My winter project has been to better understand annealing and see if I could develop a process that works for me. If you read the articles on 6mmbr and watch the videos of the hand fed annealing machines, it still seems to me to be subjective as to what a correctly annealed case looks like.
In my article on my 300wsm on 6mmbr, I show how I use 650 degree F paint to anneal the necks so they did not split. This works well but did not line up with the temperatures or brass color others were claiming as part of correctly annealed cases.
I have tested up to 1000 deg F so far and thought I would put some comparison pics out there.
Here is a case prepared with 1000 deg paint.
3 different heat levels
Case #1 was heated using the 1000 deg paint
Case #2 was heated until the neck was dull red
Case #3 was heated until the mouth of the case turned bright red.
As you can see, there where different heat levels as the coloration moves down the case. It takes about 10 seconds of heating with my torch arrangement for the 1000 deg paint to liquify. About 12 seconds of heating for the neck to turn dull red and about 14 seconds for the neck of the case to turn bright red.
Turning necks dull red is one school of thought on how to anneal cases but it is usually thought to happen at a lower temperature than 1000 deg F.
Notice that I did not lose the shine on the case in either heats, also another school of thought of when cases are over heated.
The mouth of the case that I turned red, greyed out after it cooled and the brass seemed soft by the hand squeeze test.
In my article on my 300wsm on 6mmbr, I show how I use 650 degree F paint to anneal the necks so they did not split. This works well but did not line up with the temperatures or brass color others were claiming as part of correctly annealed cases.
I have tested up to 1000 deg F so far and thought I would put some comparison pics out there.
Here is a case prepared with 1000 deg paint.
3 different heat levels
Case #1 was heated using the 1000 deg paint
Case #2 was heated until the neck was dull red
Case #3 was heated until the mouth of the case turned bright red.
As you can see, there where different heat levels as the coloration moves down the case. It takes about 10 seconds of heating with my torch arrangement for the 1000 deg paint to liquify. About 12 seconds of heating for the neck to turn dull red and about 14 seconds for the neck of the case to turn bright red.
Turning necks dull red is one school of thought on how to anneal cases but it is usually thought to happen at a lower temperature than 1000 deg F.
Notice that I did not lose the shine on the case in either heats, also another school of thought of when cases are over heated.
The mouth of the case that I turned red, greyed out after it cooled and the brass seemed soft by the hand squeeze test.
