My new AMP Annealer

[jlow]

First, let me be absolutely clear, I don’t see the fact that the AMP annealer cannot anneal every single case the same because there are variance in case weight as a defect. The company markets their annealer with the name “Annealing Made Perfect” but that is marketing folks, and my only point is don’t take that name literally.

I have done a lot of annealing and although I am no super expert, it is absolutely clear to me that no annealer can anneal each and every case you put into it the same regardless of weight variance– it’s the nature of the beast. I am not disappointed that the Bench-Source cannot do this and neither should anyone be disappointed that the AMP cannot do this.

Here is a sanity check - If an annealer can anneal brass always the same regardless of weight variance, then AMP would only need one program for all the brass of the same caliber. The fact that they tailor the program to specific make of brass is telling us loud and clear, and in black and white that It cannot do this.

So this idea of me sending the cases of different weigh to do this “experiment” unfortunately is a total waste of time. A waste of my time as I already know the answer, and a waste of AMP’s time because they don’t have to proof something that they never claim.

Everything I have said is not a knock against AMP, it’s just a simple clarification to those who looks at the machine and have undue expectations. I don’t know if I can make this any clearer than this….

 

[Coolhand]

I sent AMP 6 NORMA .220 Swift Cases fire formed to A.I. I also sent 6 Lapua 22/250 cases formed to A.I.

Here is the email I received back ;


Gary’s 22.250 AI is spot on at P95. I listed it on the web site even though we already had Lapua brass listed at P93. I believe the difference is in the neck wall thickness being 0.0005” thicker rather than because it is improved.
Your 220 Swift is right at P67. Note: of the six cases you sent, four were 0.0145” – 0.015” (I settled on 0.0145” as the listing) and they all weighed 167.4 – 167.7 gr. Program 67 gives bang on 105 Hv. which is our target.
One of the other cases was 0.013” – 0.014”, and weighed 174.7 gr. On P67 it annealed to 100 Hv.
The last one was 0.015” – 0.016” and weighed 168.2 gr. P67 annealed to 108.5 Hv. We are starting to do more work on the effects of case weight on the annealing result, and so far we are finding that neck wall thickness is much more important than case weight, provided that cases aren’t miles apart in weight.



Mike.

 

[jlow]

I sent AMP 6 NORMA .220 Swift Cases fire formed to A.I. I also sent 6 Lapua 22/250 cases formed to A.I.

Here is the email I received back ;


Gary’s 22.250 AI is spot on at P95. I listed it on the web site even though we already had Lapua brass listed at P93. I believe the difference is in the neck wall thickness being 0.0005” thicker rather than because it is improved.
Your 220 Swift is right at P67. Note: of the six cases you sent, four were 0.0145” – 0.015” (I settled on 0.0145” as the listing) and they all weighed 167.4 – 167.7 gr. Program 67 gives bang on 105 Hv. which is our target.
One of the other cases was 0.013” – 0.014”, and weighed 174.7 gr. On P67 it annealed to 100 Hv.
The last one was 0.015” – 0.016” and weighed 168.2 gr. P67 annealed to 108.5 Hv. We are starting to do more work on the effects of case weight on the annealing result, and so far we are finding that neck wall thickness is much more important than case weight, provided that cases aren’t miles apart in weight.



Mike.

Thanks for the post Coolhand – so from “the horse’s mouth”, anneal depends on thickness of the brass – period.

What they say about “neck wall thickness is much more important than case weight” is basically common sense. Case weight is a ROUGH measure because it is affected by how much brass there is for the WHOLE case, neck thickness is a measure of how much brass right where you are looking to affect i.e. the neck.

As already mentioned, the best way to ensure a consistent anneal at the neck is to turn the neck, that way you know they are the same. You of course cannot turn the shoulders and so that area is still up to the quality of the case. Speaking of quality of the case, if you don’t want to turn necks, then buy Lapua. Once you get the Lapua, weight sort and that will give you the best chance of success. Read "chance" not "guarantee"...

Weighting the case is never going to be the absolute answer to getting 100% identical cases. The reason is simple if you read this article on “How Cartridge Brass is Made”.

http://www.accurateshooter.com/technical-articles/how-cartridge-brass-is-made/

Basically a heavier case happens because you started out with e heavier brass disk which is the starting material for making a case. As the case is extruded out from that disk, there is not going to be any guarantee that the extra brass is going to go a specific place, most likely all over because why would the extra stuff magically stay in one place? But even then, it is not always going to be distributed evenly. The fact that we get uneven thickness when you measure around different places on the same neck illustrates the point.

 

[Coolhand]

Jlow & Dmoran ...... neck turning is not in my bucket list ! I am content to know that I have a consistent setting to use for all my cases, based on brass analysis, buried within the bowels of the AMP unit. And the AMP guys have given settings for neck turned cases to.
Both my hunting rifles shoot 1/2 MOA and my Palma rifle shoots under 1 MOA all day long, hell I can't hold better than 1MOA, so for me, neck turning is one procedure that comes under the diminished return category.

regards
Mike.

 

[sparky123321]

Just my humble opinion, but turning your necks for consistent thickness/tension would have given you greater return on time and investment, accuracy wise, than annealing your brass on a $1,000 piece of equipment. That is unless your primary goal is to increase the life of your brass and not the accuracy/consistency of your rounds. Also, your AMP annealer, or any annealer for that matter, would produce more consistent results if the necks on all your brass were the same thickness.

We're really splitting hairs here. I'm OCD and always willing to spend the dough on a "better" mouse trap, but "better" is the key word here. Remember it's actually pretty difficult to over anneal brass. Even if you under anneal it, which is very common, no harm no foul. You just didn't accomplish anything.

The goal in precision reloading is to have the bullet(consistent weight and shape) enter your barrel at the most consistent velocity and concentricity as possible. The biggest factors to that are case volume(not weight, but they can be related), neck tension or the force required to push the bullet out of the case, consistent uniform ignition of the charge(flash hole, primer and position of the charge in your case) and the consistency of your charge. Concentricity is another discussion and impacted by your press, resizing die(neck or full length) and primarily by your seating die.

If someone comes up with an "auto feed" induction annealer that doesn't require a bunch of costly additional collets, disks, rollers, etc for under $1,000 I might consider it. Until that time I'll stick with my Fluxeon on which I can anneal much faster and just as consistent as the AMP. Don't get me wrong I think the AMP is an awesome piece of equipment, but I do not feel it is worth the investment nor significantly better than numerous other well established annealing methods out there.

 

[jlow]

Jlow & Dmoran ...... neck turning is not in my bucket list ! I am content to know that I have a consistent setting to use for all my cases, based on brass analysis, buried within the bowels of the AMP unit. And the AMP guys have given settings for neck turned cases to.
Both my hunting rifles shoot 1/2 MOA and my Palma rifle shoots under 1 MOA all day long, hell I can't hold better than 1MOA, so for me, neck turning is one procedure that comes under the diminished return category.

regards
Mike.

Coolhand – unfortunately it’s easy to cause misunderstanding on the web….

I used to neck turn and was good at it, but neck turning is also not on my to do list anymore. I gave it up because for the type of shooting I do, it’s not necessary. I can shoot sub-MOA all day with my rifle with Sdev under 10 fps if I use Lapua brass and my seating force gauge is consistent in the 10 inch range. I guess if I was shooting 1k BR, I may consider it.

I only brought up neck turning because when I said the neck thickness is uneven in my discussion on why annealing can never be perfect, I knew someone would say “well I can turn the necks”… I brought it up so that I can point out that although one can indeed turn neck, one cannot turn shoulders.

 

[Coolhand]

Coolhand – unfortunately it’s easy to cause misunderstanding on the web….

I used to neck turn and was good at it, but neck turning is also not on my to do list anymore. I gave it up because for the type of shooting I do, it’s not necessary. I can shoot sub-MOA all day with my rifle with Sdev under 10 fps if I use Lapua brass and my seating force gauge is consistent in the 10 inch range. I guess if I was shooting 1k BR, I may consider it.

I only brought up neck turning because when I said the neck thickness is uneven in my discussion on why annealing can never be perfect, I knew someone would say “well I can turn the necks”… I brought it up so that I can point out that although one can indeed turn neck, one cannot turn shoulders.

Jlow , no misunderstanding here , I got it. Neck turning is the same as bullet pointing for me, diminished return. I neither weigh cases nor batch them. My Palma/Fullbore rifle uses only Lapua brass , the cases are FL resized with a Warner Die , the chamber is cut with a reamer made by the Warners who made the die off fired brass and made the reamer & die inserts to suit. When Al & Dan made my FL die, one thing that was stressed was to anneal cases necks to get the best out of brass.
Maybe I could squeeze another 1/8 MOA ( an arbitrary number ) by neck turning but why bother ? Spend 3-5k or more on a Palma rig and employ all the hand loading techniques known to man and if you can't get your wind calls right, and that all important shot release,then 1/8 MOA is not worth the trouble.
Had I not had a good mate that was willing to split the cost of the AMP, I would have probably stuck to propane. Maybe.!

regards
Mike.

 

[JamesnTN]

I received my AMP last night and when I got home I immediately opened it up and plugged it in. After thumbing thru th poles that came with it. I looked at the chart of settings I wrote down and began the process of annealing my BR brass and then onto my Dasher brass.

Here's what I found. Setup is quicker and easier than the torch method, the first piece of brass should be annealed identically to the last piece. No tweaking of torches to get the flame in the right spot. The time it took me to anneal 50 cases was less time than doing the same on my Bench Source.
The time it took to unscrew the insert from BR to Dasher was far less time needed than resetting torch heads. Adjusting the AMP from one cartridge (BR) to Dasher was just seconds.

The only downside I can see is not really knowing the temps to the necks are accurately within the temp range to anneal, we can only go by the engineers programming and testing in their laboratory and in all honesty I trust them over watered down templaq readings.

My final opinion on why I purchased the unit is consistency. I wanted my cases to be annealed the same each and every time I anneal them. You can just about guarantee this won't happen using torches. How critical is this? I have no idea. But it gives me peace of mind I've added another step of being consistent with my match loads.

For those that complained about handling each case, well loading them into any Annealer you're doing the same, so there's no Big deal on this as those complaining will always find a reason to complain. Again as I stated it took less time to anneal 50 cases using the AMP than it did with my Bench Source. Now don't get me wrong the Bench Source is a great machine and served me well and will serve others well also. David makes a very nice machine as with any of his other products. I myself wanted consistent annealing today and this time a year from today. This machine I do believe will achieve that.
Tomorrow I will be testing loads that's had brass annealed from both the Bench Source and the Amp and I'll see how the numbers compare between each.

 

[Kyle Schultz]

Picked mine up this morning from the UPS depot. What a thrill. Ease of setup makes it worth every penny. 20 seconds from when I turn the machine on until I have annealed brass in the tray.

 

[Lbart]

I have been using mine for a month now and all I can say is I will not go back to a torch annealer. The convenience of using it is unreal. Sits on my loading bench in my office. No flames to worry about. Turn it on, check program number, put case in shell holder, slip it in the hole and press button. 4-5 seconds later it is done. I can even just anneal one case if I reel like it. Just that fast. Takes much less time than writing about it. Super machine. Worth every penny to me.

 

[nakneker]

Read the thread, gotta have one!

 

[normmatzen]

Interesting, I feel the same way about my Annie!

 

[JamesnTN]

Well I did my first test today usng my 6 Dasher out to 500 yards. I shot a group with brass annealed with gas and then shot a group with brass annealed with the AMP. The group shot with gas annealed brass was a .9?? And the group shot with the brass annealed from the AMP was a .5?? Next I shot a third group with a case mixed into this set that was annealed with the AMP and the others were all annealed with Gas. The one shot out of this group was the AMP annealed case. Also I found that my ES was 3fps lower with the AMP annealed cases over the gas annealed cases.

 

[jlow]

Well I did my first test today usng my 6 Dasher out to 500 yards. I shot a group with brass annealed with gas and then shot a group with brass annealed with the AMP. The group shot with gas annealed brass was a .9?? And the group shot with the brass annealed from the AMP was a .5?? Next I shot a third group with a case mixed into this set that was annealed with the AMP and the others were all annealed with Gas. The one shot out of this group was the AMP annealed case. Also I found that my ES was 3fps lower with the AMP annealed cases over the gas annealed cases.

A couple of comments.

Let's assuming that the AMP annealed cases are better in this situation, the question is was your gas annealed cases not annealed properly or annealed properly but the annealer is not capable of annealing as evenly as the AMP?

The other thing is coming from working with human clinical trials of drugs, testing of this sort is always fraught with the "placebo effect" since the shooter knows which case were which. As a suggestion, if you really want a reasonably un-bias study, one you will need a larger sample size, more than one group (since as you know, even you shooting the cases done with one machine don't always shoot the same group size over and over again) and finally do the study in a semi-double blind fashion, which is to have another shooter hand you the round with only him knowing which group is which but not the shooter.

 

[sparky123321]

I'm all for induction annealing I just don't feel the AMP is "the end all" or any better than many other methods out there. I currently use an Annie and prior to that a Bench Source. Both do an awesome job annealing brass and are faster than the AMP. As I've stated before, for $1,000 it would have to auto feed and not require shell holders or special collets.

Honestly, I'm guessing it won't be long before someone offers an auto feed induction annealer for around a grand. Actually, I believe Giraud already offers one, but you have to purchase the induction annealer separately. One thing I always liked about the Giraud and the Bench Source is how they rotate the case in the flame(s) or the induction unit.

http://www.giraudtool.com/annealer1.htm

 

[BenPerfected]

Another option is to sell me the POS gas annealer for $200 and you can put these $ towards the super accurate amp annealer.

 

[JamesnTN]

A couple of comments.

Let's assuming that the AMP annealed cases are better in this situation, the question is was your gas annealed cases not annealed properly or annealed properly but the annealer is not capable of annealing as evenly as the AMP?

The other thing is coming from working with human clinical trials of drugs, testing of this sort is always fraught with the "placebo effect" since the shooter knows which case were which. As a suggestion, if you really want a reasonably un-bias study, one you will need a larger sample size, more than one group (since as you know, even you shooting the cases done with one machine don't always shoot the same group size over and over again) and finally do the study in a semi-double blind fashion, which is to have another shooter hand you the round with only him knowing which group is which but not the shooter.

I strive to be as perfect as one can be when it comes to tailoring my loads for my bench rifles. I'm probably one of those types that takes things too far to be exact. I've shot and tested different things over the years to conclude what works (for me) and what doesn't or what doesn't add enough that it can be seen. As been noted with Gas annealing you'll never achieve each annealed case the same each and every time you turn the torches on. Too many variables comes to play, but I strive to try and make each and everyone for that lot the same when I do anneal. Supposibly the AMP takes those variables away each time it's turned on. How do we know unless we have the equipment to test? We don't we now have to depend on the engineers and programmers that wrote the program.
As for blind testing, I don't see where and how that comes into play, every time I pull the trigger I strive to shoot the best I'm capable of and my gear is capable of. I've done the round robin tests in past and that proved nothing to me on seeing if I was favoring one load over another.

Today's test was just one yes. And I'll test more until I do run out of gas annealed cases. I'm limited to time during the week to shoot due to my work hours. This was one test of a few I'll perform to make a final decision.

 

[JamesnTN]

I'm all for induction annealing I just don't feel the AMP is "the end all" or any better than many other methods out there. I currently use an Annie and prior to that a Bench Source. Both do an awesome job annealing brass and are faster than the AMP. As I've stated before, for $1,000 it would have to auto feed and not require shell holders or special collets.

Honestly, I'm guessing it won't be long before someone offers an auto feed induction annealer for around a grand. Actually, I believe Giraud already offers one, but you have to purchase the induction annealer separately. One thing I always liked about the Giraud and the Bench Source is how they rotate the case in the flame(s) or the induction unit.

http://www.giraudtool.com/annealer1.htm

I can tell you from experience the AMP is a lot faster at annealing cases over the Bench Source I had. I can also setup my AMP from cold with no shell holder and sleeve screwed in the machine and have the first case annealed properly before I can even get the torches set correctly on the Bench source, and as for handling the cases, well I inserted one case at a time in the Bench Source same as the AMP so I really don't see any issue with this as nothing has changed.

If you're looking for ways to not handle your cases, my solution would be to pay someone to do the annealing for you.

 

[sparky123321]

The only way to tell if the AMP anneals any better or more consistently than any other properly used method would be to have the cases examined and tested by a metallurgist. There are way to many variables involved to attribute one grouping being better than another to just annealing.

 

[sparky123321]

The only way to tell if the AMP anneals any better or more consistently than any other properly used method would be to have the cases examined and tested by a metallurgist. There are way to many variables involved to attribute one grouping being better than another to just annealing.

All that said, if it works for you and you're happy with it more power to you.