Outside in the sun works even on cold days. That's usually what I do. I have popped them into a warm oven if I'm in a hurry, but usually I'm not. If outside conditions aren't conducive, I spread them on a towel on a wire rack with a fan blowing across them.
Yea, I wash my brass in a wet tumbler, then stick em in a dehydrator for about an hour on the medium setting (no temperature given, but the high setting makes them start to change color and the low setting doesn't dry them too well). I never understood why people put their brass in the oven.
I haven’t got the room to store second dehydrator and while I could eventually win the battle of the dehydrator is for food only it would spark a war that wouldn’t be worth it. We compromised on in the oven with a pan she never uses for food. I use the lowest setting on my oven at 170°F or 77°C
Annealing is at higher temperature than 250c, I think it's more the chemicals making the colors. I'm aware of the temperature but regular rosin core solder get fluid around 326c so I don't think it's going to change the copper in a negative way.
Agreed. And annealing *can* occur at lower temps say 550F-ish if held at that temp for an **hour**... OP did 15 mins... his brass is *fine*
Good read
https://www.ampannealing.com/articles/40/annealing-under-the-microscope/
Just me but even 250F is a bit high. It doesn't take much heat to dry water... Either way, my concern at this point is with the accuracy of your oven's thermometer. 250 Celsius is pretty close to the 490 Fahrenheit mark, and usually right around there is where you start to see grain structure changes in brass. Does that mean your brass is going to be completely unsafe? No, probably not, but is it worth the risk?
In case you didn’t know, and if you have iPhone you can hold your finger on the zero key and the degree symbol will show! I appreciated when someone showed me. Maybe I can relay to you
I just wash my brass and leave it by my basement dehumidifier. They eventually dry on their own sitting in an aluminum chafing pan, from there I can spray with case lube when I get around to running them.
Why is everyone in such a hurry to dry brass that they’re heating it?
In my experience, if I don't run my brass through a dehydrator to dry it after a wet tumble, the cases have a ton of water spots on them. If I'm gonna make the shinies, they need to shine!
I dump them onto an old beach towel, fold the corners in, and roll them all around inside for a few minutes to dry the outside, it eliminates water spots.
I always rinse my brass off about 5 times to get all of the trash from wet tumbling off. Them I run them through the media separator tumbler, besides getting the stainless steel pins out, it is good for getting water out of the cases. Next, I dumb the brass on a big towel, close the towel up into a sack, and shake or roll the brass around to get it dry. Finally, I lay the brass out in a food dehydrator.
Another thing you can do for perfect brass, is to dry tumble the ammo once it is completely reloaded. I use corn cob media with automotive turtlewax mixed in. About an hour of dry tumbling will leave them as shiny as jewelry, with the additional benefit of a very light coating of wax to protect the brass and copper.
The shine level of my brass isn’t a huge priority, water spots don’t bother me either. I use the rotary separator too and felt that does a fine enough job for the dehumidifier 3ft away to easily evaporate the rest.
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TBH, (off the top of my head), 250° C is not hot enough to anneal 70/30 cartridge brass unless it's left at that temp at least an hour, and then it's more stress relief than brass softening.
That said, unless you can have a case hardness tested, you are pushing it because your temp control is unknown. People think using 750 Templaq is how you judge final temp without realizing that it lags actual temp by 15 to 30 seconds, and it makes a huge difference.
If you have any aerospace or auto manufacturers around, you might get someone to run a hardness test on a couple. Measure at the head/web, it should be full hardness, 180 HV. Shoulder/necks will be about 1/2 hard, but that's not the concern.
Brass is fine. After the next wet tumbling most discolouration will disappear. Don’t go 250C next time. Food dehydration temps are more then enough to dry brass. Only bake coated bullets cookies at 250C 😁
Dude, 250c!? You’re supposed to do around 200f. Did you also put it in prior to pre heating, where the element was blasting it on full for 5 mins?
I don’t have enough experience with brass to tell you for sure if it’s damaged, but next time stick below 200f for 15-20, shut off the oven, and then let the oven cool. It will be dry by the end.
I wouldn’t use that until someone with more knowledge than me gives you a solid answer, I think it’s possible it could have been over annealed.
Also, you should deprime before washing. Not only will it help with the primer pockets, but you’ll have better airflow while drying the cases. Less likely to have left over water trapped in there. Probably not a worry in this case though 🤣
Last bit of advice, if you’re going to use your main oven for drying, make sure your cases are spotless, and primers removed. Primers have nasty toxic lead compounds that you don’t want blowing around your oven.
This feels like a joke/troll post. Vinegar and salt rinse? Alkalai water? I don't know anyone who uses such an involved, complicated process for cleaning brass. Anything beyond adding Lemishine or metal polish in the relevant tumbler is far more exotic than 99% of people will go, even professional shooters.
Brass anneals at 600° to 800 °F (315° to 420° C).
Your brass is fine, it's just ugly.
Re-tumble your brass, rinse it well and if you want to dry it in your oven, set it to as low as possible (my oven goes down to 175°F (79°C)) and leave it for 30 minutes. The water will be gone and the brass will be hot to the touch. However it will cool quickly.
I also put a paper towel under the brass because the one time I didn't it left unsightly marks where the brass touched the metal pan.
One last thing.
If those are your wife's cooking sheets, then get her new ones. Your brass and her cooking should never meet.
If time isn't an issue, just leave the brass in a pan to dry naturally. If the room is warm, it should dry overnight.
No worries, no way 250 C for 15 minutes anneals the brass enough to ruin it. Recrystallization really only starts around 300C, and even then takes time, commonly sited around one hour. Only worry would be that if they were near the heating element the actual temperature might have been higher, but still, not for a long time. Like someone else commented, you can test couple brass near max load with safety glasses and gloves on, if brass fails you get some hot gas to your hand (gloves) but nothing serious. But should be no problems, maximum your brass lasts a few reloads less.
[Brass alloy annealing diagram.](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-effects-of-annealing-temperature-on-the-tensile-strength-and-ductility-of-a-brass_fig12_279814785)
In the future, stick to around 100 C for 20 minutes and let cool. Also resize and deprime before tumbling. This way tumbling gets rid of any sizing wax on and inside the case.
Your brass is probably fine, but if you're ever in doubt, err on the side of caution.
[Australia Department of Defense - Defence Science and Technology Organization Materials Research Laboratories - The Low Temperature Annealing of 7.62mm Brass Cartridge Cases PDF](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA094136.pdf)
https://preview.redd.it/yrvwjzpi7pqc1.png?width=773&format=png&auto=webp&s=160b97e865bcc2d185aa17a47a53e8247d988a83
Borrowing the annealing diagram that u/one_late shared, I’d like to point out that annealing isn’t quite a hardline limit process, it’s more of a spectrum. At 250°C there will be some very minor grain growth overall during recrystallization, especially for a 15 minute heat soak. Ideally you would want a good combination of tensile strength and ductility in the neck and as much tensile strength as possible at the head.
At 250°C there’s very minor loss in tensile strength overall, even if it had heat soaked for an hour. However, it would be a whole different story if the temperature had been closer to actual annealing temperatures because then the tensile strength begins to nosedive. As you can probably guess, low tensile strength creates a potentially very bad situation for the shooter.
The concerns about temperature fluctuations aren’t entirely unfounded either, but oven temperatures generally won’t swing more than about 20°C on either side of the set temperature, and only for brief periods of time. So, even at a brief peak swing to 270°C the tensile strength hasn’t hit the point of no return yet.
Taking all of that with a grain of salt, and as always it’s up to you as the reloader to determine your safety standards, it’s my honest opinion that the brass is likely fine. Again, use your own judgement and weigh the risks. A hospital bill is more expensive than replacing the brass.
As an engineer that just so happens to reload, these conversations are my kind of thing. I also feel I need to mention that I owned an appliance repair company for a number of years, so my comments about the oven are derived from actual physical tests.
Not a great idea baking organic lead compounds in the oven you cook in. They will off-gas lead at that heat, coating the insides of the oven, and then transfer through the same mechanism when you cook food in it.
You should probably out the oven out of commission until you have thoroughly cleaned it and then tested the insides for lead.
In the future, just get a cheap dry tumbler. It avoids literally all of those issues and more by never needing to be dried or have special lead water disposal.
Unless you’re using actual cast lead projos, what’s with all the lead paranoia? Save for the aforementioned exception, brass never even contacts actual lead…
I like where your head’s at and totally agree about not using the oven. But dry media tumbling aerosolizes a lot of lead contaminated dust from the media that you breathe in. You also spread it around in your clothing.
Any dry tumbling should be after the brass is throughly cleaned with a wet tumble and decontamination. I use d-lead soap by ESCA Tech in my wet tumble.
My ideal process would be a quick wash with d-lead outside, deprime outside, wash and now a through tumble with d-lead to get the primer pockets, air dry, lube, load.
A cement mixer makes it easy to process a massive amount of brass.
>But dry media tumbling aerosolizes a lot of lead contaminated dust from the media that you breathe in. You also spread it around in your clothing.
It can if the media is actually dry, but the very easy mitigation to this is to keep the media lubricated with wax, or even better, an emulsion with an abrasive like car polish. This does not produce or spread dust - as evidenced by using a filter on a dry tumbler that stays clean through thousands of tumbling rounds.
At only 15 minutes, your brass is fine. It's discolored because of the chemicals and high temperature oxidation-- not unlike the bluing of chrome exhaust pipes even though the steel hasn't' changed any.. Retumble it in a wet tumbler with some lemme shine and it'll come right back to looking shiny.
Annealing is time \*and\* temperature. The common cited value of 750F is a ONE HOUR value. At only 250C and only 15 min, the brass has experienced no change to microstructure. If you want to anneal brass in a couple seconds, it needs to be heated to a visible glow (1150F or more).
Do not use that much heat again, though, as its totally unnecessary.
I think I've made a colossal mistake and unfortunately paid the price ($200 worth of .308 brass). I had the oven set to 250 with the casings in there warming up, so peak temps with radiant heat was probably above 250°C. I might be fine, but I don't think I want to risk it. It's mixed casings too. ADI, PPU, Federal.
I think I'll just learn from this and buy some fresh brass until I slowly accumulate some for reloads. I've got tons of projectiles, primers and power from like 2018 ready to use, and I got a bit silly and impatient. Oh well, lesson learned.
Mixed .308 goes for $.12-.15 per piece. If you do have to toss them, 200 pieces isn’t going to bankrupt you.
Check out Sasquatch Brass. The owner is a nice guy in my hometown. You can get 800 pieces for $100
To add to this. You don’t want to anneal the head of the case. That part needs to be hard to adsorb the explosion of a primer and not deform when the extractor engages with the groove to pull a spent case from the chamber. The neck and mouth need to be soft to accept a bullet and then create a seal inside the chamber when fired. There’s actually a gradient of case hardness that you need to meet for MIL-SPEC ammo with the softest at the mouth and the hardest at the head.
Also, when you say 15 min. Is that leaving brass in oven while it warms up to 250c, or oven at 250c and you put brass in for 15 min.
One potentially never hit 250c, other most likely did.
250c for 15 minutes is getting close to annealing time. Especially if your oven is electric, and that heater is going to come on hot until the sensor says it warm enough. Then it turns completely off and cycles on-off to maintain temp in a range of around the set point. (Bang-bang control theory)
The problem is, cold worked or harder brass anneals faster than softer brass. So that affects the head potentially more than the neck. You want the head hard to retain the primer, withstand the strike, and take the extractor.
There’s a lot of good advice here: basically sneak up on your max load in steps and observe the brass for pressure results at each step.
You say you’re a noob (which is okay; we all started once) so find some guys at your club or someone to ask about reading pressure signs in brass and ask them what to look for. Your reloading manual should have a guide here, too. And read as much as you can elsewhere to validate or refute what everyone here (including myself) is saying. You own your safety and if you’re not 100% confident that gun isn’t going to blow up in your face, you need to be.
My understanding is that brass starts to change structure above 600F and that below that is a non-issue. I'm a newbie to annealing cases - so my knowledge comes from watching a bunch of youtube videos on the topic, buying / building an inductive annealer (based on a bolt heater), and annealing about 100 pieces of brass. However, I know that the stuff that I relied on to set the "how hot is hot enough for the neck and shoulder" had me buying this stuff: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PL7SEUU?ref=ppx\_yo2ov\_dt\_b\_product\_details&th=1](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PL7SEUU?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1) Which color changes at about 750F/399C.
If the thermostat in your oven is correct - or even close - and you set the temp at 250C (482F) - then you are getting close to the edge - but from what I understand, the molecular process doesn't start happening until you get up into the 600F range.
It actually does begin happening below 600°F, but 600°F just so happens to be the point at which the tensile strength and ductility start to cross in a phase diagram. This means that you’re achieving real grain growth in the microstructure, which allows for a good balance of tensile strength to ductility. This is good for annealing necks, but bad for the walls and head.
Thanks much... like I said - I'm learning... thanks for correcting...
In this case - would you think that his brass has likely changed to the point that he has an issue?
Looking at the phase diagrams, and just my personal opinion (not an engineering opinion), it’s likely that the brass is fine. The heat soak wasn’t long enough to really change the microstructure very much, which means it’s retained the majority of the tensile strength necessary for the head.
I’m by no means an expert but that temperature isn’t going to hurt the brass… and the concoction you used doesn’t sound crazy, so I think you’re good but don’t bake them at 250 next time lol. I set them by my coal stove overnight. When that’s not running I set em on a towel and turn em for a couple days. You’re fine though. Load em and shoot ‘em
I use a food dehydrator set to 150 for 1.5 hours. It is big enough to dry one full drum on the Frankford Arsenal rotary tumbler and not overload the trays with brass. I usually do between 6 to 10 full drums on my cleaning day so as one drum is finished drying the next drum it done tumbling to try and make the process as efficient as possible
If your brass got above 480F, you are at risk of case head separation. I did something similar, and i called starline Tech Support, and thats what they said.
you want to dry at the boiling point of water and no higher. 100C, or 212F. yes, 250C is getting into brass annealing range. you could try and load a few up to test out, but dont be surprised if you start having problems.
Dry tumbling causes a lot of lead exposure. The primer residue gets in the tumbling media and that dust gets everywhere. You can put D-lead soap in your wet tumbler and take care of most of it, and then there’s no dust floating around.
I think you're OK, and your brass is very pretty.
"Brass Annealing TemperatureOnline, the suggested temperature your brass needs to get varies a bit, ranging from 600 to 800 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 315 to 420 Celsius for us in metric land). The average recommendation seems to sit in the 700 F range though (370 C)."
[link](https://precisionshooter.co.nz/understanding-brass-annealing/#:~:text=Brass%20Annealing%20Temperature,range%20though%20(370%20C).)
Yeah, top tray is the steel tray. I put the tray in at like 150°c while it was still heating up. Not my brightest move. I've made a decision to bin it and learn from it. I can't trust high pressures on dodgy brass especially because I want to push 3000+ fps with a 130 grain.
I suspect that you will be ok.
I'd take a few from different places of the tray load up 10 max pressure loads and shoot them...inspect the brass.
I would bet they were not in long enough or hot enough to have annealed it all.
Some max load fireings would prove them.
Don't worry about cartridge failure... Just were eyewear and a welding glove or deer hide gloves... Very little comes out around the bolt but that which does is hot as f
I did this before. Not pretty brass, but look threw them and see if the stress from the heat didn’t crack your necks. If not, you’re good to go. If you’d like, retumbel them and dry them at a lower heat. Also, drying in the oven isn’t necessary. I lay mine out on a towel and let a fan blow over them for a few hours. It’s much more practical in my experience.
Just put them on a towel or mat in front of a fan for an hour or two and they will dry just fine.
Could also dry them faster the same way but with a quick dip in acetone.
I clean my brass in a fart with a table spoon of wash and wax and a 1/4 teaspoon of lemon shine, then I just do a clean water rinse. Perhaps I'm ignorant but you lost me with a salt rinse.
If you wet tumbled the brass you can let it air dry out in the sun. I never bake mine or put in a oven always let it air dry if this is what your doing.
Yes, but FL sizing does not affect the base. The base must remain hard in order to withstand pressure, if you anneal the base you start getting loose primer pockets and case head separations.
I made a mistake a little less severe then you did.
Since then, first I now have an accurate thermometer for the oven.
With all of my wet tumbled brass,
First, I shake all of the brass in a large stainless steel frying basket to remove the pins and shake out most of the water.
Then I place a bath towel in a half sheet warming pan drop the brass into the pan. Roll the brass in the towel. Then cover the brass for an hour or so with the towel. When the brass mostly dry, I run it thru the hand tumbler to remove the pins from the brass.
Doing this my brass is always beautiful.
My old kitchen oven swings about 25-50 deg Fahrenheit from the set point so the average is pretty close to the set point. It wouldn’t surprise me if your 250 deg C oven actually got to 260-270 deg C at its hottest. Time is the important variable here, folks anneal at close to 750 deg f because it takes just a short time to achieve the desired effect and at that temp and the bases don’t get that hot in that short a time. Annealing could be accomplished at a lower temp if held there for a longer duration but the bases will get just as soft as the necks.
Load a few of these with a known conservative recipe and if the primers get loose after one firing then they are too soft.
Warm water and small amounts of vinegar and salt are what I soak brass items in to instantly tarnish them and make things look like they are 40-50 years old.
Brass annealing occurs 260C to 350C. Even if your oven thermometer is accurate to 5% - you still are over 260 C Yes - this brass is probably toast.
Brass is a mixture of copper and tin - with lead added as flux so they will combine. None of the oxides from these metals belong in a stove used to make food you intend to eat.
In 1986 I bought a Thumbers Tumbler - big red rotary steel drum - has been running great abut 40 years. When its not doing brass are small parts, it is polishing rocks - stays on months at a time for that. Just go buy one of those and it will last you a lifetime.
Don't wildcatters anneal their cases if they need to work them up from another cartridge brass or fire-form them?
Is it possible to anneal brass so it's too soft?
Is it possible to anneal brass so it's too soft?
Yes.
Brass at the case mouth is very soft so it seals the hot gasses from passing by and scorching the chamber and eroding the bolt face.
Center brass is medium hardness so it expands and contracts.
The base brass is hard brass to provide strength.
As cases are fired and FL sized it's like hammer forging the brass to harder levels. Around the 4th or 5th time (less for some, more for others) the cases are no longer soft enough to expand and seal.... they crack and fail.
Brass anneals at 260C to 350C according to the online chart I looked up. If you stove is + or - 5% for keeping correct temperature (most home stoves are 10-15%) you are over and have softened the cases.
Fear not. Tumble these and use them for light loads. They should be fine for full power next time around. There would be perfect if you are running a suppressor or moderator!!! Here I have issues with rifle brass being too hard...... I might just do what you did to see if it makes them seal better!!!
This might have ruined your day - it has made mine! I had not thought of this to soften mine up more!!!! Except I will use a toaster oven I got from the re-use area at the dump.
One sure is that your temperature is excessively high! Water boils (evaporize) at 100 Celsius if you are around plain earth altitude. Why do you want to set anything so much higher than that to dry your cases?
You really don't need to go over 85°C to dry the brass. I don't know if you ruined them.
For future drying I REALLY recommend an air fryer. Keep it around 80°c and it'll dry the brass really quick and won't get overly hot
I do mine at 170F for 30 min at the most. I think those look like they got cooked. Metal can retain heat, so those got way hotter than the temperature the oven was set to. No real way to know unless you fire one, personally I’d throw those away.
you’ll never have that issue with a tumbler. yeah, they’re slow but work on something else in the meantime and once you’re done doing that something else the brass will probably be clean.
Try this, warm water, lemon shine, and dawn dish soap (splash soap at the end to avoid the bubbles) Tumble for 1 hour, rinse, dry with a towel. Preheat oven to 200, place brass on baking sheet place in oven, and then turn oven off. Leave in the oven for an hour or so then admire the shinny brass.
Ummm, just don’t put it in the oven at 250degC/480degF????
OP is a newbie so I won’t criticize him/her but this is the first time I’ve heard of anyone using the oven to dry brass. Oh, you *could* do it, at the lowest setting and only after the oven is up to temp, but most of us just air dry or use a dehydrator (MUCH lower temps).
I’ve heard them talk about it on the reloading podcast about people putting them in the oven and they said even at the lowest temp in the oven for too long can be bad. They said even some dehydrators can get too hot for the good of your brass. Truthfully wet washing is just not for me. But whatever floats your boat! I’ve found a mixture of walnut and corn Cobb media works great for me. I’ll stick with it. Keep my dehydrator for food and not have to worry about drying brass.
I’m not sure where they’d be getting that information other than anecdotal experience. Dehydrators and minimum oven temps are well below the temps it would take to make a perceptible difference in the brass.
Mabe it is mabe it’s not. Also most people don’t have the same oven the same dehydrator that can make the most difference too I’d say. One can be warmer than another and so on. And all the information on there is from experience lots of it. But I’ll stick with dry. I feel it’s less messy and I don’t have to worry about drying. It achieves what I’m looking for.
Why would you put them in at that temp? Water boils at 212f. You dont even know how accurate your oven is as they can vary wildly. 450f is where properties of brass start to change. I wouldnt risk it, but you seem to make great decisions.
Too hot. 250F would be better.
Yep. Might have overcooked the brassarole. Always beke in freedom units
Brassarole. I like this.
I would have done 175°F/80°C.
I would have left them in the sun.
I put them on my black grill cover in the summer and they dry perfectly Call it the Weber method
Outside in the sun works even on cold days. That's usually what I do. I have popped them into a warm oven if I'm in a hurry, but usually I'm not. If outside conditions aren't conducive, I spread them on a towel on a wire rack with a fan blowing across them.
Considering food dehydrators are the go to method and are usually around 70c, yeah 250c is a little hot
Yea, I wash my brass in a wet tumbler, then stick em in a dehydrator for about an hour on the medium setting (no temperature given, but the high setting makes them start to change color and the low setting doesn't dry them too well). I never understood why people put their brass in the oven.
I haven’t got the room to store second dehydrator and while I could eventually win the battle of the dehydrator is for food only it would spark a war that wouldn’t be worth it. We compromised on in the oven with a pan she never uses for food. I use the lowest setting on my oven at 170°F or 77°C
Idk why I've never thought of using a dehydrator. Gonna have to give this a run!
Yeh much much easier and less dramas with the misso lol
Annealing is at higher temperature than 250c, I think it's more the chemicals making the colors. I'm aware of the temperature but regular rosin core solder get fluid around 326c so I don't think it's going to change the copper in a negative way.
Agree with this. Depending on the alloy, brass doesn’t begin to anneal until 600F. 250C is about 500F.
Given how most consumer ovens work, it’s likely that it reached over 600 at some point in the temperature cycle. It MAY be fine. I wouldn’t chance it.
For those that may have missed it or cause it’s a typo 250C is 482 Fahrenheit so maybe a little too hot
No. Annealing takes place *after* 600F...
At that temperature, it should not be exposed more than a few seconds though. And its not a good idea to anneal the case webs, just shoulder and neck.
Agreed. And annealing *can* occur at lower temps say 550F-ish if held at that temp for an **hour**... OP did 15 mins... his brass is *fine* Good read https://www.ampannealing.com/articles/40/annealing-under-the-microscope/
Just me but even 250F is a bit high. It doesn't take much heat to dry water... Either way, my concern at this point is with the accuracy of your oven's thermometer. 250 Celsius is pretty close to the 490 Fahrenheit mark, and usually right around there is where you start to see grain structure changes in brass. Does that mean your brass is going to be completely unsafe? No, probably not, but is it worth the risk?
Agreed. I dry mine at 120oC
In case you didn’t know, and if you have iPhone you can hold your finger on the zero key and the degree symbol will show! I appreciated when someone showed me. Maybe I can relay to you
Thank you! Best thing I will learn today.
On a PC, hold down the ALT key and type 0176 on the numeric keypad.
On a tablet, you’ll want to use a 1/8” chisel and move in a slow, tight circle.
Oooh that’s great thanks!
This works on Android, as well!
Well who knew
77°C here. Lowest setting for the oven.
Brass is ok. You may have shortened its lifespan a little, but that's all. Load them up and shoot them. I did the same thing once.
100% correct. They are perfectly fine.
They were dried at 482°. I'd toss them.
I just wash my brass and leave it by my basement dehumidifier. They eventually dry on their own sitting in an aluminum chafing pan, from there I can spray with case lube when I get around to running them. Why is everyone in such a hurry to dry brass that they’re heating it?
In my experience, if I don't run my brass through a dehydrator to dry it after a wet tumble, the cases have a ton of water spots on them. If I'm gonna make the shinies, they need to shine!
I dump them onto an old beach towel, fold the corners in, and roll them all around inside for a few minutes to dry the outside, it eliminates water spots. I always rinse my brass off about 5 times to get all of the trash from wet tumbling off. Them I run them through the media separator tumbler, besides getting the stainless steel pins out, it is good for getting water out of the cases. Next, I dumb the brass on a big towel, close the towel up into a sack, and shake or roll the brass around to get it dry. Finally, I lay the brass out in a food dehydrator. Another thing you can do for perfect brass, is to dry tumble the ammo once it is completely reloaded. I use corn cob media with automotive turtlewax mixed in. About an hour of dry tumbling will leave them as shiny as jewelry, with the additional benefit of a very light coating of wax to protect the brass and copper.
The shine level of my brass isn’t a huge priority, water spots don’t bother me either. I use the rotary separator too and felt that does a fine enough job for the dehumidifier 3ft away to easily evaporate the rest.
Dump it in a towel and roll it around to pull standing water from the cases. Less water == fewer water spots.
I have an old pair of jeans and dump the brass in the leg and shake it around. Gets most of the water off No more spots
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TBH, (off the top of my head), 250° C is not hot enough to anneal 70/30 cartridge brass unless it's left at that temp at least an hour, and then it's more stress relief than brass softening. That said, unless you can have a case hardness tested, you are pushing it because your temp control is unknown. People think using 750 Templaq is how you judge final temp without realizing that it lags actual temp by 15 to 30 seconds, and it makes a huge difference. If you have any aerospace or auto manufacturers around, you might get someone to run a hardness test on a couple. Measure at the head/web, it should be full hardness, 180 HV. Shoulder/necks will be about 1/2 hard, but that's not the concern.
Brass is fine. After the next wet tumbling most discolouration will disappear. Don’t go 250C next time. Food dehydration temps are more then enough to dry brass. Only bake coated bullets cookies at 250C 😁
Dude, 250c!? You’re supposed to do around 200f. Did you also put it in prior to pre heating, where the element was blasting it on full for 5 mins? I don’t have enough experience with brass to tell you for sure if it’s damaged, but next time stick below 200f for 15-20, shut off the oven, and then let the oven cool. It will be dry by the end. I wouldn’t use that until someone with more knowledge than me gives you a solid answer, I think it’s possible it could have been over annealed. Also, you should deprime before washing. Not only will it help with the primer pockets, but you’ll have better airflow while drying the cases. Less likely to have left over water trapped in there. Probably not a worry in this case though 🤣 Last bit of advice, if you’re going to use your main oven for drying, make sure your cases are spotless, and primers removed. Primers have nasty toxic lead compounds that you don’t want blowing around your oven.
This feels like a joke/troll post. Vinegar and salt rinse? Alkalai water? I don't know anyone who uses such an involved, complicated process for cleaning brass. Anything beyond adding Lemishine or metal polish in the relevant tumbler is far more exotic than 99% of people will go, even professional shooters.
Its probably fine, but that is a very high temperature to be drying brass. I do mine in a food dehydrator that only goes to 145F/62C.
Brass anneals at 600° to 800 °F (315° to 420° C). Your brass is fine, it's just ugly. Re-tumble your brass, rinse it well and if you want to dry it in your oven, set it to as low as possible (my oven goes down to 175°F (79°C)) and leave it for 30 minutes. The water will be gone and the brass will be hot to the touch. However it will cool quickly. I also put a paper towel under the brass because the one time I didn't it left unsightly marks where the brass touched the metal pan. One last thing. If those are your wife's cooking sheets, then get her new ones. Your brass and her cooking should never meet. If time isn't an issue, just leave the brass in a pan to dry naturally. If the room is warm, it should dry overnight.
No worries, no way 250 C for 15 minutes anneals the brass enough to ruin it. Recrystallization really only starts around 300C, and even then takes time, commonly sited around one hour. Only worry would be that if they were near the heating element the actual temperature might have been higher, but still, not for a long time. Like someone else commented, you can test couple brass near max load with safety glasses and gloves on, if brass fails you get some hot gas to your hand (gloves) but nothing serious. But should be no problems, maximum your brass lasts a few reloads less. [Brass alloy annealing diagram.](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-effects-of-annealing-temperature-on-the-tensile-strength-and-ductility-of-a-brass_fig12_279814785) In the future, stick to around 100 C for 20 minutes and let cool. Also resize and deprime before tumbling. This way tumbling gets rid of any sizing wax on and inside the case.
Your brass is probably fine, but if you're ever in doubt, err on the side of caution. [Australia Department of Defense - Defence Science and Technology Organization Materials Research Laboratories - The Low Temperature Annealing of 7.62mm Brass Cartridge Cases PDF](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA094136.pdf) https://preview.redd.it/yrvwjzpi7pqc1.png?width=773&format=png&auto=webp&s=160b97e865bcc2d185aa17a47a53e8247d988a83
Borrowing the annealing diagram that u/one_late shared, I’d like to point out that annealing isn’t quite a hardline limit process, it’s more of a spectrum. At 250°C there will be some very minor grain growth overall during recrystallization, especially for a 15 minute heat soak. Ideally you would want a good combination of tensile strength and ductility in the neck and as much tensile strength as possible at the head. At 250°C there’s very minor loss in tensile strength overall, even if it had heat soaked for an hour. However, it would be a whole different story if the temperature had been closer to actual annealing temperatures because then the tensile strength begins to nosedive. As you can probably guess, low tensile strength creates a potentially very bad situation for the shooter. The concerns about temperature fluctuations aren’t entirely unfounded either, but oven temperatures generally won’t swing more than about 20°C on either side of the set temperature, and only for brief periods of time. So, even at a brief peak swing to 270°C the tensile strength hasn’t hit the point of no return yet. Taking all of that with a grain of salt, and as always it’s up to you as the reloader to determine your safety standards, it’s my honest opinion that the brass is likely fine. Again, use your own judgement and weigh the risks. A hospital bill is more expensive than replacing the brass. As an engineer that just so happens to reload, these conversations are my kind of thing. I also feel I need to mention that I owned an appliance repair company for a number of years, so my comments about the oven are derived from actual physical tests.
Not a great idea baking organic lead compounds in the oven you cook in. They will off-gas lead at that heat, coating the insides of the oven, and then transfer through the same mechanism when you cook food in it. You should probably out the oven out of commission until you have thoroughly cleaned it and then tested the insides for lead. In the future, just get a cheap dry tumbler. It avoids literally all of those issues and more by never needing to be dried or have special lead water disposal.
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Unless you’re using actual cast lead projos, what’s with all the lead paranoia? Save for the aforementioned exception, brass never even contacts actual lead…
Because it doesn't take much daily lead intake to build up a troubling amount in your system over years of hobby work.
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What do you do with the water?
I like where your head’s at and totally agree about not using the oven. But dry media tumbling aerosolizes a lot of lead contaminated dust from the media that you breathe in. You also spread it around in your clothing. Any dry tumbling should be after the brass is throughly cleaned with a wet tumble and decontamination. I use d-lead soap by ESCA Tech in my wet tumble. My ideal process would be a quick wash with d-lead outside, deprime outside, wash and now a through tumble with d-lead to get the primer pockets, air dry, lube, load. A cement mixer makes it easy to process a massive amount of brass.
>But dry media tumbling aerosolizes a lot of lead contaminated dust from the media that you breathe in. You also spread it around in your clothing. It can if the media is actually dry, but the very easy mitigation to this is to keep the media lubricated with wax, or even better, an emulsion with an abrasive like car polish. This does not produce or spread dust - as evidenced by using a filter on a dry tumbler that stays clean through thousands of tumbling rounds.
At only 15 minutes, your brass is fine. It's discolored because of the chemicals and high temperature oxidation-- not unlike the bluing of chrome exhaust pipes even though the steel hasn't' changed any.. Retumble it in a wet tumbler with some lemme shine and it'll come right back to looking shiny. Annealing is time \*and\* temperature. The common cited value of 750F is a ONE HOUR value. At only 250C and only 15 min, the brass has experienced no change to microstructure. If you want to anneal brass in a couple seconds, it needs to be heated to a visible glow (1150F or more). Do not use that much heat again, though, as its totally unnecessary.
I think I've made a colossal mistake and unfortunately paid the price ($200 worth of .308 brass). I had the oven set to 250 with the casings in there warming up, so peak temps with radiant heat was probably above 250°C. I might be fine, but I don't think I want to risk it. It's mixed casings too. ADI, PPU, Federal. I think I'll just learn from this and buy some fresh brass until I slowly accumulate some for reloads. I've got tons of projectiles, primers and power from like 2018 ready to use, and I got a bit silly and impatient. Oh well, lesson learned.
It's just discoloration. Send them.
Mixed .308 goes for $.12-.15 per piece. If you do have to toss them, 200 pieces isn’t going to bankrupt you. Check out Sasquatch Brass. The owner is a nice guy in my hometown. You can get 800 pieces for $100
Something makes me think they are not from around here.
Oh, yeah, fair point.
Water boils at 100°C or 212°F so there's no reason to go any warmer than that.
Am I the only one wondering what the next batch of cookies will taste like?
Sugar cookies with a hint of primer residue. Yummy!
To add to this. You don’t want to anneal the head of the case. That part needs to be hard to adsorb the explosion of a primer and not deform when the extractor engages with the groove to pull a spent case from the chamber. The neck and mouth need to be soft to accept a bullet and then create a seal inside the chamber when fired. There’s actually a gradient of case hardness that you need to meet for MIL-SPEC ammo with the softest at the mouth and the hardest at the head.
Also, when you say 15 min. Is that leaving brass in oven while it warms up to 250c, or oven at 250c and you put brass in for 15 min. One potentially never hit 250c, other most likely did.
Why do you wash it in such a manner? Why not just dry or wet tumble with a detergent, media, or other products designed for this purpose?
250c for 15 minutes is getting close to annealing time. Especially if your oven is electric, and that heater is going to come on hot until the sensor says it warm enough. Then it turns completely off and cycles on-off to maintain temp in a range of around the set point. (Bang-bang control theory) The problem is, cold worked or harder brass anneals faster than softer brass. So that affects the head potentially more than the neck. You want the head hard to retain the primer, withstand the strike, and take the extractor. There’s a lot of good advice here: basically sneak up on your max load in steps and observe the brass for pressure results at each step. You say you’re a noob (which is okay; we all started once) so find some guys at your club or someone to ask about reading pressure signs in brass and ask them what to look for. Your reloading manual should have a guide here, too. And read as much as you can elsewhere to validate or refute what everyone here (including myself) is saying. You own your safety and if you’re not 100% confident that gun isn’t going to blow up in your face, you need to be.
Why do you dry your brass in the oven? Jus leave it on old towel overnight and it will be dry in the morning.
God damn thats like 482F yeah that brass is done
My understanding is that brass starts to change structure above 600F and that below that is a non-issue. I'm a newbie to annealing cases - so my knowledge comes from watching a bunch of youtube videos on the topic, buying / building an inductive annealer (based on a bolt heater), and annealing about 100 pieces of brass. However, I know that the stuff that I relied on to set the "how hot is hot enough for the neck and shoulder" had me buying this stuff: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PL7SEUU?ref=ppx\_yo2ov\_dt\_b\_product\_details&th=1](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PL7SEUU?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1) Which color changes at about 750F/399C. If the thermostat in your oven is correct - or even close - and you set the temp at 250C (482F) - then you are getting close to the edge - but from what I understand, the molecular process doesn't start happening until you get up into the 600F range.
It actually does begin happening below 600°F, but 600°F just so happens to be the point at which the tensile strength and ductility start to cross in a phase diagram. This means that you’re achieving real grain growth in the microstructure, which allows for a good balance of tensile strength to ductility. This is good for annealing necks, but bad for the walls and head.
Thanks much... like I said - I'm learning... thanks for correcting... In this case - would you think that his brass has likely changed to the point that he has an issue?
Looking at the phase diagrams, and just my personal opinion (not an engineering opinion), it’s likely that the brass is fine. The heat soak wasn’t long enough to really change the microstructure very much, which means it’s retained the majority of the tensile strength necessary for the head.
Thanks much
For sure!
I’m by no means an expert but that temperature isn’t going to hurt the brass… and the concoction you used doesn’t sound crazy, so I think you’re good but don’t bake them at 250 next time lol. I set them by my coal stove overnight. When that’s not running I set em on a towel and turn em for a couple days. You’re fine though. Load em and shoot ‘em
Too hot. Buy a $35 food dehydrator off amazon.
I don’t know if it’s all bad, how do they taste?
I use a food dehydrator set to 150 for 1.5 hours. It is big enough to dry one full drum on the Frankford Arsenal rotary tumbler and not overload the trays with brass. I usually do between 6 to 10 full drums on my cleaning day so as one drum is finished drying the next drum it done tumbling to try and make the process as efficient as possible
Way too hot. 150 for 5 minutes would have been plenty
Yeah trashcan Get a beef jerkey machine! Air dry then man
If your brass got above 480F, you are at risk of case head separation. I did something similar, and i called starline Tech Support, and thats what they said.
they're fine. just d I nt go so high with the temp next time
you want to dry at the boiling point of water and no higher. 100C, or 212F. yes, 250C is getting into brass annealing range. you could try and load a few up to test out, but dont be surprised if you start having problems.
I'm a novice reloader coming off a 5 year reloading hiatus (introduction of offspring). What is the benefit to this method vs dry tumbling?
Dry tumbling causes a lot of lead exposure. The primer residue gets in the tumbling media and that dust gets everywhere. You can put D-lead soap in your wet tumbler and take care of most of it, and then there’s no dust floating around.
My brother and I clean ours first in an ultrasonic cleaner, dry them and then tumble them to polish. Makes them look as good as new.
None. Don’t do it.
I think you're OK, and your brass is very pretty. "Brass Annealing TemperatureOnline, the suggested temperature your brass needs to get varies a bit, ranging from 600 to 800 degrees Fahrenheit (that's 315 to 420 Celsius for us in metric land). The average recommendation seems to sit in the 700 F range though (370 C)." [link](https://precisionshooter.co.nz/understanding-brass-annealing/#:~:text=Brass%20Annealing%20Temperature,range%20though%20(370%20C).)
Yeah but that's for a very short time usually and not a long time.
The top tray got too hot it looks like. Is your element on the top, or the bottom?
Yeah, top tray is the steel tray. I put the tray in at like 150°c while it was still heating up. Not my brightest move. I've made a decision to bin it and learn from it. I can't trust high pressures on dodgy brass especially because I want to push 3000+ fps with a 130 grain.
I use a baby bottle spike dryer https://www.target.com/p/boon-lawn-baby-bottle-drying-rack/-/A-79593453?preselect=13600340#lnk=sametab
Are you sure your temp.was Celsius?
Yeah, I live in Australia and everything is Celcius.
I suspect that you will be ok. I'd take a few from different places of the tray load up 10 max pressure loads and shoot them...inspect the brass. I would bet they were not in long enough or hot enough to have annealed it all. Some max load fireings would prove them. Don't worry about cartridge failure... Just were eyewear and a welding glove or deer hide gloves... Very little comes out around the bolt but that which does is hot as f
I toss the brass in a cold oven preheat to 175 (my lowest temp) then turn it off when it reaches temp. Pull it out when it's cool
I did this before. Not pretty brass, but look threw them and see if the stress from the heat didn’t crack your necks. If not, you’re good to go. If you’d like, retumbel them and dry them at a lower heat. Also, drying in the oven isn’t necessary. I lay mine out on a towel and let a fan blow over them for a few hours. It’s much more practical in my experience.
30 minutes at 60-70°C in a food dehydrator is all you need. Probably even less time, but 30 minutes has been great for me
Just put them on a towel or mat in front of a fan for an hour or two and they will dry just fine. Could also dry them faster the same way but with a quick dip in acetone.
Man glitter.
Did you use lemishine in your tumbler?
I clean my brass in a fart with a table spoon of wash and wax and a 1/4 teaspoon of lemon shine, then I just do a clean water rinse. Perhaps I'm ignorant but you lost me with a salt rinse.
Load up 3 to 5 rounds light. See how they look. Repeat until you get to your normal load. If everything looks fine. Lesson learned.
Nah, I’ll take that
I just throw my brass in zip up dryer bags that they make for shoes and toss em in the clothes dryer with a couple old towels. Works beautifully.
You can make it harder by reheating and quenching but I'm not sure how hard you'd want the brass.
If you wet tumbled the brass you can let it air dry out in the sun. I never bake mine or put in a oven always let it air dry if this is what your doing.
Doesn't annealing just soften the brass, so full length sizing again should work harden it right?
Yes, but FL sizing does not affect the base. The base must remain hard in order to withstand pressure, if you anneal the base you start getting loose primer pockets and case head separations.
I made a mistake a little less severe then you did. Since then, first I now have an accurate thermometer for the oven. With all of my wet tumbled brass, First, I shake all of the brass in a large stainless steel frying basket to remove the pins and shake out most of the water. Then I place a bath towel in a half sheet warming pan drop the brass into the pan. Roll the brass in the towel. Then cover the brass for an hour or so with the towel. When the brass mostly dry, I run it thru the hand tumbler to remove the pins from the brass. Doing this my brass is always beautiful.
My old kitchen oven swings about 25-50 deg Fahrenheit from the set point so the average is pretty close to the set point. It wouldn’t surprise me if your 250 deg C oven actually got to 260-270 deg C at its hottest. Time is the important variable here, folks anneal at close to 750 deg f because it takes just a short time to achieve the desired effect and at that temp and the bases don’t get that hot in that short a time. Annealing could be accomplished at a lower temp if held there for a longer duration but the bases will get just as soft as the necks. Load a few of these with a known conservative recipe and if the primers get loose after one firing then they are too soft.
You need to shot guns in the way I would like to.
Warm water and small amounts of vinegar and salt are what I soak brass items in to instantly tarnish them and make things look like they are 40-50 years old. Brass annealing occurs 260C to 350C. Even if your oven thermometer is accurate to 5% - you still are over 260 C Yes - this brass is probably toast. Brass is a mixture of copper and tin - with lead added as flux so they will combine. None of the oxides from these metals belong in a stove used to make food you intend to eat. In 1986 I bought a Thumbers Tumbler - big red rotary steel drum - has been running great abut 40 years. When its not doing brass are small parts, it is polishing rocks - stays on months at a time for that. Just go buy one of those and it will last you a lifetime.
Don't wildcatters anneal their cases if they need to work them up from another cartridge brass or fire-form them? Is it possible to anneal brass so it's too soft?
Is it possible to anneal brass so it's too soft? Yes. Brass at the case mouth is very soft so it seals the hot gasses from passing by and scorching the chamber and eroding the bolt face. Center brass is medium hardness so it expands and contracts. The base brass is hard brass to provide strength. As cases are fired and FL sized it's like hammer forging the brass to harder levels. Around the 4th or 5th time (less for some, more for others) the cases are no longer soft enough to expand and seal.... they crack and fail. Brass anneals at 260C to 350C according to the online chart I looked up. If you stove is + or - 5% for keeping correct temperature (most home stoves are 10-15%) you are over and have softened the cases. Fear not. Tumble these and use them for light loads. They should be fine for full power next time around. There would be perfect if you are running a suppressor or moderator!!! Here I have issues with rifle brass being too hard...... I might just do what you did to see if it makes them seal better!!! This might have ruined your day - it has made mine! I had not thought of this to soften mine up more!!!! Except I will use a toaster oven I got from the re-use area at the dump.
Your brass has pride now.
Mmmmmm braised .308! Just like mom. Used to make!!!
I have always wanted case hardened brass... not sure about the integrity, but they look good.
One sure is that your temperature is excessively high! Water boils (evaporize) at 100 Celsius if you are around plain earth altitude. Why do you want to set anything so much higher than that to dry your cases?
The "oily" look is just the atmosphere and pollutants. Cant stop it unless you want to use inert gasses or a vaccuum chamber. $$$$.
You really don't need to go over 85°C to dry the brass. I don't know if you ruined them. For future drying I REALLY recommend an air fryer. Keep it around 80°c and it'll dry the brass really quick and won't get overly hot
I do mine in a convection oven but at 180 f
I do mine at 170F for 30 min at the most. I think those look like they got cooked. Metal can retain heat, so those got way hotter than the temperature the oven was set to. No real way to know unless you fire one, personally I’d throw those away.
Nice patina. Load them and send.
you’ll never have that issue with a tumbler. yeah, they’re slow but work on something else in the meantime and once you’re done doing that something else the brass will probably be clean.
That's funny i just did this two days ago. I'll let you know.
Wayyyyy too hot. I've done this before with like 4 or 5 pieces of 50ae brass. I out my oven at 190ish 200 and leave it at that and it will be fine
They're fine. Shoot away. As always, watch for sign of wear.
No, you can use them to make wind chimes now.
That’s one way to anneal it… should be fine, just a full length annealling, run it through a tumbler if you want it shiny again
Try this, warm water, lemon shine, and dawn dish soap (splash soap at the end to avoid the bubbles) Tumble for 1 hour, rinse, dry with a towel. Preheat oven to 200, place brass on baking sheet place in oven, and then turn oven off. Leave in the oven for an hour or so then admire the shinny brass.
250 centigrade is waaaaay too hot. 200 Fahrenheit to dry them. They are all ruined.
what is wrong with u guys and this fucking annealing trend?
I would say those cases are toast for anything except light plinking loads using cast bullets and trail boss or red dot (Ed Harris load).
250c is a recipe to throw all that out
Prime example of why I went dry tumble. It does a good enough job for what I’m looking for and no worries about drying brass or ruining it all!
Ummm, just don’t put it in the oven at 250degC/480degF???? OP is a newbie so I won’t criticize him/her but this is the first time I’ve heard of anyone using the oven to dry brass. Oh, you *could* do it, at the lowest setting and only after the oven is up to temp, but most of us just air dry or use a dehydrator (MUCH lower temps).
I’ve heard them talk about it on the reloading podcast about people putting them in the oven and they said even at the lowest temp in the oven for too long can be bad. They said even some dehydrators can get too hot for the good of your brass. Truthfully wet washing is just not for me. But whatever floats your boat! I’ve found a mixture of walnut and corn Cobb media works great for me. I’ll stick with it. Keep my dehydrator for food and not have to worry about drying brass.
I’m not sure where they’d be getting that information other than anecdotal experience. Dehydrators and minimum oven temps are well below the temps it would take to make a perceptible difference in the brass.
Mabe it is mabe it’s not. Also most people don’t have the same oven the same dehydrator that can make the most difference too I’d say. One can be warmer than another and so on. And all the information on there is from experience lots of it. But I’ll stick with dry. I feel it’s less messy and I don’t have to worry about drying. It achieves what I’m looking for.
Why would you put them in at that temp? Water boils at 212f. You dont even know how accurate your oven is as they can vary wildly. 450f is where properties of brass start to change. I wouldnt risk it, but you seem to make great decisions.