Those that anneal

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Ohio3Wheels
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Those that anneal

Post by Ohio3Wheels »

I've been watching some Utube videos of home made annealing machines and have the itch to build one. I have a question particularly to those that anneal straight wall rifle and pistol cases. How far down the case do you heat? I'll be doing 45-70, 40-65, 45 Colt and 357 mag. If you look at the units they use a cake pan to hold and spin the case while it heats. The pan needs to be cut down to expose the part of the case that gets heated hence the question.

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Re: Those that anneal

Post by Ranch Dog »

I don't know if I can help or not as I use a commercial case annealer. My anneal has three torches that the case momentarily pauses between, the tip of each torch 2" from the center of the case mouth. The height of the torches are adjustable. When I adjust the height, I position the center of the torch at the top of the case mouth. Now try to picture this. I light the three torches and their flames meet in the middle, 2" from the end of each torch. The case rotates into center of this tri-flame where the core of the heat is being applied to the case mouth. You can physically see the case anneal down it's length as it sits in that flame and it then rotates out and into a water quench.

The critical part for my use is the timing of the feed rotation. Too little is a waste and too long is a potential damaged case. I use Tempilaq on sample cases which is an agent that indicates that a temperature has been reached.
Tempilaq.jpg
I use a brush width of 750° on the interior of the case neck from the mouth down about .2". It is used on the interior of the case so that the flames do not affect it but rather just the heat. The brass needs to sit in the flame just until the point that the 750° Tempilaq disappears. On the annealer, the cases are not sitting in water so my test cases have a dot of 350° Tempilaq at the web (.2" from the base of any case). In the timing cycle you want the 750° to disappear but never the 350°. On my machine this test is only done if I suspect I've bumped the cycle control.

The reason I mention this is that annealing really doesn't happen unless that 750°is reached. Like anything in reloading it also needs to be reached uniformly. To answer you last question specifically, I'm applying direct heat to maybe .2" of the top of the case.
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Re: Those that anneal

Post by Ranch Dog »

I haven't done a CSI on my 454 Casull case failure yet but one possibility is that I was not careful enough with the height setting alignment and had the center of the flame, the core, lower than I normally do. It wasn't much but on a short case it doesn't take much. If that is the case, this lot of 100 new cases is shot.

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The other possibility is that it is one of the few cases that I was shooting at or near the 454 Casull's 65.0K PSI maximum. If this is the case, than case life stinks. That's a lot of "cases" in the last two sentences!~
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Re: Those that anneal

Post by Ohio3Wheels »

Thanks, Michael, I'll add tempilac to my shopping list. Trying to see if I can source the parts here in the US. Going to hit the big surplus (junk) store later this week.

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Re: Those that anneal

Post by Coop 45 »

Check this one out.

http://www.ampannealing.com
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Re: Those that anneal

Post by Ranch Dog »

Ohio3Wheels wrote:Thanks, Michael, I'll add tempilac to my shopping list. Trying to see if I can source the parts here in the US. Going to hit the big surplus (junk) store later this week.

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Re: Those that anneal

Post by runfiverun »

my set-up is similar to Michael's
except I only use 2 torches [pencil type]
and the case spins for a certain amount of time.
the bigger ones like the 0-6 are almost 4 seconds in the torch cross fire.
small stuff like 223 is just over 3 seconds.
I aim the 'back' torch at the top 1/8" of the mouth of the case and the second one abut half way down the neck.
the timer maintains consistency.
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Re: Those that anneal

Post by Ohio3Wheels »

Coop 45 wrote:Check this one out.

http://www.ampannealing.com
I took a look at it yesterday. Nice machine but it exceeds my budget by a factor of 10x. I do like the idea of induction heating though.

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Re: Those that anneal

Post by Coop 45 »

It's well outside my budget as well but I really like the simplicity of the process. The way I see it it is the cost of the machine + extended case life v's new cases. I'll just buy more cases.
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Re: Those that anneal

Post by GasGuzzler »

Coop 45 wrote:It's well outside my budget as well but I really like the simplicity of the process. The way I see it it is the cost of the machine + extended case life v's new cases. I'll just buy more cases.
Yep. I didn't even check the price. I bet it's more than $100.
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