35Whelen
12-13-2011, 01:28 AM
Good Day Gents.
I have been handloading for many years. I love the 35's and used to simply use 30/06 casings and neck them up. These were brass cases and they worked well .
I found myself some nickel cases in 30/06 and have tried to neck them up to .358 for my Whelen. I used an elliptical expander plug in my Hornady dies. Started out using a thin film of Imperial die wax on a q-tip to lube the inside of the neck, then dipped in Imperial dry neck lube ( graphite ). You have to go very slow and bump the expansion slowly or they resulted in split necks. The next step I found worked better. I prepped as above, but added steps by making a small expansion then re dipping the neck in lube and it worked out well.
I thought if I annealed the nickel things might go smoother and less involved. I used a propane torch that I have used for tempering hooks and bending hook wire. Very nice flame and quick. So I would hand hold the case near the middle of the case and very quickly apply heat to the neck, rotating in the fingers until I could just see a color change in low light to a light red color coming onto the neck.. At that instant I dropped the heat from the case and immediately immersed it into cool water, relubed the inside of the neck with die wax and a dip into the graphite. Very much smoother pass on the expansion and NO splits.
My question is this. Did I do it right, and can you anneal nickel cases safely???
At no time did I ever feel even slightly warm at the mid case mark and the cases were immediately cooled to prevent any transfer of heat to the head of the case.
Sorry if this is a dumb question. Just want to get it right.
Thanks Gentlemen
Best regards
Paul
I have been handloading for many years. I love the 35's and used to simply use 30/06 casings and neck them up. These were brass cases and they worked well .
I found myself some nickel cases in 30/06 and have tried to neck them up to .358 for my Whelen. I used an elliptical expander plug in my Hornady dies. Started out using a thin film of Imperial die wax on a q-tip to lube the inside of the neck, then dipped in Imperial dry neck lube ( graphite ). You have to go very slow and bump the expansion slowly or they resulted in split necks. The next step I found worked better. I prepped as above, but added steps by making a small expansion then re dipping the neck in lube and it worked out well.
I thought if I annealed the nickel things might go smoother and less involved. I used a propane torch that I have used for tempering hooks and bending hook wire. Very nice flame and quick. So I would hand hold the case near the middle of the case and very quickly apply heat to the neck, rotating in the fingers until I could just see a color change in low light to a light red color coming onto the neck.. At that instant I dropped the heat from the case and immediately immersed it into cool water, relubed the inside of the neck with die wax and a dip into the graphite. Very much smoother pass on the expansion and NO splits.
My question is this. Did I do it right, and can you anneal nickel cases safely???
At no time did I ever feel even slightly warm at the mid case mark and the cases were immediately cooled to prevent any transfer of heat to the head of the case.
Sorry if this is a dumb question. Just want to get it right.
Thanks Gentlemen
Best regards
Paul