Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles How Do You Anneal?

Very nice !!

Salt Bath .... Works great, always consistent temperature.
https://ballisticrecreations.ca/

I use a Giraud Annealing machine. Before that I used melted lead.

The salt bath looks like the way to go. I’m going to have to look into one.

This guy has shown out of stock for over a year now. He does not respond to inquiries. He is basically disinterested.

It's VERY easy to put together a salt bath annealing station. Here's my setup:



Lab stand, about $25, including burrette clamp. You can probably figure out an equally effective setup without spending that much.

I use an electronic thermocouple thermometer, about $20, plus a stainless steel thermocouple, about $12. You can get bimetallic cooking grill thermometers for around $8-10, and I think they would work as well.

The Lee melting pot can be had for about $40. There are Chinese sources for smaller solder pots that cost less than this. The Lee pot's thermostat is not located within the pot, and that makes it a bit dodgy. I just watch the temperature, and adjust accordingly. Somewhere between about 785 and 825 F works very well. Brass is annealed in 3 seconds flat, and the case head is left hard.

You'll need potassium and sodium nitrate. The smallest quantity I could conveniently get was 1 pound each, total $20.

They make thermocouple temperature controllers for K thermocouples, so you could go that route and not bother with the meter. The ones I've seen do not have enough current switching capacity to run a melting pot, and so would require an external relay.

The molten salt forms a protective coating on the surface of the melting pot, and keeps it looking nice.

It's best to decap before annealing. If you don't you get salt remaining in the case, and get the ugly crust shown in the video.

Brass and the nitrate mixture are compatible. Dunking your brass will not harm it.

Per the video - it seems that with the cleanup from the corrosive fluid that process leads to a couple more steps than a torch set-up although I don't know which method would anneal the brass better . Interesting though , as usual more than one way to skin a cat .

LOL. The cleanup from the "corrosive fluid" (i.e. molten salt) is just rinsing in water. That's it.

Most of us doing this just drop the annealed cases in a bucket of water. That dissolves the salt, and isn't any more work than when people who torch anneal drop their cases in water.

You don't actually need both. Either one by itself (usually sodium nitrate) also works the same way for what we're doing. The main advantage of mixing those two salts is the lower melting point, which matters for some heat treat operations like tempering of carbon steel, but we are using it at a much higher temperature anyway so that's irrelevant.

I happen to have a 1-pound bottle of the “Spectracide Stump Remover” which happens to be pure potassium nitrate. I’m using it for another purpose but I think you can use it for this. Cost for that at local hardware store is $7.47. https://www.lowes.com/pd/16-oz-Stump-Remover/4764059

And I believe that “Hi-Yield Nitrate of Soda” (16-0-0 fertilizer) as sold at Ace Hardware is pure sodium nitrate. 4 pounds of that costs $7.59. https://www.acehardware.com/departments/lawn-and-garden/gardening/plant-food/7299761

I use an AMP MK II. No fuss, no mess.

https://www.brownells.com/reloading...uction-annealing-machine-prod122084.aspx

Wow...I use a blow torch and my fingers. Works great

I ordered the salt today; I'm giving it a try.

The salt bath annealing method does indeed sound intriguing but I think I’ll stick with my current rotating water pan torch method until I perceive a problem with it.

The salt itself seems cheap, but it looks like I’d have to invest about $46 for a Lee lead heater and another $44 for K-thermocouple & temperature meter to make everything work. I’d rather spend my money on powder and bullets for now.

I have a casting thermometer so I'll see if I can get by with that.

Please let us know how it works for you. I hope it works great.

That should work just fine.

The salt bath annealing process is really just like annealing with molten lead, except that the salt is a lot easier to clean off the brass. The effect and consistency, and equipment required, are all the same though.

I contacted him a month or two ago and he got right back to me saying I was on the wait list. In about two weeks it shipped. No complaints from me.

I ordered the salt from that site today without any problem
He was out of his kits and metal guides.

So just how cheaply can you set up molten salt annealing? A couple of the suggestions offered on this thread got me to thinking. I have not tested the following, but they ought to work:

Thermometer, $6.49 This will probably require some kind of little sheet metal bracket to hold it on the melting pot.

Solder pot, $27.62

I was excited about the possibility of just using potassium or sodium nitrate alone. The melting point is just fine. But the boiling point is below the optimum working temperature, so I think we are stuck with using the 60/40 mixture.



Those prices for the nitrates are outstanding.

So for under $60, you can have a complete system.

The temperature control on the Lee melter is separate from the pot, which makes it hard to get stable repeatable temperature settings. The Chinese version that I linked could possibly be a lot better, but that remains to be seen.