Anneal-Rite Kit John Barsness
much they sometimes split after only one or two firing/resizing cycles. Re-formed cases should be annealed before they’re fired; otherwise all our hard work can be wasted. To properly anneal, we need to
Once the kit is set up, it doesn’t take long to anneal a bunch of brass. John did 50 6.5-06 cases in an average of six seconds apiece.
loading is annealing case necks after brass has been fired and resized sev- eral times. Without periodic annealing, work-hardening eventually makes the necks crack, ruining the case. With normal sizing dies, the neck of a case gets “worked” four times – when fired, when the neck is squeezed down in the die, when the neck gets pulled over the expander ball, and when a bullet is seated. Cracked necks become common after around five firing/resizing cycles. We can reduce work-hardening by using collet or bushing dies, which size the neck just enough to hold the bullet, and also eliminate the expander ball, allow-
O
ne of the most misunder- stood processes in hand-
ing one or two more firing/sizing cycles before necks start to crack. Of course, we don’t have to an-
neal work-hardened brass. Instead we can just haul it to the local recycling center and be paid a few bucks, per- haps enough to replace five percent of the cases we bring in. Since annealing a thousand 223 Remington cases takes time, replacing brass is the easiest solu- tion – but expensive.
Also, a lot of handloaders re-form cases, especially by necking it up or down, either when making wildcat ammo, or to save money by transform- ing cheap military brass into, say, 221 Fireballs. Even just necking brass up or down often work-hardens the necks so
understand a little bit about cartridge brass. All brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, known as a “substitutional” alloy since the structure of the atoms of each element are similar, the zinc adding stiff- ness and strength to the copper. Cartridge brass is about 70% cop- per and 30% zinc, and cases are made by cold-forming in several dies. This work-hardens the brass, necessary in the case-head to help contain the pressure of expanding gas. However, the neck on a newly made case (as on a re-formed case) is so work-hardened it can crack when the case is fired for the first time, or even when the first bullet is seated. Factories anneal necks and shoulders as the last step in making new brass, and with a little knowledge we can perform the same job properly when annealing cases at home. For decades the commonly sug- gested method was to stand cases in a pan of water, with their shoulders and necks above the water level, then heat the necks with a propane torch until they glowed red. After heating, the cases were tipped over into the water. While this method does anneal brass, it creates more problems than it solves. The biggie is that the temperature of red-hot brass is at least 800 degrees F., above the melting point of zinc. The brass becomes too soft, and case life is
Ten case-holder/levers are available for cartridges ranging in size from the 22 Hornet to 50 BMG.
Page 130 Winter 2013
The first step is to paint the inside of the necks with 750-degree Tempilaq. The optional case organizer makes this a pretty quick job.
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