the purpose is when you reinstall the spark plug the gasket will form a tighter seal with the aluminum head because it is soft not hard

hope this mite answer your question
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Exactly correct. Every engineer annealed the plug gaskets, which are a solid copper ring, everytime the plugs were removed. And every engineer I knew quenched them in cold water when they glowed red. This is why I am of the opinion that quenching them softens them more than air cooling.
 
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You can dry them in your cloths dryer , put them in an aluminum pie pan and use the running shoe rack that fits on the door, and no clothes in the dryer.
 
andygumpers said:
Today i de primed and washed off about 200 cases. I wanted to load them so i put them in the oven ( mother was not impressed) but i baked them at 350 for 30 mins and wow it worked grate. So I am feeling pretty proud of my idea does anyone else do this?
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I occasionally wash brass,after washing I lay all the brass out on a piece of denim and use a hair dryer and place the dryer near the case mouth and dry slowly. PS, this method won't make mom mad........:slap:
 
Optimal Case Temperatures for Successful Annealing

Brass is an excellent conductor of heat. A flame applied at any point on a case for a short time will cause the rest of the case to heat very quickly. There are several temperatures at which brass is affected. Also, the time the brass remains at a given temperature will have an effect. Brass which has been "work hardened" (sometimes referred to as "cold worked") is unaffected by temperatures (Fahrenheit) up to 482 degrees (F) regardless of the time it is left at this temperature. At about 495 degrees (F) some changes in grain structure begins to occur, although the brass remains about as hard as before--it would take a laboratory analysis to see the changes that take place at this temperature.

The trick is to heat the neck just to the point where the grain structure becomes sufficiently large enough to give the case a springy property, leaving the body changed but little, and the head of the case virtually unchanged.

If cases are heated to about 600 degrees (F) for one hour, they will be thoroughly annealed--head and body included. That is, they will be ruined. (For a temperature comparison, pure lead melts at 621.3 degrees F).

The critical time and temperature at which the grain structure reforms into something suitable for case necks is 662 degrees (F) for some 15 minutes. A higher temperature, say from 750 to 800 degrees, will do the same job in a few seconds. If brass is allowed to reach temperatures higher than this (regardless of the time), it will be made irretrievably and irrevocably too soft.
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I would say that unless you had the brass up to or over 495 degrees (F) that you should be alright.

PEI ROB said:
Repete, barss will harden by working it and soften by heat.

FWIW, quenching has NO effect on brass hardness/softness. People quench either because they don't understand or they want to pick it up right away. I don't quench and therefore don't have to deal with wet brass.
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You would quench your case to stop the heat from reaching the web and softening it rendering the case useless and dangerous to use. If you use a proper annealer with an aluminum heatsink to dissipate the heat you don't need to quench, if your holding the case and releasing it when to hot to hold anymore you are taking a risk of heating the web to undesirable temperatures if not quenching.
 
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