The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1939-1949, 1943-07-29
Brass Is Milled
Into Munitions
Huge Slabs Pressed Into
Coils, Then Formed
Into Cartridges.

EAST ALTON, ILL.-The squeeze
| is on the Axis.
That squeeze is in a brass mill.
Here in changing quarter-mile long
inferno, they squeeze huge $500
pound slabs of brass into sleek, shiny
coils from which machine gun and
rife ammunition is made.
It is because of this squeeze which
is used in making ammunition brass,
that a rifle is more than just a han
die for a bayonet, and u. S. tanks
and airplanes are the terror of the
Axis.
Pressure, like noise, is the keynote
of all ammunition making, particu-
larly in the brass mill From the
moment a three-inch thick slab Of
dull green brass is cast by an cleo
trio furnace, its single purpose in
life is to get Simmer.
Were a fat man eight feet long,
the average length of a slab Of
brass, to undergo the strenuous
brass reducing treatment, he would
become the champion thin man Of
all time-160 feet long and approx
mately one-eighth of an inch thick.
As in all good reducing courses,
the results are gradual. You can
take your pick of treatments, the
hot roll or the cold roll. Certain
kinds of brass must be rolled cold,
others hot.
The hot roll is quicker. Giant over
head cranes 80 feet in length, travel
as far as 700 feet, pick up the big
slabs, and lower them into huge gas
furnaces. They feed into one side
of the furnaces and flop out of the
other, bright pink on top and dusty
yellow on the sides. ..
BY pressing few buttons, one
single man automatically races the
glowing slab through a huge 'hot"
rolling mill that squeezes the metal
thin. In one pass" through the
roller, the pink slab changes miracu-
lousy to sulphur yellow. Back
and forth through the rollers it goes,
and in two minutes it is almost 40
feet long and only half an inch thick.
Cold rolling takes hours longer. A
big slab, as cold as mackerel,
takes seven trips through the roll
ers, is heated to restore its MALE
ability, and then takes four more
passes before it is squeezed down to
half an inch. -- .-..
The final rolling and annealing
treatments are among the most fan.
tastic multiple operations in heavy
industry. BY now the brass has
been coiled in $500 pound rolls. II
is uncoiled as it passes through the
final rolling mills. and is recoiled
as it leaves them to be lifted by
elevators to huge circular storage
bins which resemble the roller-coast-
ers at a. carnival. al ~ l.. tsrss
One man, seated before a big con-
troll board studded with dozens of
buttons, releases the rolls from the
roller-coaster to a moving platform
from which he feeds the rolls into
six big annealing ovens. If the
storage bins look like roller-coasters
the ovens look like the tunnels of
love" at the end of roller-coaster.
The rolls are splotched with rose
and dirty yellow after they leave the
ovens. To restore their bright COL
or, they are picked" that is,
cleaned before being fed into a strip
per, which splits and re-coils them
into widths convenient for shipping
and for their next course in pres
,.. ...... AZ.
Thirty miles away in st. Louis at
the mammoth st. Louis Ordnance
plant, the rolls are fed into grunt-
ing "cookie-cutters" and drawing
presses that squeeze the fat brass
into trim and deadly cartridges
which, when loaded with pressure
smokeless powder-wiIl send a bull
let cracking out of a gun at almost
half mile a second.
Western Cartridge company, one
of the country's biggest makers OF
peacetime sports ammunition, has
built vast new brass mill to aug
ment its former capacity. Today,
these booming mills at East Alton
are setting new records. One of the
users Of this brass is the st. Louis
Ordnance plant, worlds largest fac
tory devoted exclusively to machine
p,,n and rife ammunition