My dad reloaded for years, and never once did I see him anneal a case. Seems he was in the reserves, so he brought home military cases every month. As such he just threw the whole lot away whenever they started to crack.
Dad isn't with us anymore, and I don't have the luxury of free military brass every month, so sooner or later I will need to anneal some cases (at todays prices I can't afford not to).
My dad's old Lyman manual gives the following instructions:
1. Place brass head down in a shallow pan and fill the pan with water until 1/2 the case is covered.
2. heat the necks with a torch until Cherry red.
3. Tip the cases over into the water to cool.
now normally I wouldn't think to question the manual that much, but in engineering school they taught us that the faster the quench the harder the metal becomes. They also told us that a water quench is a very fast quench, air is slightly slower, and furnace annealing is the slowest.
the question is "is tipping the cases over into the water correct, or should I do something different?"
Thanks
Ray