What's your preferred annealing method?

[Uncdav]

From the spinning on a mandrill in my hand drill to standing in a pan of water in the oven . I've tried a few ways and haven't been satisfied completely. What's your favored method and why?
Uncdav

 

[Fishkat]

From the spinning on a mandrill in my hand drill to standing in a pan of water in the oven . I've tried a few ways and haven't been satisfied completely. What's your favored method and why?
Uncdav

Well I hated when after sizing brass, priming, loading the powder and then seating the bullet notice the difference in neck tension on a few cases. I was sending my brass to someone that used one of the open flame type annealing process. Then I had someone anneal some brass that used an AMP annealer, liked the results so much I bought one. Pricey but the best I’ve seen. Check it out at
ampannealing.com

 

[Chikn]

A pan of water in the oven will never anneal your cases. Worst idea ever.

I will tell you how I do it, you can do it, or you can buy an expensive machine that will do the same thing for a ridiculous amount of money.
A brass annealing mandrel costs 12 bucks from Litte Crow Gunworks, they make fantastic trimmers as well.
I had my mandrels made 20 years ago by a good friend with a lathe. Dont use sockets and such they just don't work as good and mandrels are cheap.

Clean brass, mandrel, corded drill, propane torch is all you need. I prefer a pencil tip if I'm doing blackout brass, as its a bit short and I dont like to heat up my mandrel too much. My mandrels are 416ss so they don't transfer heat as bad as aluminum. Even so I keep a bucket of water handy to cool the mandrel ever so often.
I turn the lights off in my man cave with just the strip lights under my bench dim in the background. Hold the blue tip of the flame about 3/4 down the neck, just short of the shoulder, as you spin the case. Run your torch pretty mush wide open. I use the cheap simple torches that you see on the high dollar annealing setups.
You are looking for dull cherry glow, like the color of black cherries. Best way I can describe it. You may see the mouth of the case go orange a bit, thats ok. What is important is when you see this PULL AWAY.
Drop it in a cardboard box. You don't have to quench it or do anything fancy, just drop it.
I've done many thousands of brass this way for 20 years.
Neck tension is very important to consistent match ammo. A crimp is not an acceptable shortcut. If your brass is properly annealed, you will never need a crimp on a bottleneck case.

I can anneal cases this way faster than any machine.
The machine is great but its garbage in garbage out like any other machine. If its not properly set up, it won't anneal your cases.

Again...do not try to do this in a lighted room.