300BlkTalk

I have been wanting to start annealing my brass, especially brass that I am converting from 5.56 brass since the new neck of the 300BLK is brass that was below the shoulder of the 5.56 and not as soft as it should be.

Annealing machines are expensive and other methods I have seen do not anneal the brass evenly, so I built my own setup. For about $80 total I put this together.



I used Tempilaq to test out several pieces of brass to determine how long it would take to properly anneal the neck without overheating the middle of the case.

After cutting the neck off the 5.56 brass, I annealed it by putting the brass into a deep socket in a cordless drill and slowly rotated it in the flames for 6 seconds.



I then chamfered, deburred, resized, and trimmed the brass. Now I have a properly annealed 300BLK brass from 1 time fired 5.56 brass. I intend to anneal my 300BLK brass after every 3 reloads.

Cool. A single torch and a drill with a socket to hold the brass seems to work pretty well for me. Why did you need to add the second flame?

EvilBetty wrote:Cool. A single torch and a drill with a socket to hold the brass seems to work pretty well for me. Why did you need to add the second flame?

Yeah I thought about just doing it with a single torch and tested some brass but it didn't turn out as well as with two torches. Most annealing stations I have seen for sale use two torches and it heats the neck up faster to reduce the chance of too much heat transferring down the case. It certainly works either way, but after trying both, I like the two torches.

That looks good, thanks for sharing your idea. Are you supposed to water quench or air cool the brass?


Thanks

wildfowler wrote:That looks good, thanks for sharing your idea. Are you supposed to water quench or air cool the brass?


Thanks

You could do either, but I quench in water to stop any further heat transfer. Brass is a great conductor of heat and you do not want the heat getting to the body or especially the head and the quick cooling in the water does not have any hardening effect on brass like it does steel.

Instead of propane I found MAPP gas works well to get the brass hot fast, so I only need to use one torch. I mount it loosely in my bench vise to keep it from tipping over and have at 'er.

great idea!

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_42/40500 ... ricks.html

Delirious wrote:great idea!

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_42/40500 ... ricks.html

Yup, that is where I got the idea from.

Here's the one I built:

L1A1Rocker wrote:Here's the one I built:

Nice. How are you turning the brass?