AMP Pro/cons

[Hengehold]

I am considering buying an AMP annealer and have read about the benifits of using their annealer. However, I am wondering if there are any drawbacks of using their annealer. It seems very fast and convenient to use in addition to doing the best possible job of annealing brass properly. I am trying to familiarize myself with some of the unpleasant nuances that may exist and cause me to not use it much. Maybe something along the lines of having to clean the brass a certain way prior to induction annealing or having to go through extra steps to do something as a result of the annealing process.


If you have first hand experience with an AMP, please let me know what you think. Thanks.

 

[RustyInBend]

You'll have to pry my AMP from my cold dead hands.

Pro's ... Everything (ease, accuracy, simplicity, speed, quality, etc.)
Con's ... Cost

Once you have it ... you'll understand why cost just doesn't matter.

 

[Jdne5b]

My list of Cons:many pilots for many cartridges, handling each piece of brass individually, cost.

No getting around #1, it is what it is.

#2 - I solved with an amp mate. It's con is additional cost and setup for each cartridge. Once setup properly it runs with minimal interaction aside from filling casefeeder.

#3. It's probably worth it. Lower your cost by getting a gen 1 if you want and don't need 50bmg abilities.

As far as cleaning. I run dirty brass through it.. but it's not what I would consider "range brass" dirty. It's gone from my rifle to the ammobox. It's not got grass or rocks in it.

 

[piie]

Only cons I can think of:
1.You need to sacrifice at least one case per batch of brass to find an aztec code if you dont want to use the standard values.
2.You need a separate pilot for each family of cases you plan to aneal. This can possibly lead to "accidents" if you forget to change/verify pilots before you start.
3. It is fairly big, takes up more space than you think
4. Its quick- so there is no rest between cases - same with the fx120i and autotrickler..
Even with all these so called cons, i would buy another one in a heartbeat- the confidence it gives with knowing the anealing is done perfectly is priceless to me.

 

[rijndael]

I'd imagine electronics longevity/life is also a downside to the AMP vs a more basic torch setup.

 

[ACard]

No cons for me once I accepted the price. I was originally concerned about the single feed as I shoot 2-3 times a week and do quite a fair bit of reloading. That said I soon discovered, I can easily anneal a batch of 100 pieces of brass before any of my friends running the various other models can typically have their flames adjusted so that concern was alleviated.

I can say I do not think you will be disappointed.

 

[PGW Steve]

I had a MkI and sold it to a buddy so I could move to a MkII with the extra cooling capacity. I shoot at home, when I'm done for the day, I decap and throw the brass into a container, when that is full, it goes through the SS pin tumble. I clean, dry and sort by calibre and then run through the AMP. I currently load for 16 different calibres, so going from a 17 HH to a .338 Lapua and all in between is painless. Other than the sacrificial case to get your aztek value, the chances of ruining a case are very low, unless you have a Hornady 6.5 PRC mixed in with your Lapua 6.5 PRC

 

[Hengehold]

My list of Cons:many pilots for many cartridges, handling each piece of brass individually, cost.

No getting around #1, it is what it is.

#2 - I solved with an amp mate. It's con is additional cost and setup for each cartridge. Once setup properly it runs with minimal interaction aside from filling casefeeder.

#3. It's probably worth it. Lower your cost by getting a gen 1 if you want and don't need 50bmg abilities.

As far as cleaning. I run dirty brass through it.. but it's not what I would consider "range brass" dirty. It's gone from my rifle to the ammobox. It's not got grass or rocks in it.

Thanks for the feedback. I typically dont clean my brass…ever. It goes from the chamber back into the box. I have been reading the articles on the AMP website and it sounds like it is ok to anneal without removing carbon from case neck. I don’t want to get involved in a bunch of extra case cleaning steps in order to anneal. Sounds like this will not be an issue for me. Thanks.
-TH

 

[ACard]

Thanks for the feedback. I typically dont clean my brass…ever. It goes from the chamber back into the box. I have been reading the articles on the AMP website and it sounds like it is ok to anneal without removing carbon from case neck. I don’t want to get involved in a bunch of extra case cleaning steps in order to anneal. Sounds like this will not be an issue for me. Thanks.
-TH

I shoot, come home and anneal without doing anything at all to the brass in between, not even decap

 

[swd]

The only con I saw was the price of admission but it’s an awesome piece of equipment! I would buy it all over again in a second!

 

[Hengehold]

Thanks for all of the replies. After reading some more articles on the AMP site, it looks like weight sorting brass is not necessary for consistent AZTEC analysis with the premium brass brands. This was relieving. I am not willing to weight sort all my brass.

 

[Retired Grunt]

When I started using Peterson Brass, and bought the AMP Later, It was a bonus that Peterson has a Spreadsheet with Codes by Lot Number.

 

[Pawnee Bill]

All Pros
No Cons

 

[sep]

Thanks for all of the replies. After reading some more articles on the AMP site, it looks like weight sorting brass is not necessary for consistent AZTEC analysis with the premium brass brands. This was relieving. I am not willing to weight sort all my brass.

Weight sorting isn't required but you do have to measure the case neck thickness, preferably with a ball micrometer so the case you sacrifice using Aztec mode is representative of the case neck thickness of the whole lot of brass.

I clean my brass using stainless steel media and once a pin made its way into the AMP. The instructions warn the user about this and my AMP has what appears to be a ceramic insert. So, the pin didn't melt or damage anything. Now, I anneal before I clean my brass. Problem solved. If my AMP were destroyed, lost, stolen or abducted by aliens, I would order another one immediately. It is consistent and very convenient.

 

[INTJ]

I clean my brass by quickly spinning it at the neck/shoulder junction in some 0000 steel wool. I do this immediately before annealing in the AMP. It adds a few seconds to each case, but I can still crank through 70 in about 15 minutes in Aztec mode. Mine is a Mk 1, and I have never had it overheat.

 

[Big_Daddy]

All Pros
No Cons

I agree 100%...
The only POSSIBLE con would be the price for some.
However "buy once, cry once" applies well here.

 

[PopCharlie]

I've had mine for about 2 years now. Nothing but good things to say about it. I anneal 4 cartridges, so 4 pilots. The only con is you destroy 1 piece of brass to analyze, if you have Aztec installed. It's totally worth the $$.
PopCharlie

 

[piie]

I’m going to add one more thing to tje potential con list, but it still does not change my views as per previous posting.
The pilots are made from aluminium, and at least two of mine had what felt like rather crude threading. The result was that those two pilots did not screw all the way in the first couple of time- visible gap between the bottom of pilot and top of unit. The threading “settled in” after a few in and outs, but if you also have/had this issue and did not notice it, then potentially, the aztec you generated may be incorrect. Not sure how much (if any) impact this might have, but there, I said it.

 

[muleystalker]

I'd imagine electronics longevity/life is also a downside to the AMP vs a more basic torch setup.

I have never heard of an AMP going down or having electrical problems. I have seem many of the AnneleZ style annealers parts go bad and need replacing. Just my observation.

 

[rijndael]

I have never heard of an AMP going down or having electrical problems. I have seem many of the AnneleZ style annealers parts go bad and need replacing. Just my observation.

It may very well be true, but also consider two things.

1. It'd be good to know the install base numbers since we're talking about issue quantity, not rates.

2. People on forums tend to keep quiet about issues with their favorite/pet brands, it's a weird kind of loyalty, as if they're a stock owner in a company and not just a customer. Maybe they're just protecting resale values so they can get out? AMPs don't come up often, so I doubt this is the case with them. I see this all the time with people trying to shut down a new thread talking about an issue, everyone jumps on them asking them if they first talked to the mfr and discourage that type of post. Often, they already did, they just wanted to know if the issue was common. We miss out on good data points. I've seen this with a very popular manufacturer. Their rings are prone to breaking and no one talks about it, but I know there's a lot of broken ones out there. If the owner wasn't a preferred vendor on that site, people would post about it. People saying that AMP has zero negatives/cons makes me think they're starting to enter this protected class. Every product has a con to the pro/con discussion.