i dont understand exactly what really happened

[ratboy]

ok, i know i did something wrong but i dont fully understand what. in order to not make this mistake again perhaps someone could help me figure out exactly what that mistake is.
i have been using a torch and a board with screws in it to anneal my 40 brass to make 44 mag boolits and got tired of the tedium. put a batch in a small bread tin and put them in the BBQ. fired it up with some bricks for insulation and a temp probe. 650ish was a hot as i could get it. the brass was not annealed very well and i was not surprised. onward to try something else. i have a electric kiln in pieces and decided this would be a good trial run for it so i set it up. put 2 bread tins full of 40 brass in it, put the lid on it and plugged it in. checked on it after 30 minutes and it was only up to 400ish. came back later and in was up to 650ish. then the mistake happened. i fell asleep. oops. went to check it and ooo boy. 1200 degrees. that might be a touch hot. unplugged it and left it alone to cool . later, i slip the lid off expecting to see a mess and everything looked like 40 brass. it did however have a yellow powdery finish. took it all out and ran it through some soapy water and proceeded along as if nothing happened.i did notice the surface of them is not smooth anymore but figured it was where the zinc i cooked out was. then the problem. i cast some cores and went to making boolits. flare. seat. point form. stuck. try again. stuck. i tried at least 6-8 times and every time i seem to get the boolit firmly stuck in the point form die. this is a new problem. now the question. i thought since i overcooked the brass and had the yellow powder on it i simply cooked off some of the zinc. this should leave copper which we all know makes good jackets but for some reason they get stuck in the die. i cook the brass with the torch until i can see them glow. they work fine. this batch i overcooked does not. i will accept that i made 2 bread tins full of scrap but what exactly did i do? why does it not work? could it be too soft? is that possible?

[DukeInFlorida]

Mistake? Taking a nap............ No more naps........ sorry..........

[ReloaderFred]

You don't mention what lube you're using for the point form die? You shouldn't be having a problem with the brass at that temperature, since I routinely heat mine up to 1150 degrees F. and let it cook overnight, after turning off the kiln. The only difference I see is I anneal mine with the cores in place, which effectively bonds the cores to the jackets.

My thought is the lube isn't strong enough to keep the things slicked up inside the die.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[ratboy]

im using lanolin. it has worked in the past. today, not so much.


as for the naps...... yeah, that was the biggest mistake.

[MIBULLETS]

You said that the surface of the jacket was not smooth anymore. Could the combination of it being really soft and not as smooth be causing it to grip the die walls more? Does it do this if you just try to point form the bullet without as much pressure? Maybe screw the die out a little and try again. If it comes out ok, I'm guessing the softer brass is swaging to the die better with basically no spring back at all to help it release.

[ratboy]

i tried backing the die up. i can get about half of the point i normally can before the force required to eject the boolit exceeds the force i can exert on the ejector. i will probably do this to the ones i have cores seated in just to save something from the experience. your theory on lack of spring back is what i was wondering about but i dont understand why it is now a problem unless the core seat die needs to be .001" than it is to compensate and i just got lucky with using 40 brass instead of proper 44 jackets or is it the spring back of the real jackets is more than the 40 cases and that is why it does not work. i am using a set of CH dies and i also have a corbin point die. so far the corbin die is the one giving me fits. i have not tried the CH point die with the questionable jackets

[MIBULLETS]

The problem might be starting in the core seat die. If the jacket really has less spring back you may be getting them a little bigger. Maybe too big for the point form die. It has to work using the expand up principle. If you push something in the point former that just fits in or is a little big it will eject hard. Try core seating with a little less pressure and measure the diameter of the seated core before putting it in the point former.

[ratboy]

i did do some measuring. they are coming out of the core seat die @ .425
they still come out of the point form @ .429
i am using less force in both with these "soft" jackets.
i dont have any leftover poorly annealed jackets to run through and measure so these measurements are somewhat useless to me right now. i will keep them in the notebook though for later

[a.squibload]

50/50 lanolin/castor oil works pretty well,
might try that.