Annealing

[Richard Slaton]

Well it’s the end of the shooting season so it’s time to deep clean my stuff, anneal and trim brass among other stuff. I don’t spend much time on shooting forums other than Reese Bottom why Because you could ask what color brown is and you would get 50 different answers and all kinda debates and would leave more confused than when you started!
Talking about annealing would even be worst. Let me first say I’m no metallurgical engineer but if I understand correctly brass gets hard because of the shooting and resizing process it become not as malleable
But by applying heat it can return to it’s malleable state.
My goal in annealing or as I call it stress relieving is to keep my necks from splitting and and to have more consistent neck tension. If you read on shooting forums some say heat and turn until it starts to glow and some will say if it glows the brass is now no good I even read one guy say he heats until 2 seconds before it glows well like most take with a grain of salt. I’ve also read brass is either annealed or not annealed there no in between. Google says brass is annealed at a temp between 600 and 800 degrees I set my annealer up using 700 degree temp paint. And yes because it’s my personally my annealer is home made. Building stuff for my hobbies is in my DNA just like back in my day of bow hunting it was a reason to build bows. Is my brass annealed/ stress relieved well I don’t have problem with necks splitting and setting bullets the force needed seam to be consistent so my goals are reached so I guess the answer in my eyes is yes. Another way I test for annealed each time I anneal is I manage to pick a hot brass up and if it burns my fingers I consider it anneal the only problem that test is that piece normally ends up across the room under something.
One of my goals for writing this is to keep Barry from knocking me out of being mr. Wynne’s favorite but let me say right here what Barry post is a lot more useful than what I offer and it’s also a shame no one but me , Barry and Mr. Wynne and a couple of others read what’s posted or they would share their input
Again I would like to thank Barry for sharing his tips and I’m hoping I can adjust them to fit my special needs

[tyler]

I use an AMP now but started off with an Annie Annealer. I’ve got a buddy who is very successful at reloading that uses an electric drill, socket, and propane torch, though. I never did like thr thought of open flame in the house. I think it’s just all about making it all consistent. I anneal after every firing. My primer pockets/barrel gives up way before The necks do.

I’m thinking about adding an AMP Mate to it just to automate some more.

[Barry Holcomb]

Mr. Richard, I’ll let you retain the title of the favorite, lol, and you’ve brought up an excellent topic and one often overlooked and overthought. Annealing is important and like Tyler stated above, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I have been using a benchsource flame annealer for the last 10 years and have never had a problem and it’s worked great. A few months ago I switched over to the AMP annealer and have been very pleased with it as well. With small kids, finding time to spend in the reloading room seems to become less and less and the amp is very quick and saves me a lot of time in my whole reloading process. If you’re doing the flame method, the easiest way I’ve found is to cut off the lights in the room and when the flame heats the neck up to where it just starts to glow red, that’s when it should be going out of the flame. Tempilaq is good to start out with but once you figure out how to consistently get a couple pieces correct, you can do it by sight.
Also, I’m selling my benchsource annealer if anyone is interested, I’ll make someone a good deal if they’re interested, it’s in excellent shape.

[Wynne Echols]

Santa Clause has brought new ideas to the Reese Bottom forum. Thanks fellows for the input and yes Richard all of this posting has pushed you farther to the top of my favorites list. You are going to keep on until they figure out why you get position 1/A each month. lol. Getting the brass properly annealed is really all that matters. How you get it annealed probably is a money thing. I started with a Benchsource which did a great job but I got interested in induction annealing and bought an Annie. It was one of the first that was put out and we had some problems getting it to work consistently. I will say this and I think the fellows name was Garrett. He stuck with me until I got the thing working as it should and it did a great job. Me being me and one that is never satisfied, I ventured into the Amp. Maybe a little pricey for some but it is a wonderful addition to the loading room. I would say that it is fast, consistent, and very reliable and although Matt and Alex are on the other side of the world, they are always willing to answer questions. I actually met them at the last Shot Show that I attended. They have since come out with the Amp Press.

Back to annealing, what about your case prep before you anneal. I always used to wet stainless media tumble my brass and it would look squeeky clean and pretty. The Amp Press fellows told me that they got the same or better results by leaving the carbon in the necks so I no longer tumble the brass. If nothing else, one step is eliminated. I have also been told that spinning a nylon brush in the neck before seating the bullet seems to help. I have heard comments supporting both clean and carbon necks. What say you? WWE

[Barry Holcomb]

I tried wet tumbling as well and didn’t care for it, all of the carbon was removed and my case mouths were always a little chattered and the bullets seated like crap. I just use corn cob media and let them run for a few hours and that knocks most of the dullness off the case and seems to work the best for me.

[tyler]

Cob with some Nu-finish for me. Or flitz, or brasso. It all does about the same thing. I did the wet and stainless tumbling and they are absolutely beautiful, but it peened my mouths horribly.

I lock the primers out and tumble before putting them in the amp, but I’m thinking that may not be necessary. I’m just scared of crap getting in my amp.

[Barry Holcomb]

Corn cob is dusty but just put a hand towel or something over it and you won’t have a problem. Just recently picked up a Dillon tumbler and the top on it is fully sealed, it’s awesome.

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