My .357 are starting to split. I don’t load them hot. Wondering if anyone tried annealing to extend their reloading life.
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My .357 are starting to split. I don’t load them hot. Wondering if anyone tried annealing to extend their reloading life.
No. I have never bothered. I get what I consider good life out of them and just discard the split ones when that happens.
The calibers I shoot are common enough the brass is readily available and comparatively cheap,
so I don't bother to anneal them.
As for splits- I only flare and crimp them down the least little bit I can and everything still works well.
This seems to help extend their lifespan a lot.
Those dies that put a big bell on the case mouth- by the time you roll crimp them, that really eats 'em up.
If you're having a big problem with split cases, you might try a Lee powder through the expander.
They minimize working the mouth of the case.
If you need to buy .357 brass, try not to get the Nickel plated ones.
They don't seem to last as long as the plain brass ones.
I've only annealed bottleneck cases for Sillywett pistols, never took the time to do straight wall cases.
Nope
Only use the Lyman M-die.
I tried once a long time ago with 44 cases. Decided it wasn't worth the time. (I have about 1500 cases and don't shoot massive abouts every month. I used the method where you hold the brass between thumb and finger and heat till you feel the heat in your fingers.
As for nickel cases, I have some .38 spl. that I have been loading since 1974. They have been shot a minimum of 10 to 15 times each. I wouldn't expect to get anything better out of yellow brass.
I would venture to say that most, if not all, don’t anneal handgun brass. However, there’s no law saying you can not. I have spare time so I do things that most won’t do and it doesn’t hurt anything. So if it’s something you want to try I say do it.
What Winger Ed said. He’s spot on. I have some .357mag brass here I’m still loading that’s from the late 80’s. I’ve lost a couple, but not many. They were almost all loaded with ww296 also.
I’ve annealed some 41mag brass.
Thanks for the responses. For some reason, I ant upload the photo of the split cases. The split is not at the mouth, but starts about where the boolit base is and extends downward about 1/4”.
I’ll try to figure this photo thing…
I think this worked
Sorry, I should have led with this, but couldn’t get it to post last night…
I used 200 Starline 45 Colt cases for several years in CAS competition. Guns were Ruger SAs and a Marlin Cowboy 45. Bullets were 200 grain RNFPs, of diameter 0.452". I used a custom Buffalo Arms expander, designed like a Lyman M die, main stem 0.451, short neck 0.454. Bullets snapped into the prepared necks and rounds looked factory with the Redding profile roll crimp. When the necks work hardened after about 5 loads, I torch annealed them, making them good for another 5 loads. Same cases lasted for 3 years of weekly competition.
The annealing procedure was quite basic. I had a B&D battery drill driver and chucked a socket adapter stem with a 9/16" socket. Lit propane torch stood on the bench (with a large diameter base), cases were dropped into the socket, head down, and rotating necks held in the flame for the first color change, then dumped into water.
Can nickel plated brass be annealed?
Yes it can, same as unplated
You didn’t state who the manufacturer was. I’m just curious. I worked in the auto industry for around forty years and I’ve probably made millions of copper/brass radiators. About twenty years ago we purchased some brass oil coolers from a place in Brazil, who was actually a big OE supplier in S. America, and had good quality. Anyway, we started getting a lot of oil cooler leaks and immediately put a hold on all their product until the root cause could be found. It turned out they changed brass metallurgy and started using a red brass. After annealing in their rolling mill process it started cracking after about three months in inventory. We charged them back several million dollars and they went back to their old brass process….no more cracked coolers. I suspect whoever made those cases used a different type of brass…either to save money or they didn’t know their supplier had changed. FYI, I’ve been in brass foundries that made brass for the automotive industry and as a side money maker they made cartridge cases. They made them for some really big name companies. Don’t assume the brass you’re buying is made by the company whose name is on the box. They get behind and outsource the job sometimes.
I anneal all of my formed brass, prior to forming, plus my long revolver brass, the Super Mags and single shots. I just use the shallow water pan with water over the web, lights out, turn just pink and tip over with the torch tip. It can near double the life of my brass when minimally expand to just fit a base, seat and then taper crimp.
Shot Silhouette against myself for forty years, never shoot in a match against anyone else, unless it is a shoot off, then I come to win. My ammo is the very best I can make, in every way.
Revolver brass tat we anneal is the uncommon ones. Supermags, 475 Linebaugh, 45 Winchester Mag......
Plus we only eck size revolver brass as we segregate brass to a certain revolver.
With mild loads I have never felt the need to.
Straight-wall pistol brass is for the picking up around here! Never bothered with the labor of annealing pistol brass.
I have done some bottleneck 30-30 and 30-06 in the past, but I shoot so few of those, I have many boxes of the stuff ready to prime and load.
I used the same batch of Win 45 colt brass for about 15 years with heavy loads in a Ruger Blackhawk. It had oversized chambers and the base of the cases expanded and took a set so they wouldn't fit in my 45colt Seville.
I know you are not supposed to, but I annealed the cases down close to the head to size them down. I ran them through a 44amp die to reduce the bases, then expanded the mouths and fire formed. They worked fine for awhile, but they made me nervous so I scrapped that batch and switched to starline.
I anneal 44-40 brass with a torch. The case mouths are very thin and I get more life out of them. Some of mine have likely been through 10-12 loads but I don’t keep precise records.
Never bothered with common revolver brass. Given the difficulty in finding replacement brass these days, though, it's something that I'm considering going forward...
I do try to expand the necks as little as possible, though. Excessive flaring will dramatically shorten the life of the case.
For a while, I was using one of those spacer bushings under my 38 Spl dies to load 357. Idea seemed good...Set the dies once for 38, then just install them with the spacer for 357 with no additional adjustments. Except one day, I forgot the washer and flared a bunch of 357's with the die set to 38 length. I noticed that they seemed more resistant to flaring than usual, but I brushed it off and just kept going until I had processed the whole lot. It wasn't until went to seat the bullets that I had realized what I had done. Too late. Most of them split on that next firing.
I don't use those spacers anymore...
If you by chance pick up some .357 brass, I’ll but it from you. Very little down here. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else shooting a wheel gun at the range I frequent.
Nickel has a reputation for splitting sooner than yellow brass.
I sort my nickel brass ouT. No, I do not anneal handgun brass.
Shiloh
For what it's worth, here are a couple of thoughts which came to mind: 1st is that annealing can't hurt, BUT MAKE SURE you do not get the case bottom too hot! There are more than enough treatises on annealing on Internet I shan't go into detail. Other than if you anneal the case's bottom you are making a quite potentially dangerous object, as the now annealed case bottom may very well be too soft to contain high pressure from ignition. (This may be one of the cases -- albeit I've not done it -- where standing cases in a pan of cool water, to exclusively heat/anneal their tops -- may be the way to go.)
2ndly, brass (like us :() doesn't last forever... I've noted through the years, "the older the brass, the more likely to have neck splits" -- this primarily with handgun calibres -- notably in my experience .38 S&W Special. I once got a bucket of once-fired .38 S&W Special brass that had been sitting 25+ years -- assorted headstamps and a mix including some nickel -- and a very high percentage developed neck splits by 2nd (quite mild for S&W Model 52 mid-range use) loading.
Hope this helps...
geo
Maybe it is due to my old eyes, but it sure looks as though most of those did not split at the case neck where you'd figure they'd split, but down about midway of the case. Just shooting from the hip, but I'd wonder if it was just plain bad brass. I had some Winchester factory new 303 Brit ammo a few years ago and I had one or two case splits about midway in the case.
Attachment 301212
Some brass is not good. The only handgun brass I ever reloaded that demonstrated that problem was some Star line 9mm Largo that was not properly annealed from the factory. It split exactly as your 357 brass has, but on the first or second firing.
The only revolver cases I ever annealed were 327 mag Federal cases that were splitting on first firing, and at the time, they were unique, only Federal loaded ammunition was to be had. I had to break down two boxes of shells, de-prime, then anneal the cases. Once this was done, I reloaded them and got several loadings out of them before I tired of the experiment and sold my Taurus.
I remember reading that it has something to do with the plating process, that tends to make the brass sightly more brittle than unplated brass. I've found that a lot of people won't buy nickel plated brass for that reason, but I think it's an overblown worry. I have noticed that whenever I find a split case it does seem a bit more likely that it's nickel, but not nearly enough to make me avoid nickel altogether. Besides, I like shiny. :)
A little bit of a tangent regarding annealing: I've been annealing all of my bottleneck brass since I started wet tumbling a few years ago. I didn't at first, but I started having a high percentage of split necks on ammo that had been sitting for a while. It was happening on multiple different calibers and types, and the only thing they had in common was the fact that the brass had all been wet tumbled before loading. I believe something about the tumbling slightly embrittled the case necks, and as they aged sitting on a shelf, they got worse. I had about 1500 rounds of 223 that was scrap- about half of them had tiny, invisible cracks to where I could pull the bullets with my fingers, and 90% of the rest were guaranteed to crack if I fired them. I ended up pulling down a lot of ammo. I started annealing every high pressure round that I tumble, and the problem went away completely.
I wondered if I should start annealing higher pressure revolver rounds like 357 and 44 mag, but never had any issues with them cracking. I have changed the way I tumble somewhat, so that may have been a factor. I don't leave them in as long, and use less Dawn and Lemishine. I haven't heard of this being a common issue, and the usual reaction when I mention it is that it's impossible, I must be doing something wrong, excessive sizing, storing them next to ammonia, etc.. I hope there aren't a lot of guys out there who pull their carefully assembled reloads off the shelf a couple years later to use them, only to find them all cracked.
I wonder if the cracking of nickel plated cases is the result of hydrogen embrittlement? See attached.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement
You may have saved me the exercise of taking my destroyer down to it's bare bones.
I can fire original berdan primed ammunition with no problem(splitting that is).
My star line Largo brass splits on first firing.
Never have had a problem with new star line brass before, going to have to question that now.
Have gotten some cerro safe to make chamber cast check size of chamber.
Never heard about the failure of Starline to anneal some brass.
It did split very similar to the OP's 357.
Think I'll try to anneal and see it results are different.
Thanks for some insight to the problem.
And how did you find out about the factory snafu?
thanks
Pistol brass is cheap enough that annealing is more effort than it's worth..
You certainly could anneal pistol brass.
In normal days, probably a correct statement.
You have to remember we now have Brandon mucking things up royally.
A fixed income tells me right now it's cheaper to heat up the lead pot and anneal.
I may have junked the Largo brass already anyway.
Do have Win 9x23 that I may try in the destroyer.
thanks
Years ago I did a shoot to destruction test using Winchester 45 Colt brass in my Black Hawk. I started with 50 pieces of new brass, fired them twice with Ruger level loads and then used mild loads with Unique and Lee’s 255 RNFP. At the 25 loading/firing mark; coincidentally, I had 25 cases left. The 25 lost were due to split necks. Based on my experience, I don’t anneal pistol brass
I trashed the remaining 25 cases
Before I fixed my financial woes by marrying a lady who pulls her own weight, I couldn’t afford a high failure rate regarding brass. I had a friend turn the ends of some brass rods for a slip fit into the mouths of a few revolver cartridges I loaded for. I’d clamp a rod into a bench vise and position a propane torch under it. When the rod was good and hot I would pick up a case while wearing a leather work glove and slip it over the machined end of the rod. You can easily see the heat migrate through the brass and then you just drop the case into an ammo can underneath the rod. I wouldn’t be above doing it these days if I see the need.
WOW NSB; thanks for the behind the scenes education. I wouldn't have known that might have been a factor.
You bet I do. Attachment 306517 Attachment 306518
This improved "sealing" was especially helpful with my 215gr low power CAS loads. Until I win a lottery, I always seem to have "more time than money".
ANNEALING 101: Annealing, esp brass/copper, is affected by following a well documented [don't have it now] 2nd order curve, where a 'lower temperature @ longer time' is equivalent to 'high temperature @ very short time' to reorganize crystalline structure. I dry my cleaned brass @ 280 deg. for 30 min. prior to tumble 'polishing'; not a problem, no danger to its strength.
I anneal short brass as pictured, for just enough time to discern a red hue in my darkened room, then dump it, as an automotive socket easily permits. Dump it where? Well in bucket of water with 45Auto or 45 LC, to prevent any heat traveling to toward the base. 45-70, 30-06 necks are just dumped in a nearby tray. NOTE - Cooling [called quenching] in water or air does not adversely affect the annealing results, it just permits you various control of the heat traveling to where it's not desired.
Hope this helps. Wally