annealing

[northdude]

How often do you guys anneal your brass?

[Oso Polaris]

There are a bunch of threads here and over on Accurate Shooters forum worth reading.

Views on this have changed over time. The current view is either don't anneal or anneal after each shot. The benefit of annealing is it provides a more uniform neck tension and it may also improve case life.

As far as the case life there is a argument that the majority of annealers in the market do not properly heat the case to sufficient temperature to re-aligning the molecular structure of the brass. If you were to achieve this temp with these units then you would also ruin the entire case because the time/amount of heat applied would be annealing/softeneing the entire case and not just simply the case neck. The only type of annealer that can quickly achieve these temps while keeping the heated area isolated is an induction coil annealer. There is one unit on the market that has extensive testing to prove its claim, the AMP ($1500).

[LR1955]

ND:

Yes, run a search or just look at the topic listing in this forum. About five very good threads on annealing but OP summed them up perfectly in my opinion. He stated the annealer that actually works, its cost, and benefits. You won't go from a two minute blaster to one minute because you annealed the brass. In fact, you probably won't notice anything down range. If you use a good annealing machine, you will probably get longer brass life but remember that with the Grendel the primer pockets loosen up too.

Interesting topic. Lapua brass is around a dollar a piece so if you bought 1500 pieces of Lapua brass, that would equal the cost of the annealer. If you keep your loads within published data, you ought to get twenty shots per piece of brass. 1500 X 20 = 30,000 rounds fired. If you use a decent bushing sizing die and decent lube, you will not overwork the brass by sizing it but at twenty shots per piece you will start losing some due to cracked necks anyway. Anneal and you probably won't crack necks but the primer pockets will go too and twenty firings per piece means some will be losing the primer pockets and you will have to ditch them anyway.

I am not sure it is worth the money but some guys here swear by it so do look at some of the threads.

LR-55

[jasper2408]

In the Erik Cortina Utube interview with the 2 inventors of the AMP annealer they stated that it was possible to anneal correctly with flame based annealers. He did not give the method he used to correctly anneal brass with a flame based system but did say it was very possible to do just as good a job as the AMP annealer provided and it sounded like they had done some testing on it.

I anneal after each firing.

[StoneHendge]

Never.

[SCJim]

My standard reply when I see this topic

My take on annealing is either do it every time or never do it. Either method works for me. What will get you into trouble with precision shooting is when you shoot with cases that have various numbers of reloads on them. On a precision bolt rifle at least. I shoot mostly F class mid and long range and did a few experiments a couple of years back and found that annealing always or never worked as far as flyers went. When we moved my cases got mixed up some with 5 reloads some with 10 plus when the reloading room was packed up. For about a year before the relocation I had stopped annealing and had noticed no problems. Then suddenly I began getting odd flyers vertically. I practice with 10 round groups at 300 + yards and would have a .5 MOA group get a flyer out in the 8 ring. I tried a couple of different experiments and found annealing stopped me getting flyers. Annealing works for me at least

On the science -

https://sites.google.com/site/lagadoacademy/machining---lathes-mills-etc/brass---stress-relieving

as you can see annealing involves both time and temperature. Using flame the best you can hope for is stress relief and a bit of softening. That is not a bad thing, I used flame annealing for many years and have some lapua .308 Palma brass going on 30 reloads now that were loaded with some darn hot loads. I still have over 90 cases from the original 100. For 5+ years I used the old plumbers torch, cordless drill and socket method in a dark room method. That brass will still give me less than 1 MOA 20 round groups at 800 yards plus. Then I switched to a Annealeeze. That worked fine except on short cases such as the 6BR and Grendel family you have to be careful abot melting the wheels. I recently switched to an AMP but other than convenience and speed I have noticed little or no differences in my groups or number of flyers.

Anyway that is just my 2 cents worth and as always YMMV

[ricsmall]