Thread: Blow torch for annealing

You can do it with a blow torch. A trick is to put a lee shell holder in a drill to hold the case, and spin it in the flame.
The important part is figuring out how long to actually keep it in the flame for. You can figure this out via below method.

Do the first one in the dark, and watch the colour of the flame coming off the brass. I suggest doing it in the dark so you can better see the change in flame colour while you get an idea of how long you need to keep it in the flame.

Once you have gone too far, and its starting to burn elements out of the brass, the colour of the flame that is coming off the brass will change to a sort of orange colour. This signifies you have gone too far and zinc? is burning up.
So, what you want to do is count how long it takes for that orange tinge to appear in the flame (easier to see in the dark), and then anneal your brass for a second or so less than that time.

It usually ends up at about 5-6 seconds in the flame for the cases I load using a gas torch with a blue bottle.