"Antique" brass annealing

[cwtebay]

Greetings!
I have a bit of an obsession currently with the Winchester self loading rifles. I aquired 350 +/- rounds of mixed 32, 35, 351, and 401 WSL factory ammunition loose (so little collector value). I have fired some, all with success. My question is will annealing brass of this age (1910's-1950's) help me with brass longetivity? Thank you!

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[Ozark mike]

Yes
The brass can stress fracture over time from crimping the bullet that's where you'll see the most wear probably

[JimB..]

You know that brass work hardens, well the neck tension is a form of work and so the neck gets brittle over time. I would expect to have more success pulling the bullets than firing them, but I don’t know for certain. Then anneal and reload.

[Ozark mike]

That's alot of brass to pull apart. one firing should be ok for each

[JimB..]

That's alot of brass to pull apart. one firing should be ok for each

And a heck of a lot more fun.

I pulled down a little over 1,500 357mag reloads last weekend, it was an ugly task and there wasn’t really a good alternative. I’d been staring at them for a couple years. RCBS collet puller worked well.

[cwtebay]

Thank you to all of you! Yes I do know that brass work hardens, but neck tension creating brittleness is an angle I've not thought of - excellent point. The ones that I have fired suffered an approximate 5% split rate. Fortunately, they were all 351 except 2 401's. So I was able to trim down for 35wsl. I pulled down a few of the oldest ones and found a doughnut shaped powder? Was there a Trail Boss ancestor?

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[country gent]

Several things work to cause brittle necks on old cases the number of firings on the brass, How much its been worked ( large chambers small dies), age hardening overtime even just sitting on the shelf, and last is one most don't realize on old brass the residue from corrosive primers. Annealing brass will help bring it back to a useable state and extend its life if its not to far gone. Not sure Id pull the bullets but would anneal it after the firing before the next loading. I might even consider a double annealing anneal once clean and anneal again a little lighter. Given the age of this brass and rarity the former may work out to make it last as long as possible. Another is to anneal every few loadings to keep it soft

[cwtebay]

Several things work to cause brittle necks on old cases the number of firings on the brass, How much its been worked ( large chambers small dies), age hardening overtime even just sitting on the shelf, and last is one most don't realize on old brass the residue from corrosive primers. Annealing brass will help bring it back to a useable state and extend its life if its not to far gone. Not sure Id pull the bullets but would anneal it after the firing before the next loading. I might even consider a double annealing anneal once clean and anneal again a little lighter. Given the age of this brass and rarity the former may work out to make it last as long as possible. Another is to anneal every few loadings to keep it soft

How do I double anneal? I have an annealeaz, but I cannot make it work for longer straight wall cases - which means that I use a drill / socket / map gas torch.

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[country gent]

Anneal the cases to the straw light blue color, clean cases to dull the color then anneal a second time to make sure. One annealing may not remove years of loading and age hardening the way we do it to preserve the case heads hardness. When we had brass or bronze annealed to help stress relieve it, was a 6-8 hour process in the heat treat shop, not the 10-12 sec. They heated it to 500* for 2-3 hours then the furnace slowly lowered the temp over the remaining time

[georgerkahn]

Some years back I was gifted a cottage cheese container of factory .25-20 ammunition. Excited -- at the time I had a Winchester in this caliber, I took them to range and shot about half. A few decades later, after I "discovered" stainless steel pin tumbling and annealing, I put the fired cases through these activities. While the brass, indeed, looked prettier, it had honestly changed colour, and using the "vice-grip" spring-back test, seemed to have "changed". An old buddy (long since deceased) chuckled, and told me about the MECURIC primers then used. Upon firing, the mercury actually (so he told me) changes the alloy from "brass to scrap".
You may wish to ascertain whether mecuric primers are in yours; what I should have done is take apart the factory loads, and put them back together with modern primers. Live and learn, eh?
Something you may wish to check out....\
geo

[15meter]

A couple of reasons already mentioned are worth considering to move you to pulling the bullets AND knocking out the primers. You've already experienced the age hardening with the cases that split on first firing. Next pre-WWII have a potential for mecuric primers, one firing and they are ruined.

I have a batch of 30-40 Krag from pre-1930, after a full neck anneal, every one that I tried to size didn't split it shattered like it was glass it was so brittle.

Pull the bullets, deprime with a universal deprime die(SLOWLY, WITH SAFETY GLASSES ON). I've deprimed a considerable number of live primers that way with zero detonations.


Then anneal and reload.

Don't ask about the ones I used a Lee whack-a-mole deprimer, learned to tap GENTLY!