annealing

[Sasquach]

I'm wondering if I messed up. Had a bunch of extremely dirty .44 magnum brass that I was attempting to clean up. Washed them and put them in the oven to speed drying. Set at 400 degrees. Left it in a little longer than intended. It came out a little discolored. Looks like rifle brass case necks that have been annealed. Did I wreck it?

[reed1911]

Nope, 400 is fine.

[country gent]

How long was it in at 400 degrees? Annealing is a temp and time combination. Longer soak times at lower temps will have an effect. In this case case heads may not completely fail but primer pockets may enlarge faster.

[Vann]

That's true copper can anneal at 200 degrees in as little as 30 mins. I know that sounds like BS but it's one of the things I learned when I attended my level 1 Thermography class.

[Sasquach]

Probably 11/2 hrs. Turned oven off and went to bed.

[country gent]

Be carefull with it. It may be softened some. Possibly use it for "light" target type loads only. SOmething in the 44 spl range. The case heads soaking thislong could be an issue

[Smoke4320]

1.5 hours + at 400 and at least 30 minutes (probably longer) before oven was below 200
personally I would toss them .. Not worth the risk

[jimofaz]

Nope, 400 is fine.

+1

[dragon813gt]

600 for 60 minutes is the ballpark for ruining cases. Next time, just leave the oven on warm.

[C. Latch]

You're probably fine, but you could be sure by loaded up 3-5 test rounds of lighter loads and noting how your primer pockets fared and how badly your brass swelled in the chamber when shot. Proceed upward from there. A full-powered .44 load in a fully annealed case wouldn't be good.

[Sasquach]

Thanks to all for the advise. I'll think I will do as C.Latch suggested and try a few lighter loads and check them out. Hate to throw them away, as there are several hundred of them.

[Vann]

I don't like giving yes or no advice when it involves someone else's life and body.

That being said, if the brass was annealed it should size very easy, and you may have a hard time seating primers due to the head warping. Also when seating the primers you'll probably notice the case rim being bent as you press down on the ram.

These are just some tell tell signs. No guarantee that these signs will be present as the last few listed would occur only on a piece of dead soft brass.

Now for a bit of my dumb logic, follow at your own risk.

Worst case scenario if fired in a rifle would be an blown out primer pocket and possibly a ruptured case. Not exactly pleasant but I don't think you'd get much more than some gas back in the face.

If fired in a pistol, you'd probably just have a blown out primer pocket with no damage to you or the gun.

If fired as a target or cowboy type load I don't think that anything would happen at all, even if it where dead soft it would still be stronger than the old balloon head brass used in the 45 Colt back in the day. Not to mention the fact that brass is only acting like an inner tube and the chamber is the tire. A 44 Mag is a very strong tire.

Finally, I believe that if it were softened some, after a firing or to it would probably have its hardness back for the most part.

Remember, this is just dumb redneck logic. Proceed at your own risk.