Grainy tip on .22 lr to .224 bullet

[bigjake]

First off L want to say how much I am impressed with BT Sniper's .224 point form die! its a beautiful thing.

I started using cci cases and the point turned out very nice. by the way, the point is his small meplet (sp?) Then I went with Fed cases. The tip has a very grainy surface. I looked at it with a jewelers lupe.

I annealed them in a metal screen basket over a turkey fryer burner till they turn dark. some of them very dull red. the mouth is fairly easy to pinch. the steel screen got bright red underneath in spots. could the steel somehow infuse some carbon into the brass? or is fed brass junk?

I dont want bug BT with all the questions I have. so thats why I come to you all for help. I,m the type of guy that can totally drive someone crazy with questions. thats how I have learned details of the subjects im interested in.

[nun2kute]

Im no expert by far margin, but it sounds to me like you may have "over" annealed the case. I annealed a bunch of 40 S&W cases to form into 430 & 452 bullets, I'd say about 25% get real ?? grabby ?? in the point form die and end up distorted a little, or gets stuck on the ejection wire, or worse. IIRC that batch was done @ 1100*. I'm still fighting with those. My last RF batch is 40g 2S FP. Win Super X brass are annealed @850* for 45 minutes w/ lead in them so when I fumble they don't separate. The only points I've formed so far were half a dozen R&D's. But none were grabby at all. My opinion is that grainy look wont effect anything outside manufacturing them.

[rancher1913]

when they get red you have over annealed, btdt. probably not the problem though since both donor cases do not do it, could be a tiny difference in case length. if its only noticeable with a magnifying glass I would not worry about it, try them and see before you start looking for problems that may not exist

[BT Sniper]

Yep, sounds a little over annealed, and don't forget most these federal cases are .7 grains heavier and make a slightly longer jacket so you may be compressing the tip of the jacket a bit causing the blemished look. It is only cosmetic and will shoot well. I think somewhere around 800 degrees may be a good number for annealing the 22lr brass. To hot and the formed bullets will look speckled a bit, think it is because it is burning off a bit of the Zink in the brass as well as making it too soft.

Swage on!

Brian