Thread: Salt Bath Annealing

@Beavis did you try and source the salt locally? NaNo2 and NaNo3 seem to be hard to find... And I'm doubtful if I'm patient enough to wait for 10 weeks for sea freight!

Actually, found some!

Nitrate of soda, is sodium nitrate easy in garden centres. It absorbs water so keep the pack sealed. Try Dunninghams the sausage ingredient people if you need sodium nitrite, its used as a preservative in corned meat, bacon and a lot of other things.

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

Nitrate of soda, is sodium nitrate easy in garden centres. It absorbs water so keep the pack sealed. Try Dunninghams the sausage ingredient people if you need sodium nitrite, its used as a preservative in corned meat, bacon and a lot of other things.

Wont you get pink cases ? with the stuff from Dunninghams

Originally Posted by Puffin

Is your avatar the end result ?

My dad did the same thing when hew was at school, and one his mates tried to grind up weedkiller and sugar together instead of separately - 6 months off with horror chemical burns

I could never get my powder to work properly either, just buy anfo now. Its more fun

Originally Posted by stug

Nice, reading this thread you can use potassium nitrate ( KNO3) and Sodium nitrite (NaNO2) they shouldn't be hard to get in NZ, just need to get the mix right to get the right temp.

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

You can get potassium nitrate from mitre 10 , called stump rotter I used to use it in sugar rockets but there was a trader on tm selling better quality .
https://www.trademe.co.nz/home-livin...b2dfa7b07a4f72

@Beavis how is the annealing going now?

Haven't started yet. Some of my brass is twice fired so I wNg to do it all in one operation

Hopefully it's good! I'm waiting for the last of the bits for mine, got a heap of brass ready to anneal

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Just done my first batch of annealing. Did a few hundred cases, from 20 Tactical up to 338 Lapua cases (I got both shell holders). 6 seconds for all cases and was able to comfortably hold heated cases with bare fingers so pretty confident with how far down the case the heat travelled before quenching in water (although I wore a glove once i got started). Very happy with the way it worked

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Be interested to see your results. Still have a handful of rounds to use before annealing.

Originally Posted by The Claw

Just done my first batch of annealing. Did a few hundred cases, from 20 Tactical up to 338 Lapua cases (I got both shell holders). 6 seconds for all cases and was able to comfortably hold heated cases with bare fingers so pretty confident with how far down the case the heat travelled before quenching in water (although I wore a glove once i got started). Very happy with the way it worked

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7mmFX (7mm-338 Lapua Improved) in the back, 6.5 Creedmoor and 20 Tactical in front. And did some 7mm Rem Mag cases as well. Also formed some 20 Tactical brass from 223 and annealed it just for fun

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Temp held pretty consistent between 535 down to 500. Had to add about a tablespoon of salt part way through to top up the level. Bit of tweaking on the Lee melter temp level to try to keep temp constant. Found that between 6 and 7 was about right and adjust accordingly based on the temp reading trend.

Interesting to see how the brass had different colouring when it's been heated to the same temp (given the brass can only heat to the temperature of the molten salt)

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