Brass Annealing & delay time before Sizing.

[paulT]

For Longrange F Class
Do you guys find best most consistant results with shoulder bump and neck sizing your Match brass by sizing SAME DAY that you Anneal your brass or would Annealing and sizing @ a week later yield less consistant results with uniform shoulder bump and even neck tension.

 

[JasonT]

Annealing makes the brass soft permanently - don’t sweat sizing a week later.

There’s no evidence I’ve seen that brass hardens when sitting.

 

[RegionRat]

The brass can sit or be sized immediately. Alpha phase cartridge brass is has a pretty well established metallurgy.

Compared to some steels that can change while just sitting there in significant ways, cartridge brass sitting around between annealing and sizing isn't a problem.

Other factors will have a much stronger effect on the target performance, but that time delay isn't one of the ones to worry about.

The history of the brass, the sizing itself, neck friction, unintentional bonding reactions, age of the loaded ammo, etc. etc., will be more to worry about than the time between annealing and sizing.

 

[DocBII]

paulT,

I've let brass sit for years and also loaded cases immediately, no difference in seating effort. What did make a difference was whether or not the inside of the neck was cleaned with 4-000 steel wool. If stored in air tight plastic bags and in ammo cans, necks polished up to five years ago seated with the same effort as freshly polished cases.

HTH,
DocBII

 

[paulT]

Thanks for replies
Thought leaving annealed brass for say a few weeks before sizing would have had a slightly negative effect on consistancy when bumping back case shoulders along with slight variation with neck tension verses sizing same day as annealed brass, Good to hear no difference with annealed brass left for week or two before Sizing.

 

[RickyK]

Neck Tension, Bullet Seating, and the TIME FACTOR « Daily Bulletin

This may surprise you. We've learned that the time interval between neck-sizing operation and bullet seating can have dramatic effects on neck tension (as measured by the force required to seat bullets). Controlling neck tension on your cases is a very, very important element of precision reloading.

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