Annealing NIckel plated cases? Does it work,

[Four Fingers of Death]

I haven't played with annealing much, always having plenty of cases on hand. But shooting a lot of Magnums lately has made me more interested in annealing to extend case life as the cases are so expensive.

I have a 416 Rigby with Nickel plated cases. I haven't ever seen any brass on sale and factory ammo seems to sell for roughly $AU10 a shot, which is impressive to say the least. MY Ruger No1 African was a good deal when I bought it, but what made it an excellent deal was the fact that it came with 60 rounds of factory ammo, which was about 10 years old at the time and was marked $AU187.00 per 20, and the price tag was from the cheapest big shop in the State.

Sooooooooooooo, naturally, I want to get max miles out of these brass cases.

Has anyone annealed Nickel cases?

My 9.3x62 and 458WM will be doing all of the heavy lifting out hunting with boolits and the 416 will just be a big a$$ed plinker and competitor in Big Game target shoots.

It is funny, when the 416 was new, five packs of twenty rounds was approximately the same price as the rifle!

[grampa243]

color will not indicate when the temp changes you'll need to use temp indicating paints.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Thanks for that, I intended to use temperature paint/pens, eyeballing it is too rough I reckon. I am having trouble finding the pens or paint though. I might have to go to one of the big welding suppliers in Sydney to get them. They seem to be freely available in the States, but I have only found one shop that knew what I was talking about, but they said that the supplier would only supply each temperature pen in a full box, which was way too much for their small store. The way I am going, I will probably order it direct from the States.

[jmorris]

If you have brass cases and non plated ones, with a machine it will do them both the same.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I'm not sure what you mean jmorris. I don't have a machine, but was considering building one utilising a cordless screwdriver/ drill, home made case holders ( I have lots of spare sockets and hardware) and a gas bottle and blow torch unit that I have and controlling it all with temperature markers/paint.

[jmorris]

If your going to build something you might take a look at the annealer thread that's a sticky here.

There are a bunch of folks that have made their own version.

Once you set the flames and speed every case is annealed the same, plated or not.

This is a video of how it works.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o213/jmorrismetal/annealer/th_borganneal.jpg (http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o213/jmorrismetal/annealer/borganneal.mp4)

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o213/jmorrismetal/annealer/th_nottoohot.jpg (http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o213/jmorrismetal/annealer/nottoohot.mp4)

[Walter Laich]

I've done both and they take the same amount of time in the flame and are equal. I build one of the machines that you can see in the article.

Most will say annealers are for just rifle but I do 45 Colt in mine mostly just because I can

walt

[detox]

What brand ammo is it? I know that Remington's brass is softer than Winchester's. Remington fireforms easier because it is softer. If your brass is Remington, you probably do not have to anneal unless you are seeing case neck splitting.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I think it is Federal Premium Safari ammo. I will have a look later today, thanks.

[EDG]

Develop your process using some other brass for practice.
Use 45-70 brass or some thing similar until you have the flame size, distance and time about right.
Then transfer the process you are comfortable with to your expensive brass.

You can also look at minimizing the amount of sizing to the neck by using a honed out FL die. If you keep pressures down and avoid pushing the shoulder back you can make your brass nearly immortal.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Good idea, EDG. I have a supply of well worn nickel plated (mind you, there is not much plating left on them, lol) 45/70s. They would benefit from an annealing anyway and are expendable as they owe me nothing. Thanks.

[Wayne Smith]

I anneal brass in my lead pot. No reason it won't work with nickle cases.