Annealing brass

[PJ Hardtack]

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Over 50 'reads' and no responses ... guess there's no point in asking if people quench in water after annealing or air cool .....


I'm starting off a new batch of brass for 'Lead Belly', my Shiloh 50-70 carbine.

I've neck sized them with a Meacham neck sizer and run them through my RCBS 5 station case prep machine.

I've long been annealing my 45-70 and 50-70 brass, but all of it had been fired a few times before I started annealing. Do you guys anneal right off the bat or after a first firing?

[Buffler Razz]

I just did up a bunch for my 45 Colt, I dunked them in water. Sized and loaded up fine, will be shooting them this weekend. My 40-82's came annealed from Jamison, I'm not sure of their method.

[Colt Fanning]

Howdy,
I heat the case mouth to a dull red in a dimly lighted area while holding the rim with a pair of pliers.
Then quench in water.  I believe that brass must be quenched (unlike steel) in order to anneal it.
Regards
Colt

[Tascosa Joe]

I looked and lurked but since I never tried annealing I didnt say anything.

[Short Knife Johnson]

I darken the room and heat the case mouth until it just starts to turn orange.  I have done both air and water quench and found no difference other than having wet brass to deal with.  The case is held in my fingers and turned in a low flame of a propane torch.  Since brass is a non-ferrous material, quench rates are not critical.  Ferrous alloys need slower cooling rates to anneal and fast cooling to harden.

A friend of mine has an annealing machine and it is just the ticket for doing large amounts.

[Wagon Box Willy]

Howdy,
I heat the case mouth to a dull red in a dimly lighted area while holding the rim with a pair of pliers.
Then quench in water.  I believe that brass must be quenched (unlike steel) in order to anneal it.
Regards
Colt

Unlike steel, which will be made harder when it is cooled rapidly, brass is virtually unaffected when it is rapidly cooled. Annealing brass and suddenly quenching it in water will have no measurable effect on the brass.

I air cool mine on a cookie sheet.

Willy

[PJ Hardtack]

Hoo Boy! This sure don't jive with the gospel on the Shiloh forum ....

One guy conducted a test with two batches of brass - one air cooled, t'other water quenched. Then he checked them with a concentricity gauge. The air cooled were more concentric. He felt that dunking them caused uneven cooling. He could have a point, but it's hard to imagine that actually being a problem. I dump mine neck first into the water, so that's pretty even cooling, IMHO.

Another guy quoted a metallurgist who says air cooling is better for molecular structure reasons. People who do either are happy with the results they get. Some anneal before resizing, others do the reverse. Again - both are happy with the results.

One guy suggested that it's time Steve Garbe had one of his cronies do a test and then write up an article with his findings in BPCN.

[Mogorilla]

not  sure if brass behaves like bronze, but heating and air cooling will harden bronze to a degree while heating and quenching bronze will make it softer, a little easier to work with.  Helped make a few bronze swords over the years to varying degrees of succcess.  Among bronze age reanctors, this seems to be one of the harder facts for them to adjust to.

[PJ Hardtack]

Brass and gun metal/sword bronze are different alloys. I suspect that they may react differently to heating and quenching.

I have a gun metal bronze sand cast tomahawk head that was so hard I couldn't touch it with a file! I had to have a knife maker polish it up for me, and he said it was a challenge.

Did hear one interesting thing re: annealing that made sense to me .... the claim was that the propane flame on case sizing residue caused scratching on the inside of dies.

Ask three people about this and you're going to get four answers .....