Annealing Brass opinions please

The heat line looks good in those images of your brass.
Like others have suggested, Tempilaq is your friend to eliminate guessing. I use Tempilaq to get set up initially but not on every case. I use an automated carousel type annealer (Gong Joe).
Interestingly, with the lights off, the case turns orange at same time the Tempilaq goes to smoke. Of course orange color indication is not a 100% proven method, there can be other variables among everybody's different setups.
I used to worry about over annealing until I watched the Eric Cortina video on You Tube. If a person has no clue, does not use Tempilaq and doesn't observe the heatline on the case, only then would you over anneal cases.
 
I just annealed a bunch of 6BR Lapua brass that didn't give the classic "annealed look" - I wonder if my AMP is broken :)

I was watching the guy on Primal Rights and he mentioned that if your brass is really clean it might not give that classic annealed "look".
Just a thought.
 
back40sniper said:
I just annealed a bunch of 6BR Lapua brass that didn't give the classic "annealed look" - I wonder if my AMP is broken :)

I was watching the guy on Primal Rights and he mentioned that if your brass is really clean it might not give that classic annealed "look".
Just a thought.
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Sometimes certain brass I anneal is very pale and others are very distinctive in colouring . šŸ‘RJ
 
I wouldn't hold it in my hand. I use a drill on slow speed, and put the brass in a spark plug socket. I anneal with the lights off - when it hits a very faint dull red at the neck and upper shoulder, I drop it in the pail. Torch just sits on the workbench burning as I go through all my brass.

Some guys quench brass, but the truth is (and here comes the hate mail), quenching only works with ferrous metals, and it actually makes those metals harder, not softer. Proper annealing involves heating, holding at heat, and cooling completely as slow as possible. This is why we anneal steel using a forge and then placing the work in a pail of vermiculite for 24 hours.

Anyway, for brass - quench, don't quench, it's all the same. It doesn't hurt anything, but it doesn't help either, no matter what youTube tells you.

Your annealed brass looks great - nice work.
 
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Canuck65 said:
I wouldn't hold it in my hand. I use a drill on slow speed, and put the brass in a spark plug socket. I anneal with the lights off - when it hits a very faint dull red at the neck and upper shoulder, I drop it in the pail. Torch just sits on the workbench burning as I go through all my brass.

Some guys quench brass, but the truth is (and here comes the hate mail), quenching only works with ferrous metals, and it actually makes those metals harder, not softer. Proper annealing involves heating, holding at heat, and cooling completely as slow as possible. This is why we anneal steel using a forge and then placing the work in a pail of vermiculite for 24 hours.

Anyway, for brass - quench, don't quench, it's all the same. It doesn't hurt anything, but it doesn't help either, no matter what youTube tells you.

Your annealed brass looks great - nice work.
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Yep. This^^^

Copper and copper alloys work harden (expansion and deformation upon firing count as work), but don't form crystalline structures with heat treatment, like ferrous metals do.
 
I skulked around a jewelry site and came across this exchange:
"P R gave a good description of annealing . It is easy to overheat and heat for too long when annealing which causes grain growth. This permanently damages the metal structure until it is remelted.
j"
"While initially the larger grain size means you cannot work the metal quite as far without risking cracking of the metal (rather like a newly poured ingot sometimes), if you overanneal the metal at a stage where you can still work the metal some more, deforming the crystals again, then a subsequent careful anneal will result in smaller crystals again.
So while over annealing does damage the metal structure, if you do it early enough in your working process to allow sufficient subsequent working, you may be able to pretty much repair the damage.
Your final crystal size may not be as small as it could have been otherwise, but it may be just fine. But to do this, you really do have to be deforming the crystal shapes. Rolling, forging, drawing down in size, twisting wire, or the like. Anything that will cause it to work harden to a goodly degree, so that with subsequent annealing the crystals again are forced to break down and recrystalize into smaller crystals. This will require more work hardening than you might get with a bit of gentle flexing or banging on the metal with a soft mallet or something. You really do need to change the shape somehow.
P R"
Usually one anneals brass before sizing, so that "kinda" fixes the problem, except you won't get as many firings before trouble creeps in.
If you anneal with every reload, then it should be a non issue if you're an "overannealer".
Conversely, if you "accidentally" over annealed, you can re-anneal after sizing, but the neck might be a bit soft on tension though.
 
Lots of the above reasoning does not work out.
For one, the concept of overannealing brass. Annealing Made Perfect's induction annealing is done at very high temperature and causes massive grain growth, do you have any evidence that this is a problem?
And my experience is that resizing only imparts about 2% cold work to a case neck, so I don't believe the theory that "overannealed" cases can be repaired by resizing and re-annealing. Simply resizing will not cause enough cold work to enable recrystallization.
 
Ruttinbuck said:
I've taken to annealing my brass every load. Im holding each brass between my thumb and fingers and twirling them in a propane torch flame close to the flame tip. I remove the brass just after the blue heat line breaks the case shoulder and quench in a wet cloth.
The 1st&2nd annealing I used a wax candle and spun the brass as described in The candle flame until too hot to hold any longer. The soot left on the brass got old quick so now it's the torch method.
The brass in the photos were done this morning. Do they look right? Too hot?
Thx for any input.View attachment 908542View attachment 908541
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You shouldnā€™t judge your annealing by how it looks. Most of that discolouration is just oxidation. Cosmetics are simply no indicator of annealing.
 
back40sniper said:
I just annealed a bunch of 6BR Lapua brass that didn't give the classic "annealed look" - I wonder if my AMP is broken :)

I was watching the guy on Primal Rights and he mentioned that if your brass is really clean it might not give that classic annealed "look".
Just a thought.
Click to expand...
Just what is ā€œclassic annealed lookā€?
 
Another vote for the "Bean Machine" from ETSY, fun to build and works very well. Wife got on my case for being a cheap skate, said I should have bought a commercial unit, but this will do the job and leave money over for beer and components.
 
wallz said:
I anneal, size and then after all that dirty stuff I clean the brass. The cleaning gives the annealing a "softer" look
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I anneal then WASH clean before resizing - I do not want dirty brass in my dies šŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļø then I tumble clean before I mandrel my neck in sides . Primers next -powder Bullets . RJ
 
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