On this annealing bidness

Pete Wass

Pete Wass

Well-known member
I had the thought the other day that it might not hurt anything to anneal brass most of the way to the case head. My thinking went to new cases; they must be soft when we fire them the first time,eh? So what would be harmed by returning them to where they were to begin with? Any thoughts?

I plan to try one when I get home.

Pete
 
Based on everything I have read

I would not advise that. The area that gets work hardened the most is the neck. The rim, web and primer pocket areas need to be hard to withstand firing pressure. The body should be moderately hard. It needs to be pliable enough to quickly expand, but hard and springy enough to contract to the point where the case can be easily extracted from the chamber after firing. My feeling is that attaining proper neck annealing temperature is fine and it may slightly soften the upper case body. if you get the case too hot and for too long and you anneal the base, rim, head area you are in trouble imo.


http://www.6mmbr.com/annealing.html
 
Some people learn by example, others have to piss on the electric fence. Hope you have enough good sense to perform this experiment some distance from fellow shooters (but that is doubtful). Guess we'll read about you in the next Darwin report. I grew up with two different fools who experimented with going around a curve at ever increasing speeds. It seems that they didn't think ahead far enough to figure out what would happen when they were going too fast. The Darwin principle works whether you understand it or not. Cleans up the gene pool.

Rick
 
Really?

Mr. Wass, does case head separation sound like a reason not to? How about tempting a catastrophe of total rifle failure? How about loosing an eye? Or the ultimate failure resulting in lose of life?

Every piece of annealing instruction papers warn of these type of failures if you do what you’re talking about. But you don’t see the harm in trying? You don’t have to stick your hand in a fire to know it’s hot, this common sense should apply to this subject too!

You should not do it, nor should it be posted on here giving new shooters very BAD ideas about annealing. This kind of post should be removed!
 
And people ask me why I haven't been shooting Maine matches anymore. I'll travel and shoot with them southern boys at least they have more sense.
 
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How does anyone here

giving advice, know for sure virgin cases are hard out of the box?

I have had head separation and case separation in the past with rifles that used cases made up from"Parent cases" None of em ever blew the rifle up.

Rifle barrels are a lot stronger then some of you apparently imagine. I will report my findings and I'm quite certain it won't be an obituary. You don't have to worry Jim, I won't do it at a match :).


Pete
 
Pete Wass said:
giving advice, know for sure virgin cases are hard out of the box?

I have had head separation and case separation in the past with rifles that used cases made up from"Parent cases" None of em ever blew the rifle up.

Rifle barrels are a lot stronger then some of you apparently imagine. I will report my findings and I'm quite certain it won't be an obituary. You don't have to worry Jim, I won't do it at a match :).


Pete
Click to expand...

OK..... so I thought I'd stay out of this BUT.....

Pete, you're asking questions that have been A N S W E R E D for years. I, for one, have been involved with actual testing of brass case hardness. YES.... "out of the box"..... fired..... twice-fired..... 20-fired and even wrecked cases. My brother-in-law has several hardness testing apparati, testing for "Brinell" and "Rockwell." There's also been some sclerometer and compressive yield block testing altho I personally see little value in scratch testing...

Point is, back in the day a bunch of folks who've since quit the board did send off cases, bring them to work or even buy equipment to actually test brass cases for hardness.


20yrs ago when certain folks were "arguing" (more like just spouting unfounded opinions) to those of us who called Lapua cases "tough" and "hard" pissed a lot of guys off so several people spent a lot of money re-plowing this ground with testing equipment.

There are 7 "new" cartridge companies that I know of as well as some "new formulations" recently produced (like Norma's PPC entry) and several folks have written results of sending off cases to be tested by labs.

I just test them myownself by firing them to failure, comparing against known baselines (Lapua/Win)

But the easy way is just to look at a new Lapua case to see proper annealing, ready for firing. (Yes, the entire case body HAS BEEN annealed several times prior to release but is work-hardened properly and just the n/s annealed before final inspection/ release to be fired for effect)

There have been diagrams posted showing the hardness of various points on the brass case, latest I saw were over on 6MMBR. I'd reference/search the diagram but they kicked me off that board for "being unsafe"..... Try a web search?

On a side note..... head separations have NOTHING TO DO WITH annealing and brass hardness.

Head separations come from excess headspace

period
 
Pete Wass said:
giving advice, know for sure virgin cases are hard out of the box?

I have had head separation and case separation in the past with rifles that used cases made up from"Parent cases" None of em ever blew the rifle up.

Rifle barrels are a lot stronger then some of you apparently imagine. I will report my findings and I'm quite certain it won't be an obituary. You don't have to worry Jim, I won't do it at a match :).


Pete
Click to expand...
Thank God Pete that it's one more thing I don't have to worry about. It bad enough that I there is one guy who shoots with us up here that should only be allowed to shoot a cap gun. I worry every time he shows up to shoot whether one of us is going to get shot by the time the match is over. Trust me, I'm not the only one who has thought the same thing. Then there's Capt Briggs a legend in his own mind. His head is so big because he is so full of himself that it's going to explode one day. He's even modifying a 30BR cartridge and naming it after himself. Go figure. LMFAO!
 
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Thanks Al

alinwa said:
OK..... so I thought I'd stay out of this BUT.....

Pete, you're asking questions that have been A N S W E R E D for years. I, for one, have been involved with actual testing of brass case hardness. YES.... "out of the box"..... fired..... twice-fired..... 20-fired and even wrecked cases. My brother-in-law has several hardness testing apparati, testing for "Brinell" and "Rockwell." There's also been some sclerometer and compressive yield block testing altho I personally see little value in scratch testing...

Point is, back in the day a bunch of folks who've since quit the board did send off cases, bring them to work or even buy equipment to actually test brass cases for hardness.


20yrs ago when certain folks were "arguing" (more like just spouting unfounded opinions) to those of us who called Lapua cases "tough" and "hard" pissed a lot of guys off so several people spent a lot of money re-plowing this ground with testing equipment.

There are 7 "new" cartridge companies that I know of as well as some "new formulations" recently produced (like Norma's PPC entry) and several folks have written results of sending off cases to be tested by labs.

I just test them myownself by firing them to failure, comparing against known baselines (Lapua/Win)

But the easy way is just to look at a new Lapua case to see proper annealing, ready for firing. (Yes, the entire case body HAS BEEN annealed several times prior to release but is work-hardened properly and just the n/s annealed before final inspection/ release to be fired for effect)

There have been diagrams posted showing the hardness of various points on the brass case, latest I saw were over on 6MMBR. I'd reference/search the diagram but they kicked me off that board for "being unsafe"..... Try a web search?

On a side note..... head separations have NOTHING TO DO WITH annealing and brass hardness.

Head separations come from excess headspace

period
Click to expand...

You seem to have the most in depth knowledge of anyone on here. You, for sure, are not a Sheeple and I appreciate your answer here. About where my thinking was at.

It really bugs me when people think they know what they are talking about when in reality they use what someone has told them as fact and admonish others who do not buy it. Like you imply, the sky is not falling.

Thanks Again,

Pete
 
Pete Wass said:
You seem to have the most in depth knowledge of anyone on here. You, for sure, are not a Sheeple and I appreciate your answer here. About where my thinking was at.

It really bugs me when people think they know what they are talking about when in reality they use what someone has told them as fact and admonish others who do not buy it. Like you imply, the sky is not falling.

Thanks Again,

Pete
Click to expand...

We agree on something.
 
Somebody please tell Pete it’s primarily the shoulder that moves............before he hurts himself.
 
Pete Wass said:
I had the thought the other day that it might not hurt anything to anneal brass most of the way to the case head. My thinking went to new cases; they must be soft when we fire them the first time,eh? So what would be harmed by returning them to where they were to begin with? Any thoughts?

I plan to try one when I get home.

Pete
Click to expand...

Pete, the flaw in your analogy is cases are NOT soft as you get closer to the head. There is a very specific heat treat of the entire case upon manufacture, the the neck and shoulder are then annealed to soften that particular area.

The strength is in the web area. Do not disturb this.
 
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