Annealing cases at home.

Longshot

Longshot

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I'm coming up to the point where I should anneal my match brass and I was wondering if folks are doing it at home in the oven?
I can take them all into the shop and do it with a torch but it seems like a pain in the ass.Anyone do it in the oven at home?
 
I only do the neck with a torch, never the entire case. I wouldnt put mine in an oven.. not hot enough and heats the entire case.. not what you want.
 
Definitely a no-no - you only want to anneal the neck/shoulder area and avoid annealing the web/base of the brass. There have been a few postings on annealing here that should help you out.
 
Longshot said:
I'm coming up to the point where I should anneal my match brass and I was wondering if folks are doing it at home in the oven?
I can take them all into the shop and do it with a torch but it seems like a pain in the ass.Anyone do it in the oven at home?
Click to expand...

I am glad you did ask for the advice first! Oven brass annealing is a big NO, NO! You must anneal the neck and shoulder of a brass only and leave the lower half of it (head) alone. Annealed head will lead to catastrophic case failure!
 
Annealing is typically done with the case-head in water, with the torch only heating the neck and shoulder.
I usually use a square pan with a handle, with about 1 inch of water, and two cases sitting up in the water. Immediately below that square pan, is a larger pan of water.
I heat my cases to the recommended colour, and then tip the first pan into the other, dropping the cases in.
This is the best method to use, and prevents softening of the case head which wouldn't be a good situation.
 
You ever seen a water hose in the sun, with high pressure in it. The bulge. Thats what happens when you heat the whole case. It softens the whole case to the point where it can seperate and blow back in your face. Don't ask me how I know.
I use a variable speed drill and a propane torch. I set the drill up so the torch points at the case neck. The drill has a punch in it that goes through the primer hole. I set the drill at a slow speed. Fire up the torch. Put a case on the slow spinning punch with pliers, count to 10 and knock the case off the punch into a baking tray full of water. Repeat. To date I have annealed 2200 6.5-284 and 308 cases. It works slick. I'll try and find my pictures.
 
Heating the base, as noted, is a very bad idea unless you're fond of head separations and high-pressure incandescent gas blowing back out towards your eyes...

You can buy fancy annealing rigs that use two propane torches and a motorized turntable, but as noted, all you really need is a propane torch and a shallow pan of water. The old advice was to sit the cases so the bottom third was underwater, then heat until the top of the neck was red hot, then knock over the case with a pencil.

A very good link is: http://www.lasc.us/CartridgeCaseAnnealing.htm

What he advocates is to go by colour. Almost all cartridge brass is 70/30 copper/zinc, so the colour offers a good clue as to the temperature. In essence, play the torch on the neck until there's discolouration. Worth looking at.
 
I built my annealer from pipe fittings. One end fit's in a variable speed hand drill and the other end is a threaded fitting ground back so only the neck and shoulder of the case are exposed.

You need a propane torch and the room needs to be DARK so you can observe the colour change. You are aiming for dark cherry red and you cannot see that properly in a lighted room. Rotate the fitting slowly in the flame so it's heated equally and when you see it just start to turn red dump the case in water. You do NOT want bright orange.

When you are done drain the water, and let the cases dry overnight. Usually after they are dry I put them in the polisher for 10 or 15 minutes. I've been annealling my .303 cases like this for awhile and never had a problem. When they are done you'll see discolouration on the neck to just below the shoulder. As noted above DO NOT anneal the base.

Don
 
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some "Experts" have suggested that if you see a glowing color, even in the dark, you have over annealed them and ruined them

I'm not sure about this, but be aware not everyone believes you need to heat them to glowing. Only until the brass starts to change color to a darkening (slightly)

another option is the wax crayon thing.

there is oodles of info online. Read up on it and make the decisions for yourself.
 
I have a deep socket on a cordless drill, socketsize depends on case size.Case fits just loose enough for the case to fall out if turned over.

Set up the torch , put a case in the socket, rotate in the flame until desired doneness, dump case into water.

With the lighting I have I can see the heat effected zone on the case,I don't go by the glowing red theory I follow the change in color, once this gets just below the shoulder I dump the case into a pan of water.

Goes fairly quick once you get set up.
 
I think people tend to over complicate this procedure. It only takes dong a couple cases to get a feel for it and be fairly consistent. I hold mine with my hand by the head, turn them back and fourth 3 times for about 1.5 seconds. Drop into a bucket of water. Brass soaks up the heat and dissipates it evenly, you can tell how consistent you are by looking at the discoloration.

Just think about musicians and how accurate their rythm is. It's super easy to do this consistently.

I suppose I do overheat mine, I do burn them until noticably red. The necks are dead soft. Dead soft necks are often very consistent neck tension, but that's also rather light tension. Don't have any problems. I'm pushing fairly hard and have zero issues.
 
fuzzynuts54 said:
I think people tend to over complicate this procedure. It only takes dong a couple cases to get a feel for it and be fairly consistent. I hold mine with my hand by the head, turn them back and fourth 3 times for about 1.5 seconds. Drop into a bucket of water. Brass soaks up the heat and dissipates it evenly, you can tell how consistent you are by looking at the discoloration.

'snip'

.
Click to expand...

This is how I do mine as well.

No need for some fancy aperattus to anneal your cases. If it gets too hot to hold onto the head of the case you are in danger of over anealing your cases. Just a one or 2 second blast with the propane torch flame is all you need to 'un-brittle' your cases.

Cheers!
 
There are a number of ways to do this. All agree heating the entire case is VERY BAD. When I was first instructed in annealing 30 years ago I was told to use the pan of water filled 3/4 the way up the case and heat with a torch ( in the dark ) until they just start to turn deep red then knock them over into the water.

I found this was the "less fun" way to do it.

After a break of 10 years or so I got back into this and when the necks stopped holding the bullet properly I started looking into a better way and found the pipe fitting contraption which does the same job as a deep socket but I stuck with the dark room and the deep cherry red method .

There very well may be a sound metallurgical reason for not heating to deep cherry red but I have not had one failure of the case neck as the result. When I finally throw out a .303 case it's becasue of separation at the bottom. The secret, as explained to me way back when, was the DARK room. Any light at all won't allow you to see the change and that's why a lot of people over heated the neck but it all boils down to " what works for you" . I know working in the dark doesn't suit everybody and anyone who is colour blind is out of luck waiting to see deep cherry red. I'll try the lights on look for the discolouration method next time I anneal and see how that goes

Don
 
It can also be done perfectly well with nothing more sophisticated than a candle. I did a couple hundred .270 Winchester cases recently using a candle as my heat source. I held the middle of the case between my thumb and index fingers, rotating the neck in the flame of the candle. When the middle of the case felt uncomfortably hot it was dropped onto a wet piece of paper towel. I timed this and found that 15 - 20 seconds was fine. After that point I would hold the base of the cartridge for 15 - 20 seconds and not have to get hot fingers. It makes for a gentle annealing that definitely won't wreck cases.

Before annealing the necks were hardened to the point that seating bullets was resulting in shaving copper from the bullets. Everything is good now. There have been a couple thread on 24hourcampfire.com about doing this in conjunction with neck sizing rather than full length sizing. Some are claiming to be getting dozens of reloads out of their cases.
 
The annealing time temperature for case brass is 662 F for 15 Minutes.

The problem with that is the case head will get heated too.

You can get the effect you need in a few seconds at 750 to 800 F.

Any higher and the brass will get too soft. Brass begins to glow at around 950 F.

Holding the case in steel and rotating it ensures that heat is applied evenly and the metal around the case head acts as a heat sink.

Apply a small line of 650F tempilstik (acklands-grainger #TPLT-650 $25) about a quarter inch below the shoulder and heat the case mouth while rotating.

Dump the case in the water when the stripe melts. This keeps the case head below 450F (where grain structure changes begin)


It's not that complicated, but if consistency is important then having a way to measure is best.
 
Send me an email and I'll show you how I built one for dirt cheap.

I have an article on my website for a superb commercial unit. I feel this is one of the best on the market. Expensive but really does a superb job.

I can offer you other makes as well.

Jerry
 
Unless you have a nuclear oven, an oven will never get hot enough to anneal brass. The best annealing temperature for brass is between 750 and 800 degrees F for 6 to 8 seconds. (That's not red hot. Red hot is too hot.) Any hotter, for longer will anneal the brass too much and you'll have scrap.
As mentioned, you don't anneal the whole case either. That'll soften the case heads.
 
How does over heating the necks ruin the case. I'm definatly overheating my .300win mag neck/shoulders. None of mine are junk.
 
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