Well I've never done metalwork but I have annealed a lot of brass in my time and have had help and advice from many sources across the globe.
The consenus from all this advice and what works for me is that quenching the brass in water does not help anneal. What it can help with is stopping the annealing going too far down the case and softening the head and we all know what happens when we go soft in the head.
The other key factor in annealing is getting the right temperature consistently for each case so the the anneal is even across a batch of cases thus giving the same boolit retention and spring back so necessary for the consistency that is the key to accurate ammunition.
I have never found going by colour a satisfactory way of getting a consistent anneal as the colour is so dependant on the light conditions. Therefore this doesn't lead to consitency. Ever wondered why the old blacksmiths shops were so dark, now you know, to get a true colour for tempering welding etc. This problem was sadly illustrated in the early '03 Springfield recievers, this subjective way of tempering by colour lead to wide quality variations and reciever hardness.
Me I use welders Temple sticks 650' F, four dots evenly spaced round the shoulder of the case. I have a potters hand truntable, place a cartridge in the centre, put the flame just touching the lip of the case mouth and rotate the turntable. When the crayon runs flick the case off the turntable and on with the next.
Piece of p**s and you
know what temperature your case has been annealed at.
I usually anneal not to avoid split necks but to get an even neck retention, and I can tell the difference on the target between a batch on annealed and unannealed brass, except perhaps Lapua as they are as near as perfect out of the box as I'm going to get. Its one of the the first things I consider if I suspect that vertical stringing is ammunition related.
Temple sticks! You know they make sense.
