colour glow for proper anneal?

[Del-Ray]

I'm at work annealing cases for swaging into 44s. What colour glow do I need to go to? And I notice if I get it really hot it leaves a blackish mark. Does that polish off? Is it bad?

I am using a propane torch now, one at a time. If the lights are out and I heat to a pale glow the brass looks matte, with a bit of blue and pink coloring in it. Is that enough heat for BT_Snipers 40 to 44 swaging setup?

Thanks for your replies, dang I hate typing on a phone!

[ReloaderFred]

You want to anneal all the way through the base, so make sure you get that good, too. When I was doing it with a torch, I made sure they were glowing red all the way through. Now I heat them to 1150 degrees F in a ceramics kiln and let them sit all night in the kiln.

The black marks will come off with a citric acid bath and a little time in the tumbler, after the bullets are swaged.

Hope this helps.

Fred

Man, I hate typing on my wife's laptop.........

[Del-Ray]

I start at the head and get that glowing orange, then move down the body. This does help. I will give them aan acid bath when I get home in the morning. I can squish the necks with my fingers so I guess I am okay. I am used to annealing cases for my rifle, so going all the way to dead soft is making me nervous. I read I can use a lead pot for this. I have a new unused lyman dipper at home. Looks like I have another experiment to try! Do I have to go to ornage with the torch, or is a dull red glow enough?

Next after I get my swagin dies I think I'll pick up a small kiln myyself. Or make a grill kiln....

Thanks for the reply.

[ReloaderFred]

The dull orange is probably enough, as long as you can squash them with your fingers. You want them dead soft, or the bases won't swage up.

I don't use the citric acid bath until I'm all through with the swaging process. I spray my cases with case lube before I seat the cores and swage the bullets, and the citric acid removes the lube and tarnish at the same time. I tumble the finished bullets in ground corn cob and they shine like a new penney. After they're polished, then I add the cannelure.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Del-Ray]

While I'm waiting the two months for my dies I might have to get me one of those cannelure machines.

Do you have a preference?

I don't need something super fast, just quality. I wwonder if BT_Sniper sells that as well....

Thank you very much, you are filling in muuch for me what to look for, and when to do things.

[DukeInFlorida]

BT Sniper is a dealer for CH4D, and they offer a manual cannelure machine, as well as an electric one. He can get you a discount on either one.

http://www.ch4d.com/catalog/bullet

[Sasquatch-1]

I have one of the CH4D cannuler tools that I bought used here on this site. It works well but takes a while. There is a video on youtube by a guy name Daywalker showing how he uses one. Don't know the link but if you search for cannuler or daywalker you should be able to find it.

I don't know if I'll catch it for this, but I find that I don't really need the cannuler if I make the jacket soft enough.

[Reload3006]

you dont need a cannelure but I find they help with two things first they give you a place to crimp into with 38/357 and 44mag pistol rounds. Second they help to lock the core in the jacket and control expansion. I have the CH4D cannelure tool its not the most convenient tool but it does work. I believe B.T.s cannelure tool is a Corbin powered one. Would be the best but LOTS of money I am not entirely sure I want to go there yet and I have a ton of money invested in swaging LOL.

[Lizard333]

I also have the CH tool. Works well enough for my needs. Takes some time, but nothing about swaging your own is quick. I mounted my tool on an angled board so it hold the bullet in place. If anyone wants a pic I can post it. I also reversed some of the Allen screws so I no longer had to adjust it from the bottom.

Order them through BT and you get a 10% discount. Better than nothing.

[ReloaderFred]

I also use the CH4D cannelure tool. As noted, it's slow, but then nothing about swaging is fast. I like mine and it works well. It was a good investment many years ago, and it's paid for itself many times over. I've used it for adding a cannelure to 9mm bullets intended for use in 357 Sig to prevent bullet setback. It solved that problem quite well, too.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[runfiverun]

annealing is a function of temperature.
i anneal my 40's in my smelting pot, i heat them up to 750-f flip them over and re-heat the pot to 750 again.
then slide it over and let it cool down.
i do about 500 at a time this way and run two pots at a time.
i know they are dead soft as i push the bases up to 430 with no more effort than resizing a 30-06 case.

[Del-Ray]

I know it's a function of temp. But my idea of using the IR temp gun I use for checking my boilers at work didn't pan out... Apparently it needs to be a few feet away, and about 8 inches in diameter. So I was stuck just going for it by colour of the glow. I definitely got them softer, they had a healthy orange glow about them. And I can now squish them with my fingers, but nothing like lead squish. I can get the opposite sides to touch using fingers alone.

I might try to use my so far un-used Lyman Big dipper to anneal the next batch. I was thinking one layer, head down, and heat em to 800F. And then hold them there for about 10 minutes the make sure it makes it all the way to the neck.

[runfiverun]

you only need 715 to anneal brass.
if you are getting them orange they are annealed, dead soft annealed.

you don't even need to get brass to a dull orange for it to be annealed.
i use an annealing machine with 2 torches and it takes a titch over 3.5 seconds to anneal a 223 case mouth, and just over 4 seconds for a 30-06.
they don't turn orange but do get to over 700-f

[Reload3006]

you only need 715 to anneal brass.
if you are getting them orange they are annealed, dead soft annealed.

you don't even need to get brass to a dull orange for it to be annealed.
i use an annealing machine with 2 torches and it takes a titch over 3.5 seconds to anneal a 223 case mouth, and just over 4 seconds for a 30-06.
they don't turn orange but do get to over 700-f

Your missing the point here we are wanting the entire case dead soft we aren't annealing case mouths for reloading we are annealing brass for bullet jackets. I heat them to orange too. lots of ways to do it A stainless steel colander on a wood stove could work but you have to watch it because you can end up with brass soup.

[Lizard333]

I use a stainless brass colander over a turkey fryer burner. I keep tossing them till the are fully annealed. Usually takes about ten minutes. I will be doing my next batch in an old Dutch oven like Grumpa. Seems like a decent way without the hassle of having to baby sit as much. Let the pot get over 800 and shut her down.

[Sasquatch-1]

Heat them to bright orange and you get wonderful mushrooming like this:

55220

These were shot from a SBH 44 with about 6.5 grns of Unique. The 2 on the left went through 2x4 and into the dirt where as the one on the right was shot through a 12 inch square box of dirt.

[Del-Ray]

I anneal case necks as well, but was always told that I really wasn't "Annealing" them. That you didn't want your case necks to go full dead soft. I spin mine in a flame, .308 takes about 5 seconds or so. I wait for the blue/pink colouring to hit the edge of the shoulder/body then drop it in a pail of cold water. I was told it was closer to normalizing. Whatever that means...

I need to find a way to slap a door on my boiler firebox. I could slide a colander in there, and have them glowing in a minute or two! All the radiation from the glowing gunnite and fire bricks should be enough alone. Of course the inspector, and my boss would probably get a bit upset.

Thanks for the replies. I've got money on the way, and am now waiting for sending the final payment, and about two months for the dies to show up, I did add the canneluer machine to the order as well. Dam... I can't wait! I'm going to anneal a few thousand cases while I wait, and bond a few hundred of them for some self defense loads.

[runfiverun]

not missing the point at all.
i use the 40 cases and other stuff for swaging, i'm pointing out that you only need to heat the brass up to over 715-f for it to be annealed and color is not necessary or really an indicator of temperature.
with steel/iron you can use different oranges/reds/whites to guess at temperature of the metal.

[Del-Ray]

Indeed. I understand the temp part of it. But if I can't measure it, then I was hoping bright orange would be a safe bet that it's been fully dead soft annealed.

It sounds like it is. And going to 800F is just to make sure all the cases in the pot are at or above 715F, not just the ones near the thermometer. I think this will get easier when I get all my dies, and then buy a used kiln, or knife heat treater.

[a.squibload]

With case head slightly beginning to glow, the whole case will get soft enough.
I do mine in rows, the next case in line gets preheated from the flame going around
the case I'm heating.
Just don't overdo it with the torch...

[BT Sniper]

Really an easy question to answer. Once the entire case glows your done, move on to the next. Been working for me for years.

Good shooting and swage ON!

BT

[Sasquatch-1]

With case head slightly beginning to glow, the whole case will get soft enough.
I do mine in rows, the next case in line gets preheated from the flame going around
the case I'm heating.
Just don't overdo it with the torch...

melted a few cases myself in the past.

[Del-Ray]

I'm thinking of another tact. Read in another thread where a person used potassium nitrate salts as a soak for annealing case necks.

If I heat it to under 752F it will not boil, it's non-toxic an apparently I can also use this setup to heat blue certain steels...

I think I'll melt the salts, get them to about 740F, then add as many empty cases as the pot will hold without pouring over. Then wait until the whole thing comes back up to temp. And let them sit for about 5 minutes so everything has a good heat soak. That should anneal everything and I can make a SS basket at work to just take em all out and dump them in our RO water (cleaner then distilled).

Will the brass make it out without being to badly corroded? That's the only thing I can think of that would mess this up, as the guy was only dipping cases for about 5 seconds to anneal the necks. It would be nice if they uniformly darkened, wouldn't mind that at all.

What do you think of this idea instead?

[a.squibload]

Good control but how expensive would that be?

[Reload3006]

I would not advise using bluing salts or Potassium for annealing. Because even if it didnt corrode the brass it would leave salts on your brass that would or could be difficult to remove. you need your brass to be very clean for proper void elimination and a good tight bond between your lead core and brass jacket. Also if you did that you would run the risk of ruining a very expensive set of swage dies. I would highly advise against it.

[Lizard333]

I would not advise using bluing salts or Potassium for annealing. Because even if it didnt corrode the brass it would leave salts on your brass that would or could be difficult to remove. you need your brass to be very clean for proper void elimination and a good tight bond between your lead core and brass jacket. Also if you did that you would run the risk of ruining a very expensive set of swage dies. I would highly advise against it.

I would take this advise to heart. He has some bad experience with salts and swaging dies. It was NOT good. These dies are not cheap, an you don't want to trash them.

[Del-Ray]

Point taken!