I am wanting to know if I can anneal nickel brass the same as yellow brass? Can I do this or does it screw up the nickel plating? I am making 25-06 out of 30-06. Can't seem to find any 25-06 stuff but have quite a bit of 30-06 nickel stuff here.
Annealing Brass
- Thread starter Brad925
- Start date
Just get some brass 30-06 cases and save yourself the trouble.
I have bags of once fired that I pickup at the range which I then turn into .270 for my hunting gun.
I have not tried annealing nickel cases, but nickel being a different metal than brass I would hazard a guess that it will most likely become hardened in the brass annealing process. Someone who knows something about metallurgy may be able to shed more light on whether or not this is true.
I have bags of once fired that I pickup at the range which I then turn into .270 for my hunting gun.
I have not tried annealing nickel cases, but nickel being a different metal than brass I would hazard a guess that it will most likely become hardened in the brass annealing process. Someone who knows something about metallurgy may be able to shed more light on whether or not this is true.
If I can use the nicle stuff I will. Like I said I have lots of it. I already did a few test and it sized and trimmed up easily enough I just figured if I could anneal them it would help. As well they are as far as I know only nicle plated not solid nickel.
We were discussing this at the gun show Sunday. I have not done it but my shooting buddy did a bunch last fall. The cases are nickel plated not made of nickel so annealing them does work. The annealing left the nickel black in the neck and shoulder area. The black can be polished off, but required significant effort with scotch brite polishing pads.
Some times the nickel flakes off. Deforming the brass when necking down. Also it scuffs up the dies. And is a lot harder on your trimmer. Unless it's carbide. But still hard on the cutter. Necks seem to split more frequently than regular brass. It's kinda a pain in the @ss.
Don't heat them red hot. I turn mine in a deep socket in a drill until you get a bluish rainbow effect that starts moving toward the shoulder. I then spin inside the neck with steel wool on a slotted piece of wood dowel in a drill. It cleans up some of that abrasive nickel that gets inside the neck from the manufactuer. It scratches the bullet when seating if not polished. Which effects accuracy.
No. Heating the brass to red hot will make it too soft which, in turn, can be dangerous when fired.
Paul Jacobsen
Member
Brad....you really need to do some reading on Annealing. Doing brass is often done in a water bath, the neck and shoulder are heated with a torch....>DO NOT heat to red hot, in fact if you can see the red in daylight, you have gone too far. Slightly heat the area for approx 5-6 seconds with a moderate flame and then knock them over into the water...it will NOT harden them. Heating steel to red hot then quenching will not temper them either.....it anneals to make the steel soft. It is the next heating to straw, purple blue and a quench that tempers the steel.
Yes you can anneal NP cases. I have done it opening up 30-06 to 35 Whelen. Without it the split rate was very high. Annealed and no more splits. Run a stainless bore brush on a drill and make a pass into and out of the neck with the drill and brush BEFORE running them into the die and it will remove the nickel inside the neck making sizing up much easier...you doing 25-06 might want to lightly lube the inside and outside of the neck to make for a smoother transition. Check overall case length after sizing down and make sure the necks are not too long. Trim them about 15 thous back from max and you are good to go for at least 3-4 loadings without trimming again.
Yes you can anneal NP cases. I have done it opening up 30-06 to 35 Whelen. Without it the split rate was very high. Annealed and no more splits. Run a stainless bore brush on a drill and make a pass into and out of the neck with the drill and brush BEFORE running them into the die and it will remove the nickel inside the neck making sizing up much easier...you doing 25-06 might want to lightly lube the inside and outside of the neck to make for a smoother transition. Check overall case length after sizing down and make sure the necks are not too long. Trim them about 15 thous back from max and you are good to go for at least 3-4 loadings without trimming again.
If you heat the brass until it is red hot, you might as well throw it away.
No it won't harden brass cases.
quenching has no effect on brass, only helps to stop heat transfer to the base
I used to heat 'til red hot, and the only problem was that a very few would just crumple in the die. Garbage.
