Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Need advise on a Remington 14 in 30 Rem

Instead of pulling those old bullets, use your seating die to push them deeper into the case to break any "welding"

Mike

I'm old and slow lol

Anneal your brass.

How old is the ammo ? Sounds like the powder may be on the verge of going bad and that can effect the brass as can corrosive priming on pre 1930's ammo. I'd pull them down and deprime then anneal down to just past the shoulder. Also you should buy some of the Graff brass mentioned above while they have it in stock. I have two m14's and a 141 and as a rule they nibble at the rims a bit when they extract the fired case . I clean the nibbles up with a small fine cut file but eventually they get rougher than I want to use. Mine are some of my favorite rifles.

I tried that first and wound up pushing the neck down.

That will be my next step.The ammo looks to be 60's or 70's. Graf's was out last I checked (a couple of weeks back). I need to learn how to anneal. Thanks for all the help guys.

Jim

I shot 20 rounds of new brass reloads with no problems. I then shot 6 rounds of the new ammo that I had pulled the bullets and re-seated. There was 2 out of 6 that split the necks. So now it is time to buy an annealing machine. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks guys.

Jim

You don't really need an "annealing machine" for doing relatively few cases. You might Google "candle method of annealing" and see what comes up. A friend and part-time writer developed it years ago, and quite a few shooters have used it since, with good results.

If it doesn't pop up during your Googling, I can describe it.

Thank you Sir. That is a very simple way.

Jim

For just a few, I use the candle as JB mentioned. For a couple hundred at a time I use a propane torch atop a Coleman gas bottle.

The propane is quite a bit faster.

I set the flame fairly low and roll the case between finger and thumb, while directing the flame onto the shoulder. When the brass gets too hot to hold in my fingers, I drop it and grab the next case.

Some guys drop the hot case into water to ensure the heat does not reach the head of the brass.

Idaho Shooter,

If you're holding the cases halfway up the body in your fingertips, there's no need to drop the brass into water. There's no way enough heat will reach the head to anneal it. That's one of the advantages of the method--and yes, I have tested it quite a bit in various ways--including temp-paint.

You might read Chapter 15 in The Big Book of Gun Gack II, "Annealing Brass"--if you have a copy. It takes at least 480 degrees F. to anneal cartridge brass--and that takes a LONG time. Even annealing at 600 degrees requires an hour at that temperature--which is not going to happen when heating the very thin necks to 700 degrees, about the lowest temperature that anneals quickly.

The beauty of the candle method is that far lower temperatures on finger-tips will make the typical human drop the case, long before the head's hot enough to be affected, even in .22 Hornet cases. And once the case is dropped, the temperature of the brass drops.

Thanks for the input guys. I have 10 boxes that I am going to pull the bullets and dump the powder to anneal. The brass itself is too valuable to just throw away after one firing due to split necks. At the current failure rate I would lose around 67 pieces. OUCH!!!!!!

How about the primers? Do I need to remove them before annealing? I wonder how sensitive to heat they would be?

Thanks again guys for all your help.

Jim

I would remove the primers. I doubt the annealing process would cause problems--but the case IS going to be around an open flame....

Will do. Thanks MD.

Jim

Thanks John,

Yes, I just drop them onto a folded bath towel, just as I do fresh cast bullets.

Some have advocated the water drop. Which I agree is unwarranted. But included as additional information.

I have not used the temp crayons yet. But have definitely felt the change in resistance to resizing and bullet seating in many times fired brass after annealing. Some of my 264 brass had been fired at least ten times before heat treating. What a difference.