Annealing wssm brass

204 AR

Well-known member
I'm not new to annealing, and know it isn't rocket science. But the thick wssm brass takes a lot of heat and being so short it will migrate down I'm afraid.

Any special techniques anyone is doing to wssm brass? Pan of water might be the best route?
 
Angle the flame away from the case head, rotate evenly on a cordless drill or machine, and drop into water to stop the heat from migrating down towards the case head. Dropping into water probably isn't necessary vs air cooling but it certainly can't hurt.
 
I just talked with Mike at Dtech and he said a propane torch won't do it without heating the head too much on these short fat suckers. It just takes too long. That was my experience also. But he has a machine and will anneal them for $20 a hundred. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me and they will all be perfectly done.
 
Just stand them up in a pan of water and anneal the necks, I use two torches one on each side and go down a line of them, I do this for my 218 Bee's, also a short case.
 
I've annealed a bunch of WSSM cases but I have a Benchsource annealing machine like Mike. It has to stay in the flame from two propane touches for 4-5 seconds vs 2-3 seconds for my Tac 20 brass. If doing it by hand I think your best bet would be to get a propane torch from Home Depot, a case holder to put in your drill, some Templac temperature paint for 600-650 degrees, and try it out on some bad cases for practice. The paint will melt off when you have achieved the right temperature, no guessing here! I don't see any benefit in dropping them in water afterwards only negatives.
 
Originally Posted By: WhoCaresI've annealed a bunch of WSSM cases but I have a Benchsource annealing machine like Mike. It has to stay in the flame from two propane touches for 4-5 seconds vs 2-3 seconds for my Tac 20 brass. If doing it by hand I think your best bet would be to get a propane torch from Home Depot, a case holder to put in your drill, some Templac temperature paint for 600-650 degrees, and try it out on some bad cases for practice. The paint will melt off when you have achieved the right temperature, no guessing here! I don't see any benefit in dropping them in water afterwards only negatives.

That's what I've tried but you can't heat it fast enough with 1 propane torch. You end up with the whole case hot and I don't want weak brass blowing up my ar lol. Heck it takes 20 seconds of flame time or more and you still don't get the necks that hot like a normal thinner case.
 
Get a second torch then, that's what my annealing machine uses. They are like 10 bucks at Home Depot. Plus you need the Templac otherwise you really don't know how hot the brass is getting

PS. If you use the Templac and don't overheat the brass you can get 12+ reloads from 1 piece of brass as long as you anneal every firing. At least that was my experience. Good luck!
 
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So this evening I did a little experimenting. Pan of water, 2 propane torches won't heat the neck enough. Maybe my torches are [beeep], IDK. So I moved to the garage and got out the oxy-acytelene torch. Adjusted very low, held it on each side for 4 seconds measured by a stop watch. Probably not necessary but I was going for consistency. That did the trick, but another second or so wouldn't hurt. It softened the necks enough to size fired 223 wssm up to 243 fairly easily and the bases didn't even get warm. I'm happy with this technique.

I loaded 3 up with 41 gr varget and 87 vmax at 2.3" and fired them into a 1 3/8" gp at 200 yds with a cross wind, and that was the first 3 from a clean barrel. I'm going to like this rifle!
 
Just curious? And a safety conscious question. How do you know the case heated up to the right temp? Or in fact overheated or under heated? It's pretty important to be exact. Mike at Dtec (as mentioned earlier) and I as well as many others use the Benchsource annealer, we use 2 of the regular old blue propane canisters from Home Depot, we use No water anywhere in the process, and we successfully anneal 243wssm brass in 4-5 seconds per case. You can easily replicate this process with 2 blue propane tanks, a drill to hold the case and some Templac (available online or any welding supply store) in the 650 temp range. If your really concerned about the base of the case getting too hot( which is why your using water, water is a heat sink and my guess is, it's stopping the heating process causing you to use more heat than necessary), buy an additional Templac in 350-400 degrees and paint that on the bottom of the case, as long as this Templac does not melt and the top does your good to go. If the bottom gets to hot, adjust the flame to hit higher up on the neck. No where do we use an acetylene torch or a yellow propane tank (all too hot to properly control the heat). You paint one test case with the Templac paint, spin the case in a drill, put into the flame and when the Templac melts you have met you objective. Time this process a few times till you have a good working average and then do all the rest with this timing. Hopefully this doesn't sound condescending, it's not meant to be, I really am just trying to help you do this the proper way since you asked. Hope this helps
 
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Originally Posted By: WhoCaresJust curious? And a safety conscious question. How do you know the case heated up to the right temp? Or in fact overheated or under heated? It's pretty important to be exact.

Annealing necks is not critical, and it is just about impossible to ruin a case.

Read this thread - there is a lot of solid technical information in it.

http://www.predatormastersforums.com/for...788#Post2905788
 
Originally Posted By: WhoCaresJust curious? And a safety conscious question. How do you know the case heated up to the right temp? Or in fact overheated or under heated? It's pretty important to be exact.

Hopefully this doesn't sound condescending, it's not meant to be, I really am just trying to help you do this the proper way since you asked. Hope this helps

I get the right color with the oxy, and it's a pinpoint flame that's easy to control. As long as their consistent to each other I'm good with that and timed to the second they all looked the same. Definitely wasn't overheating if that's possible and underheating isn't a problem as they were definitely softened nicely.

The propane wasn't getting it and I'm not in an area where HD and Menards are around the corner to get different ones so using what I have, it's easy and very efficient. I could spin them in a socket using the oxy as it's hot enough to be very quick.

Thanks for the responses.
 
Originally Posted By: BrassRatOriginally Posted By: WhoCaresJust curious? And a safety conscious question. How do you know the case heated up to the right temp? Or in fact overheated or under heated? It's pretty important to be exact.

Annealing necks is not critical, and it is just about impossible to ruin a case.

Read this thread - there is a lot of solid technical information in it.

http://www.predatormastersforums.com/for...788#Post2905788



Well I agree and disagree with some of this information you seem to follow. You should never get the case Red in the dark or in the daylight. Over heating or under heating the case will reduce maximum reloading life, or at worse cause the case to fail, basic scientific practice like using a temperature crayon such as Templac to determine Proper heat is the way to go. This has been shown to work over millions of annealed rounds by numerous experts. If you choose to follow different wisdom like "it gets red in the dark" or " I can't do it right because I don't feel like sourcing the proper tools" then that is your choice. I freely admit I'm no firearms expert or annealing expert but I have processed thousands of cases and the process I've described above has worked well for me and many others. Good luck in your quest!

Also to address your comment about annealing necks are not critical is just flat wrong especially when processing wssm brass. I don't know how many of these wssm case you have personally annealed but I have done many. The case has to be full length resized every single time while bumping back the shoulder a considerable amount. Without proper annealing you will be lucky to get 1 or 2 reloads without a split neck or case body. These cases ave very difficult and expensive to find these days so doing it properly is critical if you need to get 12+ reloads per case.
 
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Originally Posted By: WhoCaresOriginally Posted By: BrassRatOriginally Posted By: WhoCaresJust curious? And a safety conscious question. How do you know the case heated up to the right temp? Or in fact overheated or under heated? It's pretty important to be exact.

Annealing necks is not critical, and it is just about impossible to ruin a case.

Read this thread - there is a lot of solid technical information in it.

http://www.predatormastersforums.com/for...788#Post2905788



Well I agree and disagree with some of this information you seem to follow. You should never get the case Red in the dark or in the daylight. Over heating or under heating the case will reduce maximum reloading life, or at worse cause the case to fail, basic scientific practice like using a temperature crayon such as Templac to determine Proper heat is the way to go. This has been shown to work over millions of annealed rounds by numerous experts. If you choose to follow different wisdom like "it gets red in the dark" or " I can't do it right because I don't feel like sourcing the proper tools" then that is your choice. I freely admit I'm no firearms expert or annealing expert but I have processed thousands of cases and the process I've described above has worked well for me and many others. Good luck in your quest!

Also to address your comment about annealing necks are not critical is just flat wrong especially when processing wssm brass. I don't know how many of these wssm case you have personally annealed but I have done many. The case has to be full length resized every single time while bumping back the shoulder a considerable amount. Without proper annealing you will be lucky to get 1 or 2 reloads without a split neck or case body. These cases ave very difficult and expensive to find these days so doing it properly is critical if you need to get 12+ reloads per case.

I started annealing in the 1960's and do 2,000 to 4,000 a year, now that I am not in business anymore... these are for my own use.

"I can't do it right because I don't feel like sourcing the proper tools" then that is your choice."

Actually, I ran several ammunition companies, and then I opened and ran my own small ammunition company for 4 years(see ammunition manufacturing FFL and businesss card below) and I have sourced the proper real tools.

FFL-640short.jpg


Bizcard-2.jpg


My "Press room"

Press%20room-600_zpsqngc24zc.jpg


Here is a $2,500 metal testing tool I bought to test case necks and heads for hardness.

AAAAA008_zps32667d17.jpg


Here is an article that I posted in a thread on accurateshooter.com, which they thought was good enough to include in their permanent bulletin archive files

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2014...hardness-tests/

I DO know how to test brass for hardness and state of annealing... templaque tells you nothing.

I would love to see your creds in ammunition handloading.
 
I see your supposedly an expert at this. Then why didn't you answer the mans question instead of leaving a drive by post that basically said Nothing informative. I'm here to learn the same as everyone else. I answered the OP's question to the best of my ability. Why didn't you? I would love to hear your professional annealing advice on how to properly anneal 243wssm brass. I still haven't seen you impart that wisdom on us yet! It's always a possibility that your years of annealing prowess can teach me a thing or two.
 
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Originally Posted By: WhoCaresI see your supposedly an expert at this. Then why didn't you answer the mans question instead of leaving a drive by post that basically said Nothing informative. I'm here to learn the same as everyone else. I answered the OP's question to the best of my ability. Why didn't you? I would love to hear your professional annealing advice on how to properly anneal 243wssm brass. I still haven't seen you impart that wisdom on us yet! It's always a possibility that your years of annealing prowess can teach me a thing or two.

I didn't reply to the OP, because by the time I read the thread, the OP had solved his own problem just fine - but then you had to tell him how badd he was doing it.

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I would never tell a person how bad he was doing something that's not me. I offered an alternate way to anneal his brass based on my years of annealing 243wssm brass for my personal use. Hopefully You joined this forum to learn as well as impart knowledge on your fellow members. With your Vast reloading experience I'm sure we all will look forward to your future contributions. I for one am! Have a nice Easter.
 
I appreciate everyone's input. In speaking with Mike he stressed consistency and the fact one propane torch won't cut it on these. He did say other gasses like my acetylene would of course, and I've done it in the past. I have a tiny brazing tip that works pretty well turned way down. This afternoon I will try another batch when I get my other chores done. His price is reasonable but it's pretty inconvenient with shipping etc, so I think I will keep on with what I'm doing.
 
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