annealing question ....

[demo40]

Anyone have first hand experience with annealing with a salt bath ?
thanks

[God Bless America]

Somebody on gunco may have, as I recall.

[tonyjr]

I tried it years ago .
Epson salt and a crock pot .
The cases seemed more brittle and split easier .
Maybe me or bad / older cases or both .
Since I mainly use range brass and when cases split - into brass bin .
The cost of an annealing set up + room on bench - I just buy special cases .
[ mainly the 41 ae mag and 25 ACP .
Me and 8 others pick up ranch brass and are willing to let anyone shoot our
guns - but we get both the unfired rounds and the fired cases .

[demo40]

no , no , no ............. I'm real sure that isn't it ........

[JackEllis]

I looked into annealing and here's where I came out on it:

It only begins to make economic sense if you shoot hard-to-find calibers or use expensive (Lapua or Norma) cases and you shoot a lot, or you're a competitive shooter.

The level of precision and repeatability required to anneal safely (IMHO anyway) means you need a machine that will expose each case to the right amount of heat in the right place for the right amount of time. Those machines tend to be expensive. If I did decide to start annealing cases, I'd get an induction annealer. I doubt I would use a salt bath of some kind without first thoroughly understand the chemical reactions that might be involved. The last thing you want is a case that is "annealed" and badly weakened due to a change in it's chemical structure.

If you like to tinker and money isn't much of an object, that's another story.

If you're plinking or punching paper with .223, used cases run about 4 cents apiece and you should be able to get 4 reloads out of them. Then you can sell them to a recycler for about 2 cents. In effect the case costs you 0.5 cents per round, which is nothing.

My $.02.

[DDRH]

Not sure if you've read through this thread (diff forum):

http://www.65creedmoor.com/index.php?topic=6019.0

it's a whole right up on Salt Bath Annealing. Looks interesting and i may try it myself one day.

I looked at the AMP, with their new software, it'll cost roughly $1350 for the whole setup. Salt Bath setup costs roughly $150-$200. But ergonomics is less refined, and can be dangerous.

[demo40]

great article , I'm liking this method even more ( thanks) there are a few companies selling everything less the melting pot for 130.00( including case holders ) I figure if I go this direction it will eat 2- 100 dollar bills ..... as far as dangerous goes , cant be worse than lighting 230 grains of powder 3 inches from your face .

[DDRH]

great article , I'm liking this method even more ( thanks) there are a few companies selling everything less the melting pot for 130.00( including case holders ) I figure if I go this direction it will eat 2- 100 dollar bills ..... as far as dangerous goes , cant be worse than lighting 230 grains of powder 3 inches from your face .

let us know how it goes! just be careful with the water to dilute the salt, as thread OP warned. a little water and it could blow up. Only from what i've read, no experience in this.

[kcheung2]

great article , I'm liking this method even more ( thanks) there are a few companies selling everything less the melting pot for 130.00( including case holders ) I figure if I go this direction it will eat 2- 100 dollar bills ..... as far as dangerous goes , cant be worse than lighting 230 grains of powder 3 inches from your face .

230 grains of powder? What is that a 20mm round?

[tonyjr]

DDRH
Thanks , Iwas doing it all wrong when I got brittle cases .
I messed up a few cases [ 270 win ] and decided it was
cheaper to just buy unprimed ones .
That was years ago and now all I / we shoot at is paper .
I no longer need to be right on - don't hunt any more .

[demo40]

I wasn't trying to give you a hard time , I have been thinkin on this for awhile
and want to not use flame annealing from the limited stuff i've found salt bath has been around since the 1940s, the consumables are basically nill , uniform heat and consistent results ...
calibers I load : 50 bmg ( 235 grains pushing 750 gr bullet ), 45/70 45/90 5.56 308 257 204

[demo40]

really ...................

[demo40]

nothing ..................

[Michael in California]

When I get settled into my new house, I"m going to salt anneal for 6.5cm.

It appears to be dirt simple. The salt bath temperature is easy to control, so you get consistent results. No open flames. If I was going for volume, then one of the automated flame machines is probably a better deal, but I'll be annealing maybe 100 at a time.

[demo40]

trying to find a few folks who have been using it . maybe save myself a skin graft or 2 ,a little in-site is invaluable ..............