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Can I get a sanity check on my first time annealing?

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762libertarian

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Minuteman
Feb 24, 2012
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So I'm trying annealing for the first time. I'm using a European brand of brass that is rumoured to have good consistency but rather stiff necks. After about 3 times reloading these cases I put them in a hex socket mounted to a handheld drill and held the shoulder of the case in front of a butane/propane mixed gas burner. It says 1925 C on the can but that doesn't worry me too much. I kept the case spinning slowly for 7-10 seconds, dropping the case out of the socket when I saw the neck and shoulder area change colour. I've read that you're supposed to look for a blueish tint, but I got mostly silver.

The base of the case were too hot to touch when I quit heating the case up, but the discoloration from the heating is far from the base of the base.

Does it sound like these cases are safe to fire or am I going out on a thin branch?

I've read that you're supposed to be prepared to lose some brass when learning annealing. How am I supposed to know when I should discard a piece?

I also tried "annealing" a case for 20-30 seconds. It turned all kinds of colours, including silver all the way down to the base. The neck on that case can be deformed easily. It's definitely wasted.

The purpose of the annealing is to improve accuracy after having some problems that I associate to uneven neck tension, mainly that the overall length can vary significantly within a batch of reloads even though I have the same settings, lube and lever stroke on every round in the batch.
annealed.jpg
 
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I belive you have a problem. You have two potential issues. If you have over annealed the neck when resized and a bullet is inserted, the brass is too soft and the bullet will have little or no neck tension holding it.

If you have overheated the body, it will also be soft. When this happens the body above (neck side) the head junction can be crushed easily with a pair of pliers.

I recommed you take one of your annealed cases and try crushing it with pliers. Then take an non-annealed piece and do the same. If you feel a difference then you have most probably ruined the brass and I would NOT shoot it. You have the potential for a full case head seperation.

Using a butane/propane torch in itself should not be a problem, but 7 to 10 seconds seems excessive, even for propane only. I anneal for 5 to 6 seconds with a small torch (WT2201) for 308 LC brass.

I do not anneal often, but I do occasionally in small batches and here is my advice on technique. Hold the brass by the rim and spin it in your fingers while in the flame. Watch the color in a fairly dark room and when you see the neck/shoulder dull red, actually you should just begin to see a glow. You are done. This should happen as you begin to feel the rim heating up. At this point dump the brass in water. If the rim gets too hot to hold before the neck glows you are heating too slow. Using this method and testing a few cases can help you develop a feel for annealing you brass.
 
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Erik Cortina has some interesting annealing videos.



I run my dual propane bench source till I see the flame turn. That's right when I can see the necks start to glow.

The issue with the socket trick would be consistency. Heating the neck equally...and as was said, heating it quick enough that the neck anneals but the case body doesn't. That's why I chose a bench source over some of the other propane deals..2 flames and the case itself spins. So it heats up evenly and quickly.
 
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Good information already. My gut feeling is you heated too long and ruined the cases.

I use to do what you're doing but only heated them until they started to glow when viewed in a darkened room. The key there is a darken room. If the area is lighted you can't see the red glow start.
 
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Thank you all for your input. I've actually watched that guide video and some of Cortinas videos before, but I figured I'd need some more time in the flame as I have a single torch. I was also waiting for something visual to happen with the brass, and I started to get a real colour shift at a count of 8 or so.

I now realize I did my annealing in a very well lit environment (sunny) . I'll do it again in a dark room to see at what time I get that red flame. I reckon that all setups are different.

I sized the brass side by side with unannealed cases and the annealed cases weren't at all easier to size, at least as far as I could feel it. I'll try annealing in a dark room as well as crushing a couple of cases.
 
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762libertarian said:
So I'm trying annealing for the first time. I'm using a European brand of brass that is rumoured to have good consistency but rather stiff necks. After about 3 times reloading these cases I put them in a hex socket mounted to a handheld drill and held the shoulder of the case in front of a butane/propane mixed gas burner. It says 1925 C on the can but that doesn't worry me too much. I kept the case spinning slowly for 7-10 seconds, dropping the case out of the socket when I saw the neck and shoulder area change colour. I've read that you're supposed to look for a blueish tint, but I got mostly silver.

The base of the case were too hot to touch when I quit heating the case up, but the discoloration from the heating is far from the base of the base.

Does it sound like these cases are safe to fire or am I going out on a thin branch?

I've read that you're supposed to be prepared to lose some brass when learning annealing. How am I supposed to know when I should discard a piece?

I also tried "annealing" a case for 20-30 seconds. It turned all kinds of colours, including silver all the way down to the base. The neck on that case can be deformed easily. It's definitely wasted.

The purpose of the annealing is to improve accuracy after having some problems that I associate to uneven neck tension, mainly that the overall length can vary significantly within a batch of reloads even though I have the same settings, lube and lever stroke on every round in the batch.View attachment 7575448
Click to expand...
Watch this video. I found it quite interesting.

 
I wouldnt waste any cases to the crush test. You wont learn anything other than one was slightly easier to cruah than the other. Use the suspected over annealed one as a test round or turn it into a dummy round or something.
 
Doom said:
Using a butane/propane torch in itself should not be a problem, but 7 to 10 seconds seems excessive, even for propane only. I anneal for 5 to 6 seconds with a small torch (WT2201) for 308 LC brass.
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My recent experiment led me to the same conclusion on the duration. 5-6 seconds is about right.

What I did (considering that it was my first time annealing) was to anneal and do everything I wanted, then I ran a mandrel down in the case neck just before charging the cases. So far it's working pretty good.
 
So this brass is .308 Winchester brass from a 400 pack of match ammo I got a couple of years ago. I can spare 10-20 pieces for the sake of science.

I redid the annealing in a dark room. I used a smartphone timer and I found that if I remove the case after about 7-8 seconds, the neck will glow red for a moment when it's out of the flame. Usually I got more red flames shooting out from the case at 6+ seconds, but since my brass is dirty that's kind of unreliable.

So anyway, 7-8 seconds gave me glowing necks. 10 seconds gave me a glowing shoulder. If I held the case in a pincer grasp I could keep it in there for 5-6 seconds before it became uncomfortable, but I really don't like glancing over at the timer while having my fingers a couple of inches from that torch, while moving them around to get an even heat treatment on the brass... So I switched to the drill and socket method and did a bunch of cases at 5-6 seconds in the flame. Maybe saw a shimmer of glowing necks at a few of them, definitely saw some red flame. According to Primal Rights, that's bad. Eric Cortina doesn't seem to mind at all. In his video on his own proper process, he explicitly states that he wants there to be a little red in there. Don't know who's right but I think neither of them is completely wrong.

I'm going to examine them and perhaps discard a few that has less or more discolouration than the average of the bunch, but it's really deceptive to use the colouration as a measure, as the brass has a discolouration from the factory, and it's dirty, which proably has an effect on the surface as it burns. That guide video above from Primal Rights also stated that the brass changes colour in time. I suppose that makes sense, and that's even more of an argument against primarily relying on what the brass itself looks like.

So now, with my 5-6 second flamed brass cases, do you think I'm at a higher than normal risk of injury if I load it up and shoot it? I'll wear eye protection and keep my first aid kit close....

I'm a little concerned that the ones that went at 5.0 seconds might be less ideally annealed than those that went at 5.9 seconds, but I'll live with that for now.
 
762libertarian said:
So now, with my 5-6 second flamed brass cases, do you think I'm at a higher than normal risk of injury if I load it up and shoot it? I'll wear eye protection and keep my first aid kit close....
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Based on my nominal knowledge of annealing you should be fine. That said let's see what the more experienced annealers have to say.

It's just my opinion here but people worry a lot about the body of the case getting hot, which is ok but some people worry about it too much because of stuff floating around the internet. All I know is when the brass comes out of my gun it's really hot too. Hotter to the touch at least than what I got annealing. That said I've seen some people throw away brass because it basically 'got warm'...not hot...just warm when annealing. I think where people get in trouble is when they let their cases marinate in heat for a long time. By "a long time" I mean 8-10+ seconds or longer. Less than that I would think isn't an issue from a safety perspective.

4 seconds vs 6 seconds or something like that when it comes to effectiveness in regards to accuracy or whatever is supposed to make a difference, but most likely nothing to do with safety.
 
A couple notes:

- The actual time a case spends annealing is, by itself, meaningless. It is the combination of time, distance from the flame, and number of flame sources that will combine to deliver the end result.
- I used to anneal for 10-14 seconds when I flame annealed. Some may say, "anything over 5 seconds is over annealing!" They would be wrong. I moved the torch heads back to have it take longer to heat up so I could watch the color change as it occurred. As soon as the color progressed past the shoulder, I dumped the case out of the flame. What matters is the temperature of the brass and how long it stays at that temperature.
 
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Rocketmandb said:
A couple notes:

- The actual time a case spends annealing is, by itself, meaningless. It is the combination of time, distance from the flame, and number of flame sources that will combine to deliver the end result.
- I used to anneal for 10-14 seconds when I flame annealed. Some may say, "anything over 5 seconds is over annealing!" They would be wrong. I moved the torch heads back to have it take longer to heat up so I could watch the color change as it occurred. As soon as the color progressed past the shoulder, I dumped the case out of the flame. What matters is the temperature of the brass and how long it stays at that temperature.
Click to expand...
Excellent post.

Something to learn here and take note of.
 
Rocketmandb said:
A couple notes:

- The actual time a case spends annealing is, by itself, meaningless. It is the combination of time, distance from the flame, and number of flame sources that will combine to deliver the end result.
- I used to anneal for 10-14 seconds when I flame annealed. Some may say, "anything over 5 seconds is over annealing!" They would be wrong. I moved the torch heads back to have it take longer to heat up so I could watch the color change as it occurred. As soon as the color progressed past the shoulder, I dumped the case out of the flame. What matters is the temperature of the brass and how long it stays at that temperature.
Click to expand...
Very good points. I find it very hard to see the color change or the glow when the case is in the flame, close to the nozzle. Do you have any issues with the precision of the heating when you keep rhe case that far out?
 
I for what it’s worth, I anneal all my brass for 5-7 sec, depending on what brand/thickness of brass I’m using. I use a torch and drill.

My 6.5 Creed is Alpha brass and 5-6 seconds.

My 7SS/338SS is 6-7 seconds. It’s ADG and just a touch thicker.

Never had an issue so far. My loads are consistent. My brass life so far seems limited by the pressures I run. I haven’t had a case head separation or split neck yet. YMMV.

I think your 6 second brass is probably fine.
 
762libertarian said:
Very good points. I find it very hard to see the color change or the glow when the case is in the flame, close to the nozzle. Do you have any issues with the precision of the heating when you keep rhe case that far out?
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When the case is at the end of the flame, you can see the color change quite easily, and you have about a second to react from the time where the color change starts to where it "grows" to below the shoulder.

As to the precision due to variables like flame placement, timing - I'll add in room temp - it is precisely the distance/slower speed of transition and using color change of the brass (not the glowing of the neck) that enables the precision.

After a lot of experimentation, using Tempilaq, etc., I found the keys to be:

- Using a metronome to know when to expect the color change so you can watch for it.
- Doing this in a well-lit area so you can clearly see the transition.
- Doing it when the wife isn't home (see below)
- Having a mechanism to consistently hold the case in the same basic spot each time.
- Placement of the flames (as mentioned)
- Aiming the flame just below the neck/shoulder and not at the top of the neck - otherwise, the smaller amount of brass at the top of the neck starts its transition too early and can get over done.
- Spinning the case for even distribution.

I'd still be doing this, but I reload in my office, and the only time I could anneal was if the wife wasn't home. If she found out I was using open flames in the house, that would be that :) So, I moved to induction.

Good thing too, because since covid hit and her office closed, she's working from home. I'd have no opportunity to anneal.

Anyway, I got exceedingly consistent results. I measure close to every shot I take with my Labradar, and with my 6 BRA, I was getting ~4.5 SDs, and with my 300 PRC I got about 6. Again, not cherry picking 5 or 10 shots, but across an entire day shooting (usually 50-100 6mm and usually 50 300 PRC). My flame annealing process wasn't 100% to credit for that, but definitively part of it.
 
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918v said:
Neck tension doesn’t help when the neck doesn’t spring back.
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how are you measuring the actual tension the case has on the bullet? And how are you determining what point is acceptable or not?
 
Stop playing games. You know exactly how neck tension is measured. I’m not doing anything different.
 
Rocketmandb said:
When the case is at the end of the flame, you can see the color change quite easily, and you have about a second to react from the time where the color change starts to where it "grows" to below the shoulder.

As to the precision due to variables like flame placement, timing - I'll add in room temp - it is precisely the distance/slower speed of transition and using color change of the brass (not the glowing of the neck) that enables the precision.

After a lot of experimentation, using Tempilaq, etc., I found the keys to be:

- Using a metronome to know when to expect the color change so you can watch for it.
- Doing this in a well-lit area so you can clearly see the transition.
- Doing it when the wife isn't home (see below)
- Having a mechanism to consistently hold the case in the same basic spot each time.
- Placement of the flames (as mentioned)
- Aiming the flame just below the neck/shoulder and not at the top of the neck - otherwise, the smaller amount of brass at the top of the neck starts its transition too early and can get over done.
- Spinning the case for even distribution.

I'd still be doing this, but I reload in my office, and the only time I could anneal was if the wife wasn't home. If she found out I was using open flames in the house, that would be that :) So, I moved to induction.

Good thing too, because since covid hit and her office closed, she's working from home. I'd have no opportunity to anneal.

Anyway, I got exceedingly consistent results. I measure close to every shot I take with my Labradar, and with my 6 BRA, I was getting ~4.5 SDs, and with my 300 PRC I got about 6. Again, not cherry picking 5 or 10 shots, but across an entire day shooting (usually 50-100 6mm and usually 50 300 PRC). My flame annealing process wasn't 100% to credit for that, but definitively part of it.
Click to expand...
Yeah I did it in the home office as well. I'm surprised how easy the diplomacy went. She puts way too much trust in me.

I'm not a much better marksman than I am a reloader, but I'll try to compare these torch-annealed cases to unannealed cases side by side with a cheap chronograph and some groups.

My overall goal for this season is to pick between 167 Scenars and 155 scenars over Vihtavuori N150. Every time I go to the range I find that I need to improve either my shooting or my reloading in order to give both bullets a fair shot. Last test showed that the 167 gr bullet went below the listed speed, while the 155 gr bullet went faster than listed in the Vihtahuori manual. However, neither grouped below 1 MOA with any reliability and the 167 gr bullet was the least bad of the two. The factory ammo I've been shooting has been better than that, and that's why I'm messing with my loading technique. If I can get the 155 gr to shoot just a little bit tighter then I'm ready to stock up.
 
I started with salt bath annealing, built my own torch unit, then finally bought a Bench Source annealer and LOVE it. I use Tempilaq paint to make sure the right part gets hot enough and watch it to make sure it doesn't go beyond. Works great for me.
 
charliehorse27 said:
I started with salt bath annealing, built my own torch unit, then finally bought a Bench Source annealer and LOVE it. I use Tempilaq paint to make sure the right part gets hot enough and watch it to make sure it doesn't go beyond. Works great for me.
Click to expand...
Salt bath annealing is terrible - slow, messy, dangerous, corrosive, inconsistent.
 
I coat my case necks in tempilaq and stand them upright in a shallow dish of water on a lazy susan to keep the bottom half of the case cool, then give it a spin and fire away until the tempilaq melts/changes color.

Makes it a whole lot harder to screw it up, even when I have small variations in flame. The tempilaq is like $20 and lasts forever, and I stole the lazy susan from the kitchen.
 
vinniedelpino said:
I coat my case necks in tempilaq and stand them upright in a shallow dish of water on a lazy susan to keep the bottom half of the case cool, then give it a spin and fire away until the tempilaq melts/changes color.

Makes it a whole lot harder to screw it up, even when I have small variations in flame. The tempilaq is like $20 and lasts forever, and I stole the lazy susan from the kitchen.
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I did the same until I lost the lazy susan in a divorce. Ended up finding a deal on an Annie 😎
 
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TheGerman said:
This whole fuck fuck game is why I bought an AMP.

I'd spend some much time changing variables one at a time to come close, then not, and then it wouldn't be the same next time that I just said fuck it.

I don't miss trying to set an annealer up at all.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

And to the OP, if you fear that your cases are overannealed, do not crush them with pliers or sacrifice them as dummy rounds or something stupid. Just run it through a die a few times and it will work harden back to a "normal" state. The brass isn't destroyed or ruined, not until you take some pliers to them...
 
kthomas said:
Agreed.

And to the OP, if you fear that your cases are overannealed, do not crush them with pliers or sacrifice them as dummy rounds or something stupid. Just run it through a die a few times and it will work harden back to a "normal" state. The brass isn't destroyed or ruined, not until you take some pliers to them...
Click to expand...
If the neck is over annealed this may work as the neck is alternately resized in the process. THIS WILL NOT WORK if the base of the cartridge has been damaged.
 
Wondering where everyone thinks their case necks end up on an annealing scale from 1% to 100%. With 1 being not annealed (Hardest) and 100 being 100% annealed (softest)

What percent annealed is your case?
What method are you using?
 
I use gunblues method. I put my cases in a water bath and spin them. The water is a good safe heat sync. Seems like 7-10 seconds is way too long. I turn my 338 lm cases to 5 Mississippi
 
2aBaCa said:
This seems to be the common trend. Nobody really knows what exactly they are doing to the brass.
Click to expand...

I'm far from an expert in annealing, and quite frankly at this time, don't have the time or the passion to do a deep dive in annealing.

I guess that's why I got an AMP. It takes all the guess work out of it, and makes it easy. Set it to the correct program for your specific brass, and the brass is allegedly annealed to it's optimum amount (how and what that is, is beyond me). I'm sure there is some debate around what is "optimal" annealing, and how to get there. In my limited testing with the AMP, a range of programs doesn't make that much of a difference, not downrange at least. As long as you are in the correct ballpark, say +/- a few programs (i.e. program #72-75 for 6BRA with Lapua brass), it's performing it's job. I haven't bought into the idea that you need to be super precise, in which one specific program will be optimized for your brass (and likewise, the AZTEC feature).

I don't want to deal with open flames, tempilaq, trying to get the timing right, the torch intensity right, adjusting the torch as fuel pressure changes, etc. I'm not so sure the preciseness of an AMP is necessary for proper annealing, but it makes the process easy, which is why I got it. People seem to get good results from a plethora of torch style annealers, which is a very imprecise process, which tells me that annealing doesn't need to be a precision process, and I'm not convinced that there is an "optimum" annealing amount.

I would be curious to hear from others, that have done a much deeper dive then myself in annealing, and even their own testing, what their thoughts are. I'm not sure how many people there are that really take the time to understand and test annealing, versus people like me, that do it because it's stated to be a "best practice", without really taking the time to understand the process, or what "optimum" annealing even is as a premise.
 
I will say that I did find out what incorrect annealing was, when I was using the wrong pilot for my AMP initially when annealing 6BRA brass. I initially used a 6 Dasher pilot instead of a 6BRA pilot (6 BRA wasn't a popular cartridge when I got into it, and thus, there was no pilot listed for 6BRA at the time). That small difference of a few thou in that Dasher pilot resulted in poor neck tension results - the brass got too soft with annealing and I didn't have any neck tension.
 
kthomas said:
I'm not convinced that there is an "optimum" annealing amount.
Click to expand...
I might say that there might be an "optimum" amount, but that within a certain band, there is not enough difference to spend the time/resources to get to exactly that amount.

What this all comes down to is the force holding the bullet in the neck. The way to test it is to have an apparatus that tests the force required to pull a bullet. Then you could anneal different amounts, seat, pull and measure. Fun! (no).
 
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kthomas said:
I will say that I did find out what incorrect annealing was, when I was using the wrong pilot for my AMP initially when annealing 6BRA brass. I initially used a 6 Dasher pilot instead of a 6BRA pilot (6 BRA wasn't a popular cartridge when I got into it, and thus, there was no pilot listed for 6BRA at the time). That small difference of a few thou in that Dasher pilot resulted in poor neck tension results - the brass got too soft with annealing and I didn't have any neck tension.
Click to expand...
How did the too soft brass perform differently?
 
kthomas said:
There was no neck tension. I could literally push a bullet in the case deeper with pressure from my finger.
Click to expand...
Assuming this was done using your normal process. Bushing, mandrel, whatever.

Could you modify your process to size the neck smaller to create the desired tension? Therefore creating the same results either way?

This whole over annealing thing bugs me. Its like saying its 110% annealed. It can only be up to 100% annealed(fully annealed). and if 100% is over annealed then people must be doing less than 100%. Nobody can put a number on it.

There is this thing people do that seems to work. Nobody knows how it works. You can do it yourself. over do it and you'll ruin your brass, under do it and your brass will ruin itself. They sell machines that do it for you.
 
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2aBaCa said:
Assuming this was done using your normal process. Bushing, mandrel, whatever.

Could you modify your process to size the neck smaller to create the desired tension? Therefore creating the same results either way?

This whole over annealing thing bugs me. Its like saying its 110% annealed. It can only be up to 100% annealed(fully annealed). and if 100% is over annealed then people must be doing less than 100%. Nobody can put a number on it.
Click to expand...

Nothing in my process changed, I just started annealing (and with the wrong pilot, unbeknownst to me), and I had issues with neck tension (I believe I was using a bushing to create ~3 thou of neck tension at the time even). I stopped annealing, problem immediately went away.

Then a year later I re-explored annealing with my 6BRA and realized I had the wrong AMP pilot. I purchased the correct pilot and tried annealing again, and it worked without the issues I experienced previously.

I can't answer your question in regards to 110% annealing. All I know is that the issue occurred after introducing a single variable, and went away after that variable was removed from my process. I have no interest in changing my process in hopes of making an incorrect AMP pilot work, especially now that I have the correct pilot. I believe that a repeatable reloading process is key to reloading success, and since I have that already going for me, I have no plans on changing that.

AMP says this on their website, I'm assuming this had something to do with my issues. I haven't further explored the issue beyond what I outlined above, so I will take their word for it:

Depth of insertion into the air gap is critical. A variation of only a few millimeters can make a difference of 20 HV (Hardness Vickers) or more in the result. Therefore we supply depth specific pilot which do not need adjustment. Just thread them all the way in and they are ready to go. There is still some commonality. For example, the family .243 W, 7-08 R and 308 W all share the same pilot #11.
Click to expand...
 
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