Some (probably useless) Brass Facts
- Thread starter Speedo2
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LoboGunLeather
US Veteran
I must plead a layman's ignorance in explaining the differences. Possibly something to do with the inherent traits of the base metals involved? I have always relied on the published works of folks with far more knowledge and expertise than I have been able to acquire.
An old friend of mine is a licensed professional engineer with a MBA degree. One of his favorite expressions is "You don't have to graduate from barber college to understand this stuff".
One of these days I hope to graduate from barber college.
gwpercle
Member
I don't save any money...always buying new "stuff" .
Shooting , casting bullets and reloading is my hobby .
It's fun , I enjoy it and I don't do golf , tennis or computer
games .
Hobbies never save you money...they just provide enjoyment .
Saving money is a lie we tell our wives so it can sorta justify buying more reloading stuff . But they see through that after a while .
Gary
I am one who has sorted my 9mm brass and try to only shoot the same headstamp the same day. It may be just mental but I believe by minimizing case weight differences I am uniforming case capacity and the extreme spreads of velocity are much closer than with unsorted.
IMO, 9mm will never be a target cartridge for accuracy only. It wins in speed games because of lower recoil. It can however be improved by care inloading.
IMO, 9mm will never be a target cartridge for accuracy only. It wins in speed games because of lower recoil. It can however be improved by care inloading.
GB
Member
I hope, for your sake, that the weather clears soon!
trapper9260
Member
I do not only do it to save money, but also for a hobby and enjoyment. I like the most of it is load develop. I load mainly cast boolits. I can do more with that then jacket.
Actually they only metal that hardens when heated to critical and quenched are steel alloys. Brass, copper, silver, gold aluminum, titanium and there alloys all soften when heated to critical and quenched. Aluminum and titanium use another process to harden. They are taken to a certain temp and held their while their solution hardens by precipitation
max503
Member
But why does lead harden when it's dropped from the mold directly into a bucket of water? It's not a steel alloy.
People do that all the time to harden their cast bullets.
I'm not trying to be difficult or a wise-guy. I just don't understand why brass is an exception to the rule.
I had to be a little careful with my money for awhile, and had a great many spreadsheets calculating cost with shipping, price per round, etc.
Then...fortunes changed and I did not have to be so careful!
Switching to better components made reloading more rewarding, not less. Sure, $4.50/box .38 Spl was great and all, but Zero LSWC-HPs and .357 Mag 125 JHPs are a lot more enjoyable to use. Ditto for Hornady V-Maxes in the .223 and ELD-Match in the 6.5.
Mo' money means mo' problems, so I have less time to shoot, and reloading even better ammunition with sick components lets me wring more enjoyment out of that time.
I don't believe the actual lead hardens, but rather the other metals in the bullet mix like antimony.
The very small percentage of arsenic [1/8%] and antimony of less than 1% change hardness in the entire mix when suddenly cooled. Over time it reverts back. It may take as little as 5 years or as long as 10 depending on the temperatures it is kept at. 60F is better than 100F.
A really really slow day in PA.
Johnrh
Member
Boy I bet your wife doesn't take you food shopping. You'd be calculating everything she selects by the cost per ounce or square inch. Oh, damn, I do that. I get left home a lot.
jt1
Member
Speedo2, I appreciate you taking the time to quantify all that brass and organize the data. You've learned a lot, and you're good enough to share it for free. Few people are willing to put that much effort into a project.
John
John
If you run across and Field & Stream (F&S headstamp), be careful. We have found numerous ones to have way undersized flash holes. Several decapping pins have been broken/bent and/or grabbed and the pin pulled out of the die. Most of these now get to the scrap box.
kzaske
Member
It is so nice to know that I am not the only one that does this kind of thing. I wish you had deprimed the cases so that I could compare your results with mine. Alas, I focus on NATO cartridges and tend to recycle all civilian brass.
Toeknee
Member
I have never weighed my brass - I shoot 38spcl and 45acp - but must admit I do sort it by headstamp/manufactuer at least my 38 for the simple reason I find certain brands of brass cycle through my S&W 52-2 better than others and Federal knickel plated seems the best of all, some of us just cant help being a little superstitious or OCD, hey whatever rings your bell works for me..
Nemo288
Member
Re-dissolve might be a better term than re-align.
Breaking up the larger crystals in the solid solution is a big part of it (although they call it "recrystalization").
And, no, I am not a big expert at this but that is how I visualize what I have read about it.
Copper Alloys and Its Heat Treatment | Metallurgy
"After annealing, the articles may be cooled at any rate."
The main reason you quench cartridge brass after re-annealing the necks is to prevent the heat from
traveling any further down the case and softening the lower body or base.
Wildcats made from rifle brass that have had their heads cut off have to be annealed so that the
new "necks" are soft enough to resist splitting (see picture).
New cases are annealed more than once during manufacture as they are drastically work hardened during the draws.
They are somewhat quenched right afterwards but that is an acid bath mostly to clean the oxides off.
Not sure how much, if any softening, the bath contributes.
The folks at Starline would be the ones to ask about this.
My 1995 Triumph Thunderbird uses a copper washer to seal the oil drain bolt.
The newer kits have an aluminum washer you just throw away after 1 use but I like the older method.
This entails annealing the washer to red hot in a torch before each re-use.
Here the main reason to quench is to minimize and flake off the oxide coating before use and to keep anything from getting burnt.
It will actually stay somewhat softer if you just lay it down (carefully!).
I have not conducted scientific experiments to see just how much the quench affects the post heating "softness".
The heating/cooling cycles of running the bike over the next year hardens the washer
after it has conformed to the small tooling marks on the bearing surfaces.
The whole metallurgy of hardening is complicated and fascinating.
It's mostly based on crystal structure and how that changes under various forms of duress and chemistry.
I know just enough to be dangerous.
Maybe that's why the Wife took my blow-torch away from me?
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