Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Candle annealing results

I need to anneal some 22 Spitfire (.30 carbine necked to .22) cases. Can the candle method be used with cases that small?

I don't see why not. I've used it on .221 Fireball cases--though you might want to hold it more toward the base side of the middle of the case.

Sounds like the system he came up with was with the use of the Tempil Stick or Tempil Laq. I made the mistake of getting the 650 Stick (Markel Thermomelt Heat Stik), as it was supposed to work like a crayon according to what i read. Well it's chalky so it doesn't rub on. But i thought to just scrape a bit off on the inside of the case mouth, and use a pair of jewelers glasses to see when it dissipates, and it actually worked well this way with the torch. But i was often questioning it since many of the videos i saw the necks were turning red hot, and mine weren't--obviously not correct according to what i'm reading here. But i have done many 17 Mach IV and 223 cases with no problems so far, but i may have to try the candle system with the chalk and see how that works too.

John--do u remember what issue that article was in?

No, I don't. I have the photocopy Fred gave me around here somewhere, but exactly where might be a question! I'l try to remember to take a quick look tomorrow.

I wonder if you could dip cases in melted potassium nitrate to anneal them. Or would that color the cases a weird shade?

The question came up about resizing before or after annealing.

It might not make any difference, but if you resize before annealing, you have resized a case that needs annealing one more time. That one more time might be the one that causes the neck to split.

Huh?

I think what he's trying to say is if the brass is near it's limit, it would then be better to anneal before performing another cold working operation.

That is what I was trying to say. When I made the above post, I knew it didn't look right, but I couldn't figure out another way to say it.

Thanks for the clarification, guys!

This morning I fireformed 12 .243 cases that had been fired 10 times, they were fireformed to .243 AI. Six were annealed using the candle method and six were left unannealed. All cases survived the fireforming without any splits or cracks of any kind.

The load was .5 grain below the max listed in the Hornady handbook for their 100 gr. BTSP and H-4831 so it wasn't a wimpy load.

The only difference the annealing seems to have made is that the shoulder/body junction of the unannealed cases was not quite as sharp and defined as on the annealed cases.

Don't know what that really tells us, except that R-P .243 brass apparently remains ductile even after 10 firings.

Anyway, I went ahead and annealed the rest of that batch of 100 cases and am going to go ahead to fireform them and use them in the new AI chamber.


Added: Been thinking some more about this and I think it also shows the value of minimal neck sizing. These .243 cases have been sized exclusively with the Lee collet die and a Redding body die. The necks weren't subjected to being squeezed down much smaller than needed and then enlarged with an expander ball so they haven't been work hardened nearly as much as they might have been.

And in other news, sometimes it takes someone else to make you say to yourself, "well, duh."

In this case it's MD's suggestion of counting while heating instead of waiting to see when each case gets too hot to hold. I timed two cases to the point of almost getting too hot to hold at the middle, then for the rest of the batch I held them at the head and just counted the seconds. There's a clock in my loading room that ticks audibly so the counts could all be the same.

Holding the cases at the cool end sure saves a lot of wear and tear on the fingertips.

Jim, a clicking clock to time by is excellent. Gonna use that one!

I did a bunch of .30-06 cases with this method. It seems to take about 15 seconds +/- to get the bosy of the case too hot to hold. I'll load some of them this week.

My experience in .30-06 is that eventually the necks split. Since I have a half dozen '06 rifles, I have to full length size to assure chambering in any rifle.

Jim,

How long on average for the 243 cases? I may be annealing some 223AI cases in the near future.

I held the .243 cases in the flame for 14 seconds. Also did a batch of .308 cases yesterday and they took 15 seconds each.

Wiping each one off with a wet rag and grabbing the next one you can do about three per minute. That's pretty close since it takes me a bit over 1/2 hour to do a batch of 100 cases.

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Mike

Now that I have read this entire thread, I have questions.

Aside from the cost:

What is the opinion on the Fluxeon Annie Induction Annealer?
http://www.fluxeon.com/buyflux/index.php?route=product/product&path=64&product_id=66

I bought 500 rds of Remington 25-20 WCF brass, when such a thing was available, and loaded 100. 32 split necks on first firing, aarrgh! candle annealed new brass, next 100 fired with same load and zero splits. With Lee collet dies I anneal every other firing, and usually drop hot cases into a bath of water with citric acid and dish soap, then put in ultrasonic cleaner.