Complete annealing?

HandgunHTR said:

Except it isn't actually faith. There is science that explains it as long as you take the time to find the actual science (not take the word of random people on the internet).

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What requires faith is that I am doing a sufficient enough job of annealing that it is actually achieving the goal of uniformly softening the necks.

Am I bringing the necks to a sufficient temperature?
Am I keeping the necks at a sufficient temperature long enough?
Am I not overheating the neck/shoulder junction?

I follow the recommended method of flame annealing using the principal of applying heat in a darkened room and timing the process so that the necks just start getting red and then dropping out. That is a rather unscientific method and it's impossible to know just how well it's working. Flame annealing is questionable, IMO, but I still do it.

It would be nice to have a high-quality induction annealing machine, but I don't anneal enough cases to justify the cost.

I haven't tried it yet, but I've been told that this works. I don't plan on doing any annealing for a bit as I have enough virgin brass to last for good while, but I may try this next year:

Much of the commonly known aspects of annealing are from processing ferrous alloys because most annealing work done, particularly in the garage/hobby area, is on ferrous metals. The thing is that each family of metals will have their own, unique annealing process. It happens that aluminum and copper anneal in remarkably similar processes, but steel does not. Must use the process that applies to the metal in question or the result will not be what you expect and can be exactly the opposite of the goal.

If you really must know the temperature reached, and a FLIR IR camera isn't in the budget then consider these indicator paints:

Varmint Hunter said:

What requires faith is that I am doing a sufficient enough job of annealing that it is actually achieving the goal of uniformly softening the necks.

Am I bringing the necks to a sufficient temperature?
Am I keeping the necks at a sufficient temperature long enough?
Am I not overheating the neck/shoulder junction?

I follow the recommended method of flame annealing using the principal of applying heat in a darkened room and timing the process so that the necks just start getting red and then dropping out. That is a rather unscientific method and it's impossible to know just how well it's working. Flame annealing is questionable, IMO, but I still do it.

It would be nice to have a high-quality induction annealing machine, but I don't anneal enough cases to justify the cost.

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I couldn't agree with you more.

Yes there is science in the metallurgy of brass. We all know how it behaves when it is work hardened and then has heat applied to it. Those are the facts so to speak.

Faith is the understanding that are methods of annealing are achieving the desired result. Stick the case neck in a flame for a count of 3 or until it begins to glow. Great. Sure hope that is long enough to get the desired result. Sure, hope it isn't too long to over-anneal it and make it too soft. Sure, hope we anneal each and every case consistently and to the same degree. This is faith.

Even the various carousels and turntables are questionable. They are all predicated on the case neck being in the flame for a certain amount of time that is determined by the user. The only advantage that I can see is that the machine keeps the brass in the flame for the exact amount of time for each case. So at least each case is either under annealed, annealed just right, or over annealed. If we have faith, each case is annealed just right.

I have a very simple method of testing virgin brass and acquiring hardness of said brass in Rockwell figures first and then trying my best to match that figure when I anneal.
I have access to a Rockwell hardness tester, it measures only one side of the neck, but you can rotate the brass to measure circumference at any point.
This changed my annealing process, prior to this, my brass was much softer than virgin brass, so much so that it changed seating force to be overcome when seating bullets that many times the bullets were held by the seating stem and pulled out. I was flabbergasted at that point…why was this happening? Then, firing those rounds proved worse than the virgin brass I had used previously. Needless to say, my confidence in annealing was shattered. Of course, now it is a fundamental process. I learnt a lot back then, manufacturers of brass go to great lengths and testing to have the CORRECT annealed hardness, they do not guess.

Cheers.

MarkInPA said:

I noticed that the carbon inside the case neck seems to get burned off to. What effect does this have on accuracy. I always thought that a little bit of carbon provided some lubrication while bullet seating

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What I have found with annealing is that unless you anneal after every firing and work your load up doing this, it takes one firing on each case to get back to where you were accuracy wise before annealing . I have used carbon lube in the neck and still had to get one firing on each case before I was back to where I was accuracy wise. JME

Ferrous vs non-ferrous are just about opposite......work hardening vs quench hardening----ferrous metals need to be cooled properly to anneal, non-ferrous metals just take a specific heat for "x" amount of time to anneal, cooling time makes no difference

My experience with aluminum has been that once it reaches the annealing temperature that no dwell time at that temp is required unless it is a big casting. Also from experience with the little copper that I've worked with I don 't expect it to behave any differently. Being a copper alloy, brass should mostly follow how copper behaves.

cape cove said:

it takes one firing on each case to get back to where you were accuracy wise before annealing

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This is because your annealing is softer than virgin brass.

When I discovered this, and measured many brands for hardness, I found why some brands of brass are just junk from the get-go.
The reason is that they are SOFT.

Cheers.

MagnumManiac said:

This is because your annealing is softer than virgin brass.

When I discovered this, and measured many brands for hardness, I found why some brands of brass are just junk from the get-go.
The reason is that they are SOFT.

Cheers.

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Do you have a list of junk brass?

MarkInPA said:

Do you have a list of junk brass?

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I will not post that, too many are easily offended…

Cheers.

The brass that I've had this do is Laupa brass.

Varmint Hunter said:

I follow the recommended method of flame annealing using the principal of applying heat in a darkened room and timing the process so that the necks just start getting red and then dropping out. That is a rather unscientific method and it's impossible to know just how well it's working. Flame annealing is questionable, IMO, but I still do it.

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IMO, I dont think that is as "unscientific" as it may appear. As long as your consistent with it, time under flame etc., same position in flame, flame length. etc.
If you get the brass up to its anneal temp (glow) consistently then your annealing properly.

Varmint Hunter said:

I do anneal my cases, but I haven't a clue as to whether or not it is being done in a way that actually achieves the perceived goal.

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I noticed my shoulder bumping became so much more accurate and consistent after I started annealing so I know it works.