How often to anneal?

[Boomer79]

I shoot a 270 wsm and 300 rum. I anneal after every firing. I read recently on this
Forum that too frequent annealing could adversely effect consistent neck tension. I appreciate your thoughts .

 

[Terry]

I anneal to keep necks consistent. Your personal testing will answer this best. This is a personal preference issue. Expect the answers you get to vary greatly.

I anneal every time.

Terry

 

[ridgeway]

I anneal each firing too. Every other firing works too.

 

[broncman]

Every other on practice ammo. Comp ammo is allways freshly annealed.

 

[Alex Wheeler]

If the reason we are annealing is for accuracy, then we would want to anneal every time to stay consistent. Seating force between a freshly annealed case and a case fired once after annealing is substantial.

 

[CaptainMal]

Like the answers you got.

If they are NOT competition rifles, but hunting ones, I would only do it about every third firing. That would change if the rifles were sub-1/2 MOA shooters. Remember, you have been doing it every time with no adverse results.

For my Dasher in competition and the 260 AI I want to shoot well, every time. Right now the Lapua Dasher brass I'm using has been annealed and fired 15 times and going strong. I just won the Manatee 1000 yard gong shoot last Saturday with that brass.

 

[Martin52]

I started out annealing Lapua .308 brass only after the first 4 firings but then annealing after every firing after that. This produced a very smooth consistent bullet seating.

I recently reloaded Lapua brass that had been fired only once, i did not anneal it thinking it would be OK.

The difference compared to the brass that had been fired more than 4 times and annealed every firing thereafter was surprising. It was harder to seat and the amount of pressure that was needed to seat the bullet varied.

I have now decided to anneal new brass after every firing and not wait for the first 4 firings even though Lapua anneal their brass in the factory. It is still my "preferred" brass - I should mention this is for competition use.

Martin

 

[Erik Cortina]

I wonder where you read that annealing every firing is bad?

I anneal every time, especially my hunting rifle.

 

[people]

I have the tool so I do it every time.

 

[people]

dmoran you have to remember most "hunters" never fire past 200yds. Heck even wolf ammo will hang in there well enough for 200yds on deer.

One of my best shooting buddies uses factory ammo for deer hunting. I could not image I would ever see a box of factory ammo with this guy. This guy has every tool to make the best ammo he can make and he still uses factory for deer.

Granted that is not how I hunt. I like doing it as far away as I can so I use match ammo for hunting.

 

[dm.oakes]

For the folks who don't have the duckets for a Giraude Annealer - is the drill + deep socket a decent enough route to go? Also the Tempilaq temp indicator, some folks use 450, 650, 700 - is there a best practice for this?

 

[people]

I am from ND and I like being out 600+ with my WM. I spend most of my deer season on a good hill and watch over miles of land and I could wright a book of “hunters” trying to harvest deer. You would not imagine how many nonshooters are out there. One story was a “hunter” bragging at a local town and I know he did not shoot farther than 100yds. So yeah just because a person could shoot farther does not mean they will take it or even want to learn how to take longer shots.

You are a better shot than most of the hunters I have seen in the past.

To the OP. If you are running a very tight neck one can go a long time without needing to anneal your brass.

 

[AndyTaber]

The "vote" seems to be:
If you own an annealer; then you anneal every time.
If you don't own one; then you never anneal.

 

[Nomad47]

Not completely true, Andy. I anneal after every firing - with a torch and cordless screwdriver - outside in the shade, no tempilaq.

 

[kelbro]

Not completely true, Andy. I anneal after every firing - with a torch and cordless screwdriver - outside in the shade, no tempilaq.

Same here.

 

[Martin52]

Mine are done in a 12mm deep well socket chucked in a cordless drill, slow rpm, 6 seconds based on 475deg Tempilaq melting between 1/4 and 1/2 inch below neck/shoulder junction. Tempilaq used to set up and check, then anneal based on time and consistent placing of neck in the flame.

Martin

 

[Frankr]

I'm new to annealing. I just got a benchsource last Nov. my reason for it. I have a 6 dasher,6BR and 6ppc.
I had a set of 48 lapua 6ppc cases that say 25 were great. close to the end of last year they had become work hardened and I was starting to loose some accuracy with them. and of the 48 some were sized with a different die and varying fireing cycles. So I sonic cleaned them and annealed them all on the benchsource. then I fired them all once with the same load to put them back on the same fireing cycle. It seems it may have worked, but I have not shot them enough yet to know for sure. to me cleaning and annealing them is far far easy-er than making new ones. OMG all the neck turning,primer pocket cutting,flash holes,weighing,fireforming. is a lot of work for a psychotic case prep er like myself. so being able to anneal and maybe put the cases back in service to me is worth the price of a annealing machine. but hay thats me...I'm getting to the question...

After they have been annealed should I not expect to get five or six fireing before they start to work harden and I need to anneal again?

 

[TheSnake]

The "vote" seems to be:
If you own an annealer; then you anneal every time.
If you don't own one; then you never anneal.

+1
If you own an annealer, then you anneal everything every time.

 

[Nomad47]

But I DON'T own an annealer and I anneal everything EVERY time.

 

[TheSnake]

But I DON'T own an annealer and I anneal everything EVERY time.

But Bill, you do own a big cool RV and get to cruse all around the country shooting every vermin in sight so that makes you exceptional. You are the annealing machine so it still counts.