How to confirm proper annealing
- Thread starter shinny
- Start date
Lee Martin
Active member
It isn't horribly scientific Shinny but I always used Tempilaq coating on the necks. It's pretty good at keeping time and temperature in check.
-Lee
www.singleactions.com
-Lee
www.singleactions.com
Dusty Stevens
Hollow Point Dispenser
Theres some way you can squeeze the neck with pliers and see what it does. If you dont think you got it good hit em again it wont hurt
M
Mozella
Guest
Short of having scientific instruments, is there any absolute way to confirm that brass has been properly annealed.
Nope.
The way to tell is to use a lab instrument to press a small ball-tipped stylus into the brass with a standard force and then measuring the diameter of the indentation. Alternative methods involve dropping a special pin from a standard height and measuring the rebound. Or scratching the surface with a diamond tipped tool and measuring the required force to produce a "standard" scratch. Then you can slice the sample, mount it in some sort of plastic or epoxy supported sample holder, carefully grind it down and polish it, possibly etch the sample to better reveal the grain structure, and then examine the sample under a microscope to study (and possibly measure) the grain size.
Any of us who studied metallurgy in college are familiar with these methods, but as far as I know, there aren't any shooters who have gone so far around the bend that they're measuring their annealed brass this way.................. yet.
Squeezing the neck with pliers may prove that your annealed case is softer than one fired and resized 15 times, but all that really does is ruin two good cases.
Don't worry. If you follow the well documented procedures published countless times in this forum and others, you'll most likely be OK. Just don't do anything silly or stupid.
One thing that has been scientifically tested with instruments designed for testing cartridge brass hardness as well as microscopic examination of the grain structure, is that the drill and torch method can produce uneven results from one side of the case to the other. In theory, that isn't good.
However, any of the automatic machines (including the inexpensive DIY "Skip Design" machine) which spin the case or otherwise use some method to heat the neck evenly (the induction machines for example) is likely to solve that problem even though I'm not aware of any scientific tests proving that for certain.
I believe, although I cannot absolutely prove it, that using a precision machine to anneal your cases in the generally accepted way, using Templaq (as a way to check temperature on some sample cases and as a method to calibrate your machine), and using a good technique to insure that all your cases get an identical treatment is more important than the exact grain size of the finished brass.
If you anneal every time using a good procedure, you should enjoy more consistent neck tension and long brass life even though your brass might not test identically to mine if we were to send samples of our work to a metallurgic laboratory.