Jump to content
SASS Wire Forum

Tequila Shooter

Members
  • Posts

    3,249
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Tequila Shooter

  1. Ok, let’s start with a little understanding of brass.  Brass gets work hardened, what that means is every time you expand or contract brass it gets a little more brittle, or more correctly it loses some ductility.  When it gets hard and then suddenly expands it can split or crack.  Now how does this affect brass cartridges?  Every time you bell the case, every time you crimp the case you are working it and making it harder.  What annealing does is re-soften the brass, nothing more, nothing less.  You can over anneal, or more correctly, you can overheat the brass when you anneal, if you overheat it the brass the brass will lose all its ductility.  Once this happens the brass is ruined and you can never get that ductility back.   As far as how often you anneal you can’t do it too often, but there’ll be a diminishing return.  Think of it this way with one reloading the brass doesn’t lose much ductility (some but not much), after 5 reloads the brass has lost more.  How often you anneal is up to you, as some say they find annealing therapeutic and do it before each reload, others wait until they’ve reloaded the brass a few times.

     

    The bottleneck vs. straight wall argument:  The thickness of the brass at the end of a bottleneck case is much thinner than a straight wall case.  This allows the brass to be able to expand enough to seal the case in the chamber when fired, where a straight wall case with its thicker brass won’t expand as much.  With the thinner brass the effect of work hardening will show much sooner than with the thicker brass, keep in mind that the thin brass of the bottleneck case when annealed will get up to temperature sooner than straight walled cases.  Can/should straight wall cases be annealed?  Of course you can, but will it have a benefit?  That will depend on a couple things.  As said earlier, if .45C cases are not annealed they won’t expand enough to seal the chamber which will allow blow back into the action.  If you are over-belling your cases and then crimping you’ll be causing more hardening and will reach the point where the case can split sooner, so annealing will extend the life of the case.  Many shooter will get many reloads from their cases without annealing, and if they are shooting smokeless powder won’t have the blow back fouling of black powder or black powder substitutes, so they choose not to anneal. 

     

    My primary calibers are .45C and .45-70, in both I’m using black powder, so I anneal them.  Since I don’t want to keep track of when a particular case was annealed I anneal every case every time it gets cleaned.  And since I’m annealing so much I bought an annealing machine that is easy to use and can adjust to the various cases. 

    • Like 1
  2. On 2/7/2024 at 3:01 PM, Diamond Jake said:

    I can make one in 10 gauge, but because the holes are larger, I have to either make the tray bigger, or have fewer than 50 holes.  I made a 10 ga for Blackwater and it holds 28 shells in a block 10" by 7".  For 50 shells it will be about 14" X 9".  I can do really any size, it's just that larger sizes take more time and material.

     

    Do you want a 10 GA and a 12 ga, or just the 10? 

     

    Both please. 

  3. 10 hours ago, Diamond Jake said:

    I can make one in 10 gauge, but because the holes are larger, I have to either make the tray bigger, or have fewer than 50 holes.  I made a 10 ga for Blackwater and it holds 28 shells in a block 10" by 7".  For 50 shells it will be about 14" X 9".  I can do really any size, it's just that larger sizes take more time and material.

     

    Do you want a 10 GA and a 12 ga, or just the 10? 

     

    I’d like a regular 12 ga and a 10 ga.  For the 10ga let’s go 25-28 shells, I don’t need 50 for 10ga. 

     

    Thanks again Jake

  4. Ok, I’m going to be the odd man out, I couldn’t get them to work.  When I first got my ‘87 back from Lassiter I tried them, I really wanted them to work, I tried adjusting the length, still wouldn’t work.  The issue I have is that the sharp edge of the brass would catch in the receiver, so I tried a slight crimp on the shell.  That produced a little better result but then they almost impossible to reload, what they really needed was a rolled edge.  After all was said and done I gave up and started roll crimping plastic shells and have had 0 feed issues.  I’m a little jealous of the folks that get the brass shells to work, but I’ve resined myself to realize that my particular ‘87 just doesn’t like them. 

    • Like 1
  5. I’ve got a pair of ROAs that have had years of use and the blueing is gone in all the wear areas.  Living in south MS, I can say that rust is always present.  I always wipe them down with Kroil and it does a decent job, but I still find little spots.  I’ve gotten to the point where I’m thinking of getting them hard chromed. 

  6. Hoss, I don’t care what anyone says, I’ve had the honor of shooting with you and getting to know you.  Let the haters hate, your friends know the real you, a true Cowboy!

    • Like 5
  7. As long as the spring is not hitting anything, which it shouldn’t, there is no need to smooth it.  Good gunsmiths will temper and polish the spring to get it softer which lowers the hammer tension.  Without experience I don’t recommend doing it. 

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1
  8. Once a year they get a full breakdown and all the parts (except grips) go into the wash.  I use airplane grade Simple Green diluted with distilled water.  When I’m satisfied with the cleanliness all the parts get dried with compressed air, oiled and then put back together. 

    • Thanks 1
  9. For 12ga I use a pink plastic wad (it’s a little faster to load using a MEC).  When using fiber wad as suggested by others cut down on the powder, use a nitro card, and I use an extra overshot card between the wad and shot.  I had to take apart some shells and found that when I tamped everything down some of the shot pellets were pressed into the wad, the overshot card helps prevent that. 

     

    Are you using clear plastic for the overshot card?  You’ve got a nice roll crimp and looks like a nice flame to smoke ratio going!

    • Like 1
  10. 7 hours ago, Garrison Joe, SASS #60708 said:

    No, both brass AND steel work harden.   Bend a steel wire or can lid several times, it gets hard and then fatigue breaks.   The bending creates many extremely small cracks in the crystal structure of both of those metals.  Initially those small cracks just add to hardness of the metal.  But with enough bending, the cracks join together and the metal breaks at the stress fracture point.

     

    Brass can be re-softened (annealed) at a much cooler temperature than steel, though.  That is what case annealing does - it allows the minor cracks to heal up and join back into normal crystals.  Thus the brass is soft again and ready for more work deformation before it breaks.

     

    Limit annealing on a bottle neck case to JUST the neck, though.  If you soften the shoulder, the case will collapse with very little neck tension against the bullet during seating.

     

    good luck, GJ

     

    Joe you are correct, I stand corrected. 

  11. 1 hour ago, Colorado Coffinmaker said:

    Well, I actually  understand your not wanting to go into previous discussions of Blow-By with 45 Colt, since you went to all that trouble.  I could have inswered your question without all the fall-da-rall.  

     

    To begin, the 45 Colt case, regardless of manufacture, does NOT expand sufficiently to seal the chamber against gun gas.  PERIOD!  Bigger Bullets, Softer Bullets, Heavier Loads et all do NOT eliminate Blow-By in 45 Colt.  Some extreme measures of this nature may slightly mitigate the Blow-By but WILL NOT eliminate it.  Additionally, the gun makers are want to cut 45 Colt chambers at the extream end of SAAMI or out right oversize  

     

    There are TWO solutions.  First up is to start with 44-40 cases, expanded to .45 and fire formed to 45 Colt.  The afficinadoes of the 44WCF will cringe at this practice, but with the thinner case mouth of the case it works quite well.  Next up is to anneal 45 Colt cases to soften the brass sufficiently to expand.  Annealing works regardless of bullet weight or load level.  Some annealed cases may seem a little "sticky" to extract.  Annealing however, will ELIMINATE Blow-By.

     

    CC has the right answer here.  The .45C don’t expand because the case wall is thick, by annealing you soften the brass so it can expand.  The following is for newer shooters that may not know.  

     

    Brass unlike steel is work hardened, meaning every time you size, bell, crimp the case it gets a little more brittle which is why you’ll see more split cases than say .38 brass.  In a bottle neck case such as .44-40 the case wall where the bullet is seated is thinner than the lower case wall.  This allows the case mouth to expand sufficiently to prevent most blow back.  That’s not to say that a bottle neck case wouldn’t benefit from annealing.  Most competitive long range CF shooters also will anneal their cases, it helps to maintain uniform neck tension.  I’ve been annealing my .45C for years and get very few split cases and even with shooting BP after a full year the action on both my ‘73 and Marlin ‘94 show no sign of blowback.  One word of caution, I’ve never experienced cases that were hard to extract in a rifle, but in a revolver the cases will expand enough that expended cases won’t fall out of the chamber, you have to use the extraction rod, but they won’t be stuck. 

  12. @Rancho Roy  looking at your load picture and thinking I hope he knows that it’s in the wrong order, but just in case:  starting from the bottom powder/nitro card/wad(s)/overshot card/shot/overshot card.  To parrot some things lubed wads aren’t necessary and you stand the chance of lube contaminating the powder especially if they are stored in a warm place.  @Jackalope’s explanation is very good, but if you want it explained with pictures here’s a good video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_5EEPf0vzE&t=320s  put out by Mike Beliveau.  Also what @Colorado Coffinmaker said you’d be better off using 777 or better yet APP. 

    Speaking of APP, it is a perfect powder to compare to BP when talking about volume vs. weight.  If you compare 3F APP to 3F or even 2F BP you’ll see that there’s no comparison in granule size.  Also APP recommends a very light amount of compression, compared to BP.  So as you can see the same volume of APP will weigh quite a bit less than BP.   Also, the volume of BP can change based on how it’s put into the case, the same grain weight of BP will take up less volume if it is added by drop tube compared to pouring it into a case. 

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.