Best way to anneal cases

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firecapt

New member
I tried annealing with a propane torch and seemed to burn the necks.I thought one I could get some good tips one a good way to do this.I need to do some 300 Win. mag. Thanks in advance.
 
May not be best way but cheap and it works for me. Small propane torch, dark or semi dark room, heat neck and shoulders till you get a faint red, that’s it, quick and easy. Some dunk in water but not necessary
 
I use a cordless drill and set my casings in an attached socket. I spin them in the propane torch flame until they start turning red drop them in water normally about 10 seconds a shell, Give or take a second or two. I wait till they turn a faint pink. That way you get a nice even heat around the case.
 
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I use two torches facing each other and a deep socket of the appropriate size on a cordless drill. I just hold them in long enough for them to change colour, not even to red. I dump them out on a folded up wrung out wet bath towel, it sucks the heat out of the brass with out the worry of getting water inside the case.

It doesn't take a lot of heat to anneal brass you can do it with a candle even, rotating the neck in a flame until you feel heat in your finger from the head of the brass where you are holding it. Or you can dip it in hot casting lead(too dangerous for me)

The very BEST way is with an annealing machine as everything is exactly the same for each case, but they are expensive and unless you are doing large batches not a worthwhile investment.
 
Cordless drill and propane torch. An expensive machine probably does it more uniformly from a scientific/technical view, but I suspect the difference has little/no measurable effect on accuracy/quality of rifle brass. Similar to a reloader using a micrometer vs caliper. Is a micrometer more accurate? Absolutely. Does it matter for a reloader? Nope.

 
couple questions that will help us help you select the "best" option

1) how much do you shoot?

2) what area are you looking for the best at? quality? quantity? consistency? simplicity? etc

3) at what price invested into equipment does annealing become too expensive for you?
 
Torch and drill with a insert I made myself. One for 223 sized cases and one for 308 sized cases. 6-10 seconds per case is about average.
 
I just go to my buddy's house and use his annealer.
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Originally Posted By: Bigdog2Looks hard to beat. https://annealeez.com/shop/

i have one, for the price point its a fantastic product

produces nice consistent end result, and you can do around 4k cases on a 1lb tank of gas.

heres a quick clip of it in action



one thing i did notice about mine - if you load too much brass in the hopper, especailly larger bodied stuff like 308/30-06, it WILL bridge and not drop pieces down into the wheels.

heres a vid i took of it bridging




just something to be conscious of if you get one and try to fill the hopper to far
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hth

[edit] they may have overcome the bridging issue with hopper design changes since i got mine. I got mine pretty early on, not long after they started making them. i dont know if there have been any improvements/changes or not since then, but i'm still supremely happy with mine.
 
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My MRB annealer has a "steeper" V to hold brass and it still gets hung up. I just got used to not loading more than 15-20 large cases or 30-40 smaller cases. I never leave it alone so it's not that big of a problem.
 
I don't remember the brand my friend has but it has a horizontal blade, it resembles a large saw blade with holes in it. It also uses two torches. You manually feed it cases but as it rotates through the torches after annealing, it drops through a hole into a pan. Pretty nice machine.
 
If you think you have the need and you're a volume shooter or a competitor, I think you could justify spending the money to obtain an AMP Annealer. Expensive? darn right but worth every penny if you decide annealing is for you.

I also think one could start a small home business annealing cases if you purchased an AMP Mark II - just advertise via shooting forums and your home/local ranges/Shooting Clubs that you will anneal rifle cases for $0.04 each that are supplied to you cleaned and deprimed. They pay for return shipping. I'm thinking you could pay for the machine in 5 years.

The AMP annealer will always do a proper annealing job - other methods? probably not as consistent?

 
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Best bet is to get an Annealeez or similar and do it that way. You cannot judge with a socket and a dark room. Get you some 750 temlaq and use an automatic annealer. You won’t look back. IMHO you are wasting your time guessing. If you under anneal you are wasting your time. If you over annealer you are burning out different alloys out of the brass case and ruining it. Stop guessing.
 
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