Question on annealing

[conan32120]

If I understand it correctly y'all anneal your brass to keep it soft for multiple reloading. If this is a true statement why is military brass annealed? It can't possibly be they're hoping to reload it.

 

[Yankee1986]

If I understand it correctly y'all anneal your brass to keep it soft for multiple reloading. If this is a true statement why is military brass annealed? It can't possibly be they're hoping to reload it.

I believe it provides consistent neck tension.

 

[243winxb]

Brass work hardens when forming. Annealing has to be done to keep the finished cartridge brass from cracking.

Annealing the neck shoulder area, also stress relieves the area near the case head @ about 470F degrees. Less chance of a head separation.

 

[Toprudder]

I’m not sure, but I believe all brass is annealed at some point during the manufacturing process. The visible discoloration from the annealing process can be removed by tumbling the brass after it is annealed. Loaded rounds with visible annealing coloration may not have been tumbled after it was annealed.

I usually anneal my brass, size and trim them, and then wet tumble them to remove the lube and metal shavings. The tumbling process removes the discoloration.

 

[N555]

Most bottle necked brass is flamed as one of the last steps, with commercial brass they usually polish it make it look nice.

 

[MEHavey]

done to keep the finished cartridge brass [necks] from cracking
[while sitting in supply depots for decades] meh

^^^^ THIS ^^^^

 

[AJC1]

I mostly anneal range pickups to prevent cracks and speed up fire forming. I only clean once and that's when they are wet tumbled after decaping. If you see anneal marks on my brass it's on its first reload.
The military wants the brass to function as new and grip the chamber walls and cycle as new in semi automatics.

 

[Walkalong]

The brass gets work hardened from the forming process, but the front part of the case needs to be soft enough to easily expand to seal the chamber without cracking/splitting etc, so it's annealed.

Military rounds don't have the annealing "mark" tumbled off, so it's not pretty like commercial cases, but they have all been annealed after forming.

 

[conan32120]

So the military annealing is for better performance in full auto weapons, that makes sense. I've never annealed any brass but I don't shoot anything exotic so range brass is easy to find if any of my cases ever do split

 

[Walkalong]

The cases are annealed (All commercial and military) because they have been work hardened from the forming process. That is not suitable, so the cases are annealed. All cases, military and commercial, for the same reason, the front needs to be softer than the hardness it has after forming.

 

[jmorris]

If I understand it correctly y'all anneal your brass to keep it soft for multiple reloading. If this is a true statement why is military brass annealed? It can't possibly be they're hoping to reload it.

All bottle neck brass will be annealed multiple times during the forming process. The military does not allow the evidence of the final annealing process to be polished off like most factory ammunition. Why it doesn’t look as pretty but you know the step was not skipped.

Hard brass splits.

 

[N555]

So the military annealing is for better performance in full auto weapons, that makes sense. I've never annealed any brass but I don't shoot anything exotic so range brass is easy to find if any of my cases ever do split

Yeah don't worry about it unless you need maximum case life and/or maximum accuracy. After the first firing your best bet is body die and collet sizer or use neck bushing FL sizer die.

 

[mofosheee]

Regarding annealing..................
I have read that some people quench and others not to quench after the flame process.
I read where people state to heat the brass to 450F .............. others say 650F - 700F
What say the experts?

Annealing Brass Cases & How to Do It OR What Those Colors on Rifle Casings are & How to Recreate Them.

If you have been reloading or researching reloading for any length of time, you have probably heard of the term “annealing”. If you haven’t, then you have seen evidence of it before. If you look at the necks of some ammunition, you’ll see some almost-rainbow colors somewhere just down from the...

www.gunsamerica.com

 

[N555]

Regarding annealing..................
I have read that some people quench and others not to quench after the flame process.
I read where people state to heat the brass to 450F .............. others say 650F - 700F
What say the experts?

Annealing Brass Cases & How to Do It OR What Those Colors on Rifle Casings are & How to Recreate Them.

If you have been reloading or researching reloading for any length of time, you have probably heard of the term “annealing”. If you haven’t, then you have seen evidence of it before. If you look at the necks of some ammunition, you’ll see some almost-rainbow colors somewhere just down from the...

www.gunsamerica.com

I say don't anneal unless you have to.
If you have 1x fired brass and you know they're 1x I say don't anneal, even 2x don't anneal. I say use 2 step sizing approach body and collect size or use an FL with neck bushing sizer. Try to get the case mouths to -.002 of the bullet size.
Don't ever neck size only.

Beyond that it depends on the case and what you're going to do with them.
For example I don't anneal 30-30 or 223.
For 30-30 I want high neck tension for when it's banging around in the mag tube.
And 223 I'm only looking for like 2moa accuracy and I'll probably lose them after 1 or 2 firings.

Annealing is time and temperature. 450f isn't going to do anything unless you hold temperature for a year or so, 650 to 700f isn't going to do anything unless you hold temperature for hours/days.
On the time scale of seconds nothing is going to happen until at least 850f even then results range from nothing to inconsistent at best.

If you don't care about consistency or accuracy and just want long life heating to 850 to 900f and using a standard FL size die with ball expander is fine.

The only way to get consistency on multiple firings and unknown firings is heat brass to close to dead soft which is in excess of 1,220F for a few seconds and work the hardness back into by running it through a standard FL sizer die with ball expander.

You can quinch if you want to.

 

[mofosheee]

You gave me a lot to think about there, Thank you

 

[MEHavey]

And yet the bumblebee keeps flying ...

Use standard propane torch
Use Tempilaq 750 inside the neck
Rotate/Heat shoulder/neck until Tepilaq color disappears +3/4-count
Dump case on towel
-- Repeat --

Every 3-5 firings in high pressure cases

.

 

[kilizyrag]

I believe all manufacturers anneal the brass before loading. Many polish after the anneal to make them pretty.

 

[AJC1]

About the only case I anneal is 30-30. But my reason is that I have almost entirely range pickups, and the case is almost always oversized when I get them in a trade. I only anneal it before my first firing.

 

[Walkalong]

I believe all manufacturers anneal the brass before loading. Many polish after the anneal to make them pretty.

More than once during the process to keep it soft and malleable.

 

[PWC]

If I understand it correctly y'all anneal your brass to keep it soft for multiple reloading. If this is a true statement why is military brass annealed? It can't possibly be they're hoping to reload it.

For the military polishing off the anneal marks is a non value added, xtra cost, step. It doesn't improve the quality of the round.

 

[NMexJim]

Let's look at an overbored cartridge like the .243 - I'll use this because I have a fair amount of experience with it.

Depending on how hot the load is, I can get somewhere around 5 reloads from a set of cases before I start to see some problems like harder extraction (bolt lift). If I continue to shoot that cartridge, then I will end up with one that hangs in the chamber. The brass gets hard and won't spring back from the chamber wall. This is where you take a soft blow hammer and kinda beat the bolt open . If you happen to be in the field, then you select a nice tree branch and then whack the bolt open. Just ask me how I know.

There are people who go through life and never anneal. Well, good for them. Me, I keep brass in lots of same-same and anneal on a regular basis. It's been some time since I've had to wack a bolt open.

Just like life, you pays your money and you takes your chances.

Anneal or don't anneal - tis up to you

 

[N555]

Let's look at an overbored cartridge like the .243 - I'll use this because I have a fair amount of experience with it.

Depending on how hot the load is, I can get somewhere around 5 reloads from a set of cases before I start to see some problems like harder extraction (bolt lift). If I continue to shoot that cartridge, then I will end up with one that hangs in the chamber. The brass gets hard and won't spring back from the chamber wall. This is where you take a soft blow hammer and kinda beat the bolt open . If you happen to be in the field, then you select a nice tree branch and then whack the bolt open. Just ask me how I know.

There are people who go through life and never anneal. Well, good for them. Me, I keep brass in lots of same-same and anneal on a regular basis. It's been some time since I've had to wack a bolt open.

Just like life, you pays your money and you takes your chances.

Anneal or don't anneal - tis up to you

I would say definitely shouder bump

 

[jmorris]

Regarding annealing..................
I have read that some people quench and others not to quench after the flame process.
I read where people state to heat the brass to 450F .............. others say 650F - 700F
What say the experts?

This is a good read on the subject.

Water isn’t necessar, unless your method allows heat to migrate to the case head, you don’t want that part annealed.

There are methods that concentrate enough heat onto the neck and shoulder, fast enough, that that’s a non issue with them. You don’t have to get them wet in that case (no pun intended) and you don’t have to add a drying step.

If you can hold the case with a bare hand right after, your good to go, without water.

Brass annealing

www.youtube.com

 

[N555]

Yeah the case head is quite hard and you don't want to heat it up compared to the rest of the body, shoulder and neck. The case head usually about an 18 Webster hardness which is pretty hard for brass, anything more than a 19 is in danger of cracking. But it needs to be that hard on the case head.
If it didn't get any discoloration from heating then you know it didn't get hot enough long enough to have any measurable effect on hardness.
Factory brass case mouths are about 12 to 13 Webster hardness.
Factory brass fired and resized once with a FL ball expander die jumps up to usually 15 or 16.

 

[MEHavey]

I read where people state to heat the brass to 450F

That was SOP w/ bottle-neck cases using a swatch of 450 Tempilaq 1/4" below the shoulder.
Theory being that if that area hit 450-500, the high-shoulder/neck was reaching 750-800