Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Annealing Screw up. Need advice...

I annealed my cases 6.5 SAUM (orig 7mmSAUM) and then put them in the oven at 190' to dry for 25 min. Made the mistake of leaving them in the oven overnight with the oven off. My wife got up early the next morning and preheated the oven to 450 to beak some cinnamon rolls. When she opened the oven to put in the rolls, there was my brass, nice and hot! She took them out and put them on a towel to cool. Now they have a faint "blue hue" in their color. My question is, are they safe to reload?? Or have they softened too much because of the heat in the oven while it preheated to 450'???? Any metallurgist experts out there?? What say you?

They are toast. I think you could reverse it by heating them again and quenching in ice water but not sure about this a slow cool frequently is better for brass. Look up processes for tempering non ferrous metal and you may find a solution. Even if you do find a reversal procedure I would relegate these cases to low pressure practice loads only.

Just a gun geezers opinion and I would rather have the cinnamon rolls and buy new brass.

They are probably not toast. Also you cannot make brass harder again by quenching it, brass only work hardens.
Follow the link to this article on annealing and slide down about half way to the section titled "Optimal Case Temperatures for Successful Annealing".

The Art And Science Of Annealing

"Brass which has been "work hardened" (sometimes referred to as "cold worked") is unaffected by temperatures (Fahrenheit) up to 482 degrees (F) regardless of the time it is left at this temperature. At about 495 degrees (F) some changes in grain structure begins to occur, although the brass remains about as hard as before--it would take a laboratory analysis to see the changes that take place at this temperature.

I would do a crush test on a case mouth with a pair of pliers and compare the feel of what it takes to start to bend the case mouth of a piece of known good brass vs. the suspect brass. If it has been over annealed it will be noticeably easier to deform.
Ask me how I know.

The bullets seemed as hard or harder than usual to seat, almost making me think the brass may have actually stiffened a bit???

As the article Nvhntr sited says, brass is unaffected at less than 482 degrees so unless your wife put the oven on self cleaning cycle, your brass is fine.

Thanks for the correction NY and cool beans they are not a loss RBH. Fire a couple up and see if there is any undue expansion. Sounds like they are fine.

Now, Please invest in a food dehydrator for drying your brass.
This one works well, and you can get the screen covers for the smaller brass.


Presto



Mesh Screens

I use a propane torch to head mine up...

hold in the flame and count to 10 for 243- 30/06...
or count to 6 for 223 and 22.250...

Let them cool, or put in the frig for 10 minutes if I feel like that...

can't see making it more complicated than that...

Great idea...and I have one of those. Wish I would have thought of that before.

Here is an easy way of annealing,

Put drill motor in vice, chuck an appropriate sized socket that exposes 2/3rds to 3/4's of the case, while setting the drill at slow speed (tie strap around trigger keeps it a slow speed with hands off), for a case other than a 223, say '08 and '06 allow 8 seconds in the flame from a handheld propane torch, pick the case out of the socket (with bare hands/fingers) and roll case on a wet/damp towel. In a natural (for me) count of 13 gets 8 seconds duration in the flame.

When the annealing session is done the cases are ready to load, as they are dry.

The air compressor in your garage works just hunky dory.............

This is my advice.....don't rebuild engines in the living room and keep your gun stuff out of your wife's cooking appliances. Lol

Cinnamon Rolls taste a lot better when they don't taste like brass ☺



Trystan

That's what I use when cleaning cases with pins. Run them through the media separator full of clean water, roll them on a towel to dry the outside, a blast of air to dry the inside, then in a Folger's container and heated with a hair dryer X 2. I heat them until they are pretty warm to the touch and that seems to get the residual moisture out.

All the equipment is dedicated to the task with the exception of the hair dryer, but my Daughter will probably buy a new one soon....

They are good and dry after that and it really doesn't take that long.

Maybe good advice for those who can't figure out what'll affect the kitchen oven, but otherwise, meh.

Drying brass in the oven does not make your food "taste like brass". Some of you guys have really interesting imaginations.