Preferred Annealing Torch

EastCOYotes

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Feb 10, 2019
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Idalia Colorado
Found some older threads on this but wanted to see what people are doing nowadays. I want to do some hand annealing so wondering what torch works good for everyone. I see there are tons of options on amazon and I feel like one of the pencil flame or fine flame ones might work best. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Anyways anyone have some recommendations?
 
I'm using a cheap Bernz-o-matic propane from Lowe's. It's the on that has the three holes the flame to exit. I just hold the shoulder right where the bright blue flame transitions to a darker color and spin for six seconds (measured before with 750F Tempilaq). My SD's have all been less than ten and most are right at 5 doing this. More than adequate for my needs.

Torch
 
I'm using a cheap Bernz-o-matic propane from Lowe's. It's the on that has the three holes the flame to exit. I just hold the shoulder right where the bright blue flame transitions to a darker color and spin for six seconds (measured before with 750F Tempilaq). My SD's have all been less than ten and most are right at 5 doing this. More than adequate for my needs.

Torch

Awesome, I've been looking at the benzomatics so I'll just have to go to Lowes or Home depot or whatever and check them out.

I was wondering if some of the torch heads might be overkill and burn up propane in a hurry. Can you get quite a few cases annealed with a bottle of propane?
 
I have done about 500 Grendel/Creedmoor cases on my first bottle. Still going strong.

Edit to add: Don't neglect to remove the bottle from the head every time after you're done. Probably makes it last a little longer.
 
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Reccomend the auto lighting head for the torch. Fyi map gas in the yellow bottle is hotter and quicker, a quick couple seconds spin in the fingers before it gets too hot to hold is sufficient.

7098739
 
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I use the regular bernzomatic torch head on a regular green propane bottle and get many hundreds of rounds from a single bottle. Don’t keep track, but would be surprised if it was less than 600-800 per bottle. I don’t remove the torch head either.
 
Using one of these on Bench Source annealer. Could set up and use two, but the swirl head provides a larger, broader flame, whether camp gas spares I’m trying to use up or blue bottle propane. Has worked well to date, with a couple thousand annealings under torch.90A3E8E9-C497-4665-A27F-9111576F198B.jpeg