Checking your annealing

[jasper2408]

I was surfing on Utube today and came across a video of a fellow that had a method on how he checked the hardness of his case necks before and after he annealed the case. I am always seeing comments and videos on how to tell whether you got your cases annealed to the correct temperature but nobody can actually say whether they got it right or not. Some of you might have seen this method before but I hadn't so I thought I would post the link to the video. Go to the 22 minute mark and that is where he starts to talk about how he checks his cases to see if he got the correct annealing temp. He shows a PPU case with a hardness of 17 and then anneals it down to 13 hardness so he knows that it was annealed correctly. You have to check each brand and lot of new brass to see what the hardness is so that you can anneal it long enough to get it back to original hardness.

This is the W-20B Hardness testing tool and it has a 6mm(.2362) shaft so 6.5 case necks should fit on it without modification. This one is about $375.00(shipped) and it is a cheap one but does the job.



Here is the video if you are interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF0YmmeEJK4

Update: Shows in more detail how he is checking the neck hardness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=but_JGdqx4c

Just thought this was a way to check for sure if you are getting your cases annealed correctly.

Edit: The annealing machine that the fella uses is one that he built himself. It is a pretty neat piece of equipment.

[Zeneffect]

For those of us with the bolt buster, if you watch the video(s) pay close attention to what is said, then skip the tool if you feel confident. In both videos a reference is made to what occurs during annealing and the tool only verified the result. 2nd video he references going by the flash alone. Those using propane, I have no advice, try to find it on ebay for cheap I guess

You can set your time with 120fps video from a cell phone to know when the matte/silver flash occurs.

[jasper2408]

For those of us with the bolt buster

Nevermind, I figured it out about the bolt buster.

Opening a pandoras box here:
I would like him to check a case after it has been resized to see how much, if any, work hardening goes on during resizing. This tool may not have the precision to measure the difference, if there is any.

I would also be interested in seeing if adjusting to different annealed neck hardnesses improves accuracy or not, for each case and bullet combo? In other words where is it written that the factory new case anneal hardness is the most accurate?

Just a concerned citizen with an inquiring mind. :confused:

[Zeneffect]

Refer to the annealing made perfect documentation. Resizing hardens considerably.

Accuracy with annealing after resize? I've tried it... didn't see much of any difference in accuracy, es, or sd honestly.



https://www.ampannealing.com/articles/40...icroscope/

[jasper2408]

Refer to the annealing made perfect documentation. Resizing hardens considerably.

Accuracy with annealing after resize? I've tried it... didn't see much of any difference in accuracy, es, or sd honestly.



https://www.ampannealing.com/articles/40...icroscope/

Thanks Zeneffect for pointing me to the AMP articles.
I went and read the articles and found out 2 bits of additional info that I did not know besides what you pointed out to me.

The first bit of info:

A note on virgin brass: If virgin cases are loaded straight out of the box without any sizing, the neck hardness after bullet seating and fire forming, at least in our test rifles, is on average only +15 HV above virgin – not a lot. Surprisingly we have found that these cases tend to under-anneal on the first reloading cycle. It is only after cases have been sized at least once that consistent annealed neck hardness will be achieved reload to reload. This is due to the level of "stored energy” which sizing creates.

Therefore, reloaders should either:

directly load virgin cases and not anneal until the second reloading cycle,

or simply run virgin cases through a neck die with expander before starting the first load. This will pre-harden the cases sufficiently to ensure the first and every subsequent anneal gives repeatable results.

The second bit of info I found out was that using a salt bath to anneal bottleneck brass cases does not anneal them correctly. It anneals the body and not the neck. They did anneal straight-walled cases (not recommended) with success though. They thought that the bottleneck did something to affect the annealing process.