Annealing 45 Colt Brass

[Pappy Myles]

Howdy Pards,

I've seen a lot of post on blowback in 45 Colt, and yeah, have experienced the same in both heathen powders as well as the holy black.   As I've read the different post, I've seen mention annealing brass.  I think I have an idea of the process, but wanted to start a tread on what others use as a process of annealing, and the benifits from annealing, what brass works best, etc etc.

Comments?

[Cuts Crooked]

Already been done, Pard. And has been saved in the Dark Arts forum...take a look see here: http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,7879.0.html

[Pappy Myles]

Thanks Cuts,   I appreceiate it!

[will52100]

tried it and while it works, zero blow back, not worth the effort.  Every once in a while I'd crumple a case while loading, and every once in a while would swell a case just enough that it wouldn't chamber in my Henry.  Maybe I wasn't doing it rite, but with a full case of black powder and heavy 250 bullet have very little trouble with blowback.  Now if I had a quick and easy way to aneal just the first 1/8" of the case that would probably be great.  May give it anouther try some time for fun.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

I'll second what Will said.


Annealing cases is a working idea, but if you use Winchester brass (Long regarded in the industry as using the 'softest' brass) you'll save more time by NOT having to anneal.  I shoot nothing but full loads of BP (around 35-37 grs. of FFFg) with a 250 PRS BigLube boolit in 45 Colt.  Very little blowback.  I shoot these 'thru a:

Remington 1875 (copy by Uberti)
Colt 1873 (2nd Gen. copy by AWA)
Ruger Old Model Vaquero

1866 Winchester (copy by Uberti)
1892 Winchester (copy made in Brazil)

1874 Sharps (a Taylor's copy made by Armi-Sport)

TOZ 66 12 ga

... and I used to use a Stoeger 12 ga.


All with BP ... and VERY little blowback.

As several have stated, full loads with heavy bullets and (I add) Winchester brass is excellent for reducing blowback to a minimum, easy to clean amount.

[Wills Point Pete]

 There is a very fast and easy way to anneal cases if you have a good electric furnace and a lead thermometer. Simply set your furnace at 760 degrees F. Dip the case mouths into some fairly light oil, even used motor oil works and then dip the case mouths into the molten lead. You will see a color shift (colour for our UK Pards), a fairly faint blue-gray. When this travels down about a half to three quarters of an inch, drop the case in a bucket of cool water.

This really annoyed the disciples of Ken Howell when I mentioned it on a handloading forum, he never did explain why it wouldn't work, just waved his doctorate around. Apparently he felt that there is something magic about his methot of applying head and jeat from melted metal is somehow different. I think heat is heat.

Anyhow, if you don't have a way to measure the temps, you're making the job a lot harder. Though you can just use the color shift. Whatever you do, don't let the brass glow red. If it glows red it's gotten too soft.

[Fairshake]

Been reloading since 1971 and casting my own for the same time. Never thought about doing this and I think it's a great idea. Somebody with more schooling than I will have to tell me why it won't work as stated. In fact I think it has enough merit to be a sticky. When I've done annealing in the past ,I always used the method of standing the cases in a pan of water and heating the necks before tipping them over into the water with a propane torch. A rather tedious task as the cases would fall before time. All out of accolades for today, Later David

[Delmonico]

I'm going to add this, if one wants to know what the colors look like just get a military round and look at it, they don't polish them after annealing.

You want the water fairly cold, I always put some ice in it and when the ice is gone I replace it.  That way I know it's cold enough because it can get warm fairly fast.

[Dirty Brass]

I'm guessing this would only apply to rifles, correct? Wouldn't the cylinder gap allow enough blowback in revolvers to preclude worrying about this?

[Wills Point Pete]

 The cylinder gap allows the BP residue to go out, onto the outside of the revolver. If the case expands enough to keep the outside clean from gas inside the chamber it's not getting in from outside the gun, at least not enough to bother anything. But, yes, we are talking about rifles and carbines, lots of internal parts that can be slowed way down from BP goo. Although I have fired a lot of rounds in my rifle  with fairly light loads, as long as I used plenty of lube the fouling didn't hurt anything until long after the round count from a two day match.

Thing is, some Pards have an inordinate fear of BP residue in their rifles. Or, more likely, they just like certain bottlenecked rounds so much they like to try to spread fear of it. I read some of that stuff when I was just starting to mess with BP in a .45 Colt rifle. Since I used to shoot BR some I annealed some cases, some others I rigged a pilot for my case neck turner and turned cases to below the base of the bullet. You see, it's not really the bottleneck of the .44 WCF or .38 WCF, it's that their cases are so much thinner than the .45 Colt or .44 Special/.44 Mag. Thin the casewalls of those straight cases and the blowback is history.

The downside to thinning the case walls, or even annealing the case mouths is that it's a pain in the kazoo. Better just to open the rifle's action, squirt it full of moosemilk until the BP residue is dripping out, and then blow it out with compressed air or canned air. Now the only reason I use moose milk for this instead of plain hot water is so when the shootin' iron dries, there is a bit of oil left for rust prevention and lube.

[john boy]

Gents - anyway that you anneal, the temperature of the brass at 650-660F will turn a straw and then a blue green color down to the area of the seated bullet base.  This is when you dump them into the ice water.

As for annealing 45 Colt brass - not necessary.  Just use a good crimp with the Lee Factory Carbide Die