I am finally jumping into the annealing game. After firing my brass a couple times I am starting to see some inconsistencies in my bullet seating which I believe is opening up my groups a little. I normally tumble my fired brass for a couple hours in walnut shell before I start to reload them even though they are not dirty, maybe just a little carbon around the necks. I am thinking I can just give them a good wiping with Isopropyl and once they dry run them through the annealer. Any issue with that or just stick with the tumbling?
Cleaning before annealing
- Thread starter Raydee
- Start date
RegionRat
Gold $$ Contributor
Your seating force is the result of two major factors, not just one.
One of them is the friction coefficient of the bullet against the case, the other is from the mechanical stress/strain of the neck.
You can mess up one or both, or you can make both more consistent. YMMV
One of them is the friction coefficient of the bullet against the case, the other is from the mechanical stress/strain of the neck.
You can mess up one or both, or you can make both more consistent. YMMV
If you are looking for absolute accuracy over anything, put the tumbler away under the bench. Anneal, if you must, and then one pass with a nylon brush inside the case neck, then load and go shoot some zero groups! Good luck and keep us posted.
Paul
jepp2
Gold $$ Contributor
Not saying the others are wrong, but what works best for me is to:
- anneal first
- deprime and tumble in corn cob with some polish added
- size and remove lube
- load
The reason I follow this order is the annealing leaves and oxide (?) on the surface of the neck. Even with case lube, this oxide tends to be softer and wants to collect on the neck of the sizing die. This results in some light scoring from the build up. By tumbling after I anneal, this eliminates this issue.
I "used" to size first to avoid this issue. I read what AMP had to say about sizing first or after annealing. YMMV
I shoot a fair amount of suppressed AR and I’ve been known to pick up range brass so this stuff usually gets a quick tumble with SS pins (30-45 min) to remove heavy sooty residue and any dirt before starting any case prep. This pre-cleaning isn’t required for cases from bolt rifles.
After watching Primal Rights videos on Order of Operations and also Neck Tension, I have changed my process to anneal and then dry tumble. Based on their findings tumbling after annealing makes a significant difference in neck tension. Tumbling remove the oxidized materials that form inside the case neck during the annealing process. After dry tumbling I then do case sizing, neck sizing, and then case trimming if needed.
See links below to the two (2) videos.
After watching Primal Rights videos on Order of Operations and also Neck Tension, I have changed my process to anneal and then dry tumble. Based on their findings tumbling after annealing makes a significant difference in neck tension. Tumbling remove the oxidized materials that form inside the case neck during the annealing process. After dry tumbling I then do case sizing, neck sizing, and then case trimming if needed.
See links below to the two (2) videos.
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Everyone has their own method and techniques that work for them. I admit I'm on the OCD side when it comes to brass prep. I just like having pretty brass. So I probably go way overboard from what the majority of people do, but it works for me.
* I use a universal decapper to de-cap all brass.
* I take a rag and wipe the carbon off the neck of the case and then anneal. The thought of baking the carbon on the neck of the brass during the annealing process would keep me awake that night.
* Then it goes into a wet tumbler with a ¼ to ½ teaspoon of Lemishine depending on how much brass I'm cleaning. I dump in about 4 pounds of tumbling media and a squirt of Dawn dishwashing liquid. Then tumble for about 2 hours.
* Dump out the media using the strainer cap on the tumbler, and then triple rinse the brass in the tumbler.
* Refill with water and add a cap full of Armorall Wash & Wax, and then tumble again for 30 minutes. Triple rinse again, dump the brass into a media separator to get out any stray media and get the majority of the water out of the cases. Dump out on a towel and pat dry to remove water from the outside of the cases to prevent water spots.
* Put it all in a dehydrator and heat it for 3 hours at 158⁰ to dry.
I can either start my reloading process at this point, or put it in a container for use later.
I have to admit, when reading over my technique.. I'm gonna be way more OCD about my brass than probably 99% of others. Thought about just deleting what I typed and skip answering all together, but hell it took me 10 minutes to type the crap out. So I'm gonna just roll with it.
* I use a universal decapper to de-cap all brass.
* I take a rag and wipe the carbon off the neck of the case and then anneal. The thought of baking the carbon on the neck of the brass during the annealing process would keep me awake that night.
* Then it goes into a wet tumbler with a ¼ to ½ teaspoon of Lemishine depending on how much brass I'm cleaning. I dump in about 4 pounds of tumbling media and a squirt of Dawn dishwashing liquid. Then tumble for about 2 hours.
* Dump out the media using the strainer cap on the tumbler, and then triple rinse the brass in the tumbler.
* Refill with water and add a cap full of Armorall Wash & Wax, and then tumble again for 30 minutes. Triple rinse again, dump the brass into a media separator to get out any stray media and get the majority of the water out of the cases. Dump out on a towel and pat dry to remove water from the outside of the cases to prevent water spots.
* Put it all in a dehydrator and heat it for 3 hours at 158⁰ to dry.
I can either start my reloading process at this point, or put it in a container for use later.
I have to admit, when reading over my technique.. I'm gonna be way more OCD about my brass than probably 99% of others. Thought about just deleting what I typed and skip answering all together, but hell it took me 10 minutes to type the crap out. So I'm gonna just roll with it.
powderbrake
Gold $$ Contributor
For rifle brass, I tumble in corn cob with Dillon Rapid Polish, then anneal in my Induction Annealer.
The annealer burns the carbon out of the neck, so I brush with a nylon brush dipped in Redding Imperial neck lube. This insures consistent bullet friction when seating.
Then lube with Imperial Sizing lube , size and deprime, (also gets any corn cob in the primer hole) Wipe off lube with a clean T-Shirt rag.
Clean primer pockets with either brush or scraper that does not remove any brass.
The annealer burns the carbon out of the neck, so I brush with a nylon brush dipped in Redding Imperial neck lube. This insures consistent bullet friction when seating.
Then lube with Imperial Sizing lube , size and deprime, (also gets any corn cob in the primer hole) Wipe off lube with a clean T-Shirt rag.
Clean primer pockets with either brush or scraper that does not remove any brass.
Whether you anneal after or before you clean you brass, annealing leaves an abrasive oxide layer on both the inside and outside of the case mouth, even when induction annealing (but more on the outside than the inside due to contact with the flame, assuming one is flame annealing). Since I don't want to do any more cleaning operations than necessary, I like to do my first cleaning after the annealing so that abrasive oxide layer doesn't go into my sizing dies. Then after sizing it's one last dry tumbling for cleaning to removed the case lube.
I think one should always clean after annealing to remove that abrasive oxide layer. You have to choose when you think it's best to do so.
I clean in walnut hull after de-priming then annealing. I tried cleaning first, but after annealing, it left a brown residue in the neck from the walnut hull. annealing burns out some of the carbon also.
Steve Donlon
Gold $$ Contributor
Clean, anneal then bore brush inside the neck. Then lube inside of the neck with Imperial Dry Neck lube, roll the case on a pad with RCBS case lube and size.
"Baking the carbon on the neck of the brass during the annealing process" isn't really any kind of big deal when wet tumbling. The wet tumbling as you do with LemiShine and Dawn takes care of that "backed on carbon" really well with only a short time of tumbling. This picture is of brass that I got had a little bit of ball powder clinging to the interior and I annealed them where the neck turned red for ~1.5 seconds and they were baked pretty dark on the outside and that powder burned during the annealing process. Since there was some of that powder on the inside, I used some SS pins (which I normally don't do whenever I wet tumble) and tumbled this brass for 25 min. They turned out pretty nice. . . don't you think?
My normal case prep is as follows:
*Deprime
*Clean primer pockets (pockets have been uniformed and cleaning with same uniformer)
*Anneal (flame heat to red glow for between 1and 2 seconds on an Annealeez machine)
*Clean necks on outside using steel wool to remove annealing oxidation layer
*FL size (non-bushing die with no expander ball) using Imperial Sizing Die Wax; case dwells in die for ~ 4-5 seconds while I lube the next case to be sized
*Spot check for signs of any body stretching/case head separation using bent paper clip
*Dry Tumble to remove lube with medium grain rice for my media
*Remove media from interior of case, checking for any flash hole obstructions
*Mandrel neck to desired size
*3 way trim to desired length
This is what my brass looks like up to the point of the process before removing media:
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Bag of unscented baby wipes work great for wiping off cases at the bench.
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