Annealing question

[Mulligan]

Say you have brass previously sorted into smaller lots based on whatever is important to you. Now some have been fired 3 times and others as many as 11 times, if you anneal them all at the same time are they all set back to the same beginning point again or do you keep them segregated?

I see many different ways of annealing promoted as to helping with brass consistency. The drill and socket method is cheap and easy, folks rave about the "Skip design", and you have three or four other commercial designs all with many fans of their own.
Has there been a side by side comparison test to see which is best? With best being proven on paper or some other unit of measure that makes sense?
As an annealing rookie "looking in" it appears after reading hoards of posts here and on other forums that one can pick a method/design and go with it unless you turn your necks wafer thin ( in which case annealing may not be needed) the improvements on paper are going to be significant effough to satisfy most.
CW

 

[Jet]

CW

There isn't an easy answer on this since there are so many other variables that come into play. How much the case is resized/worked, different cartridges, different types and lots of powder used, etc. There are folks winning at the National level that never anneal and there are those that do. For those that do, some anneal every time, others less often. Regardless whether they anneal or not, they didn't make their decision based off what someone else says they do. Info from others is a great but you must always verify and prove it to yourself.

Like other factors, this is an area you should really test yourself to see what works. Use the drill and socket method, send some to DJ's Brass Service, find a buddy to do it, etc. If you want, send me some and I'll anneal them for you. Just send me a PM and I'll give you my address.

Good Shooting

Rich

 

[Jose_Luis_G]

As everything in shooting, equal repetition in an accurate way, is the name of the game.
Any method of your choice to achieve this results is good, and there is not a great difference among them.
I don't see easy to aneal with drill and socket, since it it the less accurate method to me, but it is up to you to decide what to follow.
It doesn't help very much other's experience, since everyone has a different behaviour to operations involved.
All in all, take the first line of this post as a rule. Rest will come based in your own experience.

 

[dickn52]

I anneal every time. It doesn't hurt the brass, so why not.

 

[Mulligan]

I anneal every time. It doesn't hurt the brass, so why not.

From what I have read, many shooters do.
What method do you use? Have you tried others?
CW

 

[Shynloco]

As everything in shooting, equal repetition in an accurate way, is the name of the game....

Personally, I keep my brass in groups and they stay that way all until they are headin for the garbage can. I believe "wear" is an important factor. That means even if you bump .002 every time upon resizing, the number of times a casing goes through any process (annealing, FL resizing, neck turning, etc) means one more time it has endured that process and closer to failure (for one reason or another such as split necks). I don't believe it is reasonable to equate a piece of brass fired, sized or annealed only once, to a piece that has been fired, sized and annealed 30 times. And that is based on pure "wear" and has zip to do with how well it performs. Just my .02 worth.

Alex

 

[firewrench044]

I got an annealing machine when I ether had to get all my brass annealed or replace it
(2500- 3006, 2000- 308, 3000- 223, some 303 and 7.62X54R )
Getting that many cases annealed or replacing them ( 1/2 of it Lapua )
would cost more than a machine
I got a Giraud ( a very good machine ) ( it can anneal any caliber case,
I have done 50BMG, 338 Lapua Mag. 30 cal. belted mag. 3006, 2506,
308, 243, 7mm mag. ECT. down to 223 )

Which is best? Depends on the amount of cases you have that need annealed
and how many will need annealed in the future
Some will have 20 to 40 per week, for me it was 100 to 300 per week
so I went with a machine that can do volume easily and consistently

Yes when cases are annealed whether they are fired 1 or 3 or 11 times
after annealing they are all the same and can be mixed
( I checked and tested to be sure )

 

[Lapua40X]

...
Yes when cases are annealed whether they are fired 1 or 3 or 11 times
after annealing they are all the same and can be mixed
( I checked and tested to be sure )

In order to test the before and after affects of annealing you'd need to conduct a comparative examination of its malleability and ductility. How do you do that?
I'm not trying to be a wise guy here. I'd just like to know where you find the equipment to perform those kinds of tests. If we all had access to those services it'd help a lot.

 

[Lapua40X]

Mulligan, I'm no metallurgist but I may be able to simplify the issue of annealing for you. Annealing occurs when metal is exposed to heat over a specific period of time and allowed to cool slowly. The key to successful annealing of rifle brass is having the right amount of heat applied as evenly as possible over a limited well defined surface area at the neck/shoulder junction of the brass case.
Each of those process elements represents a variable that must be considered relative to the type of brass (not all alloys are the same) the density of the brass and the mass of the case. Whether you do that with a power drill or a $500 commercial machine doesn't matter. I built a "skip" design case annealer that works very well. It cost me under $35. No, it doesn't have dual flame or fancy case holders or a hopper and i does require hand feeding the cases onto a loading ramp (limited to about 8 at a time) but it anneals perfectly well. You can't tell the difference between an annealed case coming off of my machine and one that Laupua has in those pretty blue boxes.
I can't say whether or not a case that's been fired three times is any different from one that's been fired a dozen times after they've been annealed. At some point, within a certain lot of fired cases, one case will fail when others in that same lot will remain useful. Obviously there's no way for the shooter to reasonably predict that. We can only inspect cases during the reloading process and hope we don't miss something that hints about impending case failure.

 

[Mulligan]

Assuming your not running the load hot and the primer pockets stay reasonably tight and you anneal at a regular interval, does the brass ever really fail?

It appears as though many shooters are getting 30+ loads out of their brass............that's a whole lot more then I currently get!
CW

 

[Mozella]

........ snip.......... Info from others is a great but you must always verify and prove it to yourself........... snip...........

Unfortunately, the typical (or even very scientific) match shooter simply can't test the effects of annealing "on paper", as they say. Annealing, as it relates to making precision ammo, is one of the many tiny theoretical steps most of take with our reloading routines in an attempt to improve consistency and, it is hoped, improve our group sizes and/or score. But the improvement associated with annealing, if there is one, is so small that you can't prove it by shooting a gun held by a human which fires bullets through the air propelled by a powder charge measured in whole kernels which are often .02gr in weight. In other words, the variables associated with testing at the local range are so large that the kind of tiny improvement expected from annealing gets lost in the data noise.

Bryan Litz documented the effects of annealing in his latest book and concluded that annealing didn't do anything (good or bad) for precision. I prefer to think he didn't find the difference and I continue to anneal every time in the belief that it's one of those tiny, but real, improvements which we can't accurately measure. Litz did prove that neck tension effects precision, especially SD. If that is so, then I believe annealing must have some effect on final neck tension even if that effect is very small and even if I can't prove it. Some things you just gotta' take on faith.

By the way, Litz found that flash hole uniforming was much more significant than one might expect.

What I do know for sure is that before I built my Skip Design annealer my brass would develop neck cracks rather quickly. Now that I anneal every time, I don't count the number of reloading cycles and the brass seems to last forever. Typically the brass gets tossed with the primer pockets wear out.

Is annealing more or less important than Lucky Underwear? I'm not sure, but at least you can turn your underwear inside-out as necessary.

 

[Intheshop]

Testing can be done very Fred Flintstone,if all you're wanting to do is check malleability on the case neck.But,assuming you're even halfway proficient at annealing,what's the point?

Testing to see if it helps your loading,and subsequent accuracy ain't that easy.

Testing to see if "your" brass lasts longer should be the easiest test of all?


Which is why I picked the process BACK up from 30+ years ago.Brass availability wasn't"that" great back in the day.Then it's flowing like water...shoot it 1/2 dz times and toss it.Now frugality is back,so it gets annealed.But keeping it segregated (can we say that?),is basic organization whether you anneal or not.Like keeping notes on the # of firings.

 

[Jet]

Shhhh on the lucky underwear, can't be giving away all the secrets.

 

[Mulligan]

Is annealing more or less important than Lucky Underwear? I'm not sure, but at least you can turn your underwear inside-out as necessary.

Good Lord, that made me laugh this morning!!!!

 

[Tim s]

From what I have read, many shooters do.
What method do you use? Have you tried others?
CW

You can also take your cases and run around the house for 20 minutes between loadings all he while praying to Zeus with about the same result.
In the end, the question would be why? The single most accurate rifles in the world, BR guns, don't. You can anneal cases after several loadings ( caliber and pressure specific) but every loading is an utter waste of time.

 

[dickn52]

You can also take your cases and run around the house for 20 minutes between loadings all he while praying to Zeus with about the same result.
In the end, the question would be why? The single most accurate rifles in the world, BR guns, don't. You can anneal cases after several loadings ( caliber and pressure specific) but every loading is an utter waste of time.

Thank you for your opinion....I think

 

[Nomad47]

You can also take your cases and run around the house for 20 minutes between loadings all he while praying to Zeus with about the same result.
In the end, the question would be why? The single most accurate rifles in the world, BR guns, don't. You can anneal cases after several loadings ( caliber and pressure specific) but every loading is an utter waste of time.

Says you.
Got any facts to back that up?

 

[Tim s]

Says you.
Got any facts to back that up?

Sure, you don't even have to take my word for it, go to any sanctioned BR match on the planet, let me know how many guys that load between relays( typically 15-20 cases for the whole aggeragate if not the match) are seen annealing those cases. I can pretty much tell you, that would be precisely zero.

 

[Mulligan]

Sure, you don't even have to take my word for it, go to any sanctioned BR match on the planet, let me know how many guys that load between relays( typically 15-20 cases for the whole aggeragate if not the match) are seen annealing those cases. I can pretty much tell you, that would be precisely zero.

Assume your talking about the "300 yards and less" crowd. If that's the case, What about the long range BR shooters?
CW

 

[Nomad47]

Tim s
Well, I anneal every time and I definitely don't consider it a waste of time.
Your example doesn't apply to everyone or even all disciplines.