On 1/29/2014 9:55 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 1/29/2014 8:22 PM, Richard wrote:
John B. wrote
We call it "roomalating"; that period of time that metal just sits
(in a room) and normalizes. Why do you think it got so soft? I used
to anneal my .223's by standing them up in a cookie trey with 1/2" of
water in it then heat the neck with a torch and tip them into the
water. I didn't heat them red, just guessed. (dead soft???) That
seemed to work for me an I used the cases at least 5 times. I kept
to the conservative end of the powder chart.

I'm not sure how often it is necessary to "neck anneal" but I had,
probably 50 22-250 wildcat cases I annealed once, after initially
necking down and fire-forming, and never had any problems with them -
loaded to about 3,000 FPS.

Used the same technique as you, pan of water, heat them up, tip them
over.
There are 100 rounds in my reload box.
I've reloaded them 10 times now and it was time to recondition the
necks.
Heat treat, trim length, etc.
Those 100 cases are special (to me anyway!) and I try to take very good
care of them. Heating the necks is done in a water bath about 1/2"
deep.
This particular case was just a test to see what would happen if heated
too long. Not cherry red hot, but just on the edge.


I believe dead soft is the correct term for the condition of that neck.
It felt like dead soft aluminum (annealed condition O) when I picked
at it.
The neck bent and tore quite easily (needle nose plires).


Roomalating? Cute term.


I understand. 10 loadings seems impressive but that a stretch! (pun
intended)

They started off as factory loads (Winchester), fire formed to this
rifle only.
I set the sizing die to space on the shoulder (!) early on.
Maybe that has an effect? i dunno.
Dunno anything else.