Anneal or not

[Danth]

I've got some very old 43 Spanish cases I'd like to put to use. Will annealing help or hurt prior to resizing and is it necessary? I can de-prime with a universal decapping die prior to pin tumbling. Thanks, Dan

[JimB..]

I’ve annealed some not so old (40 -50 years) 45-70 and some young (20ish years) 45lc and 357mag and in every case it seems to me that it reduced splits. I firmly believe that brass is doing work holding a bullet in place and gets harder and more brittle over time. For really scarce old brass I’d pull, anneal, and reload rather than firing.

And no, it won’t hurt anything unless you go overboard.

[Delkal]

For a rare cartridge like that I would definitely anneal the brass since it will give you a longer case life and no one likes paying $5-10 for one piece of brass.

The easiest way is anneal is to find a deep well socket where the case is sticking 1/2 way out and go to harbor freight and get an adapter for your drill. Then get a propane torch and a tray with an inch of water in it. Find someplace with lower light and put the case in the socket and heat the brass in the hottest flame (where you see the blue cone turn to the wider flame) while rotating the case with the drill. Hold the pinpoint flame in the middle of the neck and start counting. After a few seconds you will see the brass change color and start to look brighter then you might see a yellow flame starting too. Immediately tip the drill down so the case falls into the water and you are done. It takes me about 5 seconds a case but depending on your torch or brass thickness your time might be different. When you figure out the best time try and be consistent. When you are done you should see a ring 1/4 inch under the shoulder where the metal is discolored from being annealed. You don't want to anneal too far down.

All you need is to get the brass to where you see a slight color change or maybe a little orange when you take it out of the flame. You do not want it glowing red.

[country gent]

Annealing will remove stress and hardening both work hardening from firing and sizing and age hardening. It will improve the life of the brass.
There are many ways to do this.
You want to see a color change in the deep blue to light orange to do this.
You want to anneal the neck shoulder area but not the case head lower body of the cases. You can get an idea looking at military rifle ammo since they dont polish out the annealing colors and will show them ending slightly below the shoulder.

[Mk42gunner]

Annealing can certainly help, especially with old brass like you have. However it is easy to overdo it. If you do the old oft repeated trick of "heating to a dull red," in my opinion you have gone too far.

If you do as suggested above and just heat until you see the color change below the shoulder, you should be fine.

I would also start slowly, by doing one case and trying it. If you need more or less this way you haven't ruined the whole lot of cases.

Robert

[K43]

I use a propane torch outside at night with little lighting so the color change is quite evident. Old, crude method, but I don't overcook the brass.

[35 Rem]

I still haven't tried annealing but if you want the ability to verify temperatures at least a few times until you calibrate your eyeballs to recognize when you have applied enough heat, CartridgeAnneal.com sells Tempilaq liquid. You paint it on the case then watch for it to change colors when the temperature is reached. I bought the whole set of tools from these people, just haven't gotten around to using it yet.

[Jedman]

With 43 Spanish I would see if you really need to resize your brass for it to chamber. I have single shot rifles in antique calibers that allow me to just reprime and seat cast bullets that are a little over groove size. Anealing is a good idea as long as you don’t overheat the brass. That caliber is rather hard to find and if you have to buy it new almost makes you cry at the price.
Jedman

[stubshaft]

For a rare cartridge like that I would definitely anneal the brass since it will give you a longer case life and no one likes paying $5-10 for one piece of brass.

The easiest way is anneal is to find a deep well socket where the case is sticking 1/2 way out and go to harbor freight and get an adapter for your drill. Then get a propane torch and a tray with an inch of water in it. Find someplace with lower light and put the case in the socket and heat the brass in the hottest flame (where you see the blue cone turn to the wider flame) while rotating the case with the drill. Hold the pinpoint flame in the middle of the neck and start counting. After a few seconds you will see the brass change color and start to look brighter then you might see a yellow flame starting too. Immediately tip the drill down so the case falls into the water and you are done. It takes me about 5 seconds a case but depending on your torch or brass thickness your time might be different. When you figure out the best time try and be consistent. When you are done you should see a ring 1/4 inch under the shoulder where the metal is discolored from being annealed. You don't want to anneal too far down.

All you need is to get the brass to where you see a slight color change or maybe a little orange when you take it out of the flame. You do not want it glowing red.

I do mine while watching the boob tube.

[Bazoo]

Yes, I would anneal. You risk losing cases if you don't.

[Shiloh]

For scarce cartridges, I would anneal. I do it by hand in a dark room. Read up on it. .30-40 Krag
I aim a Smith Little Torch at the top of the shoulder. When the neck JUST begins to glow, I drop in water.


Shiloh

[K43]

Like Shiloh, except on the back deck at night.
Always anneal the old brass just in case it got brittle.

[Rapier]

If formng or with old brass, I use the old method of annealing, a large flat metal pan with brass sitting mouth up, fill with water half up on the case. With a propane torch light the torch, turn out the lights, heat each case neck yo it just turns pink, not red, then tip over in the water. Dry, then clean, then size or form. You will cut down on your brass loss substantially.
If you get a single split mouth or neck it is time to anneal for sure.