To Anneal my brass or not?

[giannid]

So I consider myself a fairly new reloader. I've been reloading now about 5 years and have updated just about everything I started with. Go a pretty good setup now and consider myself a decent reloader. I've also developed and produced some pretty good loads for most of my rifles that shoot considerably better than any loaded ammo I've purchased. I'll say the bulk of the ammo i've loaded has been 308 and 223 for the semi auto rifles I shoot the most. Most of this has been loaded from once fired military surplus brass that I've purchased in large quantities when it was cheap. I still have once fired brass in this military surplus that I haven't loaded or fired yet. At this point I believe I've loaded in excess of five thousand rounds.

I also have some bolt action rifles like a 6.5 creedmoor, 300 wsm and 338 that I load for. I just put together a new 6.5 creedmoor Tikka with a proof barrel. I'm in the process of developing a load for this rifle and am using hornady 6.5 creedmoor brass from two other rifles that have came and gone. Problem is I have no ideal how many firings the brass has. It's been mixed and matched between the bolt and semi auto gun I had in 6.5 creedmoor. The good new is is the rifle is shooting great. With my first range session with the rifle, I shot just over a half inch group at 200 yards with one of the three bullet/load combinations I loaded.

So I'm looking at all this mixed brass I have that's all Hornady and wondering if I should consider Annealing it. I never really thought about it much as most of the stuff I loaded has been military brass that I have a boat load of. With this bolt action, I obviously don't have as much. Not to mention it's slim pickings finding new brass. I'm the kind of person that wants to do things right and just starting to look into this annealing process. I'm just wondering if it's just better to fire the brass four or five times and thrash it, or get into annealing. I'm not even sure it's going to extend the life of the brass much. I've got the 6.5 shooting pretty well so far with the hornady brass, I'm not sure I'm not going to squeeze out much more accuracy out of it. I've also never done any neck turning of my brass. One thing I have done that's improved the repeatability of my loads is removed all the expander balls of my full length dies and using a mandrel after putting the brass through the FL die.

So should I jump on the annealing bandwagon or not? Looks like a decent annealing rig will by me a lot of brass. I'm just not sure how much I'm going to gain from it. I do have a 500 yard range and hoping to go try and bang steel at 1000 plus yards someday soon.

 

[joshb]

You should buy a Benchsource. They sell (used) here now and then for $450ish. If you don’t like it and you’ve taken care of it, you can sell it for close to what you paid. I venture a guess that you won’t sell it. I liked mine so much, I bought another.

 

[Straightshooter1]

So I consider myself a fairly new reloader. I've been reloading now about 5 years and have updated just about everything I started with. Go a pretty good setup now and consider myself a decent reloader. I've also developed and produced some pretty good loads for most of my rifles that shoot considerably better than any loaded ammo I've purchased. I'll say the bulk of the ammo i've loaded has been 308 and 223 for the semi auto rifles I shoot the most. Most of this has been loaded from once fired military surplus brass that I've purchased in large quantities when it was cheap. I still have once fired brass in this military surplus that I haven't loaded or fired yet. At this point I believe I've loaded in excess of five thousand rounds.

I also have some bolt action rifles like a 6.5 creedmoor, 300 wsm and 338 that I load for. I just put together a new 6.5 creedmoor Tikka with a proof barrel. I'm in the process of developing a load for this rifle and am using hornady 6.5 creedmoor brass from two other rifles that have came and gone. Problem is I have no ideal how many firings the brass has. It's been mixed and matched between the bolt and semi auto gun I had in 6.5 creedmoor. The good new is is the rifle is shooting great. With my first range session with the rifle, I shot just over a half inch group at 200 yards with one of the three bullet/load combinations I loaded.

So I'm looking at all this mixed brass I have that's all Hornady and wondering if I should consider Annealing it. I never really thought about it much as most of the stuff I loaded has been military brass that I have a boat load of. With this bolt action, I obviously don't have as much. Not to mention it's slim pickings finding new brass. I'm the kind of person that wants to do things right and just starting to look into this annealing process. I'm just wondering if it's just better to fire the brass four or five times and thrash it, or get into annealing. I'm not even sure it's going to extend the life of the brass much. I've got the 6.5 shooting pretty well so far with the hornady brass, I'm not sure I'm not going to squeeze out much more accuracy out of it. I've also never done any neck turning of my brass. One thing I have done that's improved the repeatability of my loads is removed all the expander balls of my full length dies and using a mandrel after putting the brass through the FL die.

So should I jump on the annealing bandwagon or not? Looks like a decent annealing rig will by me a lot of brass. I'm just not sure how much I'm going to gain from it. I do have a 500 yard range and hoping to go try and bang steel at 1000 plus yards someday soon.

1/2" group at 200 is really good, especially if you're getting that consistently. And so, I feel you're right on, in that there's probably not much more to gain there by annealing (some, but not much. IMHO).

Annealing will certainly extend the life of your brass. So if you feel getting 2-3X the life from the brass is worth it, you should proceed to do so. And to do so, you don't "need" expensive equipment . . . unless you can really appreciate what the more expensive equipment brings to the table.

I only precision reload for my .308 and have done so now for only about 8,000 rounds. I've found it really helps me get the chronograph numbers I'm after (like single digit SD's and ES in the mid teens). I find annealing really helps in producing consistent cartridge performance, which in turn I feel helps plenty on paper. . . . especially when shooting at long or extreme distances.

 

[giannid]

You should buy a Benchsource. They sell (used) here now and then for $450ish. If you don’t like it and you’ve taken care of it, you can sell it for close to what you paid. I venture a guess that you won’t sell it. I liked mine so much, I bought another.

you have a link to one of these? Maybe I'll take a look

 

[joshb]

you have a link to one of these? Maybe I'll take a look

Just Google Benchsource annealer. It’ll pop up. I’m not computer savvy enough to copy and paste a link. Watch the classifieds in the reloading section.

 

[joshb]

New Case Neck Annealing Machine

Try that. Woohoo!! I did it!

 

[Homerange]

Sounds like you're doing just fine but maybe the day will come when you won't and wonder why.
For that occasion a small stash of brass you are using now put away as a control so that you can dig it out and make few loads to double check if your by then well used brass is actually the problem.

I don't anneal and as a result use LCD's so to limit the workings of my brass.
YMMV

 

[Bginvestor]

If you serious about smallest groups like bench rest competition, its a must..

Here's a great article that helped convince myself..

Induction Annealing Case Necks | See Our Research | AMP (ampannealing.com)

 

[JimSC]

size a case, measure the neck OD, seat a bullet then pull that bullet, remeasure the OD . Is it the measurement the same as before the bullet was seated? If it is not then start annealing

Grafs has 6.5 CM Lapua brass for 90 bucks per 100, buy 100 and see how many reloadings you get and if the primer pockets fail before the necks split

 

[Bginvestor]

I might be wrong but from what I understand, annealing isn't that popular in short range benchrest. I've been reloading for about 1.5 years now and didn't anneal at all since I started with just ARs and bought a whole bunch of new LC brass and never had to reload the fired brass since I still have thousands of new brass.
I moved onto bolt action rifles at the start of this year and started using Lapua brass and now I anneal after each firing. It seems to take a bit less pressure to size after annealing but one thing I found was that I could go one size bigger on the neck bushing since the brass didn't spring back as much. If I used the same size neck bushing, it would take more pressure to seat the bullets.

right.. some folks don't realize brass spring back sensitivity when a fresh case gets resized many times. Neck tension is a displacement control problem. For me, I'm more concerned with consistency from round to round..

 

[Bginvestor]

size a case, measure the neck OD, seat a bullet then pull that bullet, remeasure the OD . Is it the measurement the same as before the bullet was seated? If it is not then start annealing

Grafs has 6.5 CM Lapua brass for 90 bucks per 100, buy 100 and see how many reloadings you get and if the primer pockets fail before the necks split

from my experience on several calibers, pockets typically loosen first before necks split. Especially if you anneal.

 

[Cecil S.]

Bench Source great way to start out.

 

[David Christian]

Yes, I believe annealing can improve accuracy, if done correctly and each case the same. It might be worth buying a box of higher quality brass such as Peterson or Lapua and test them side by side against the Hornady. Different brass will require new load development steps, but might prove just as beneficial as annealing a mixed batch of Hornady.

 

[338 dude]

If you serious about smallest groups like bench rest competition, its a must..

Here's a great article that helped convince myself..

Induction Annealing Case Necks | See Our Research | AMP (ampannealing.com)

Just got my amp annealer last week and I love it we have one we can use at the range but it is a 2 Hour Dr. one direction after getting familiar using it I had to have my own

 

[Bginvestor]

Just got my amp annealer last week and I love it we have one we can use at the range but it is a 2 Hour Dr. one direction after getting familiar using it I had to have my own

that's a nice christmas gift..

Just got my amp annealer last week and I love it we have one we can use at the range but it is a 2 Hour Dr. one direction after getting familiar using it I had to have my own

I'm going to ask Santa for a AMP.. lol

 

[giannid]

I'm trying to figure out where the point of diminishing returns is with reloading. Like I said, the guns I shoot the most are semi auto's and I shoot mostly military surplus fired brass. I've got thousands of rounds of brass that I haven't even fired yet. I've got a 338 LM and a 300WSM that I've purchased expensive norma and Lapua brass for. Those guns I shoot the least as they're mostly hunting rifles and not pleasant to shoot anyways. Then there's this creedmoor which will be my most fired bolt gun. I really don't see any point at using better brass than Hornady as it shoots better than me. Not sure it's really worth annealing Hornady brass as long as it's available to purchase. Hell, if I can get 6 or 7 firings out of Horandy and it still shoot accurately, I'd say the hell with annealing. Thoughts?

 

[Homerange]

FWIW I've found Hornady .223 brass to be excellent and lasts lots of firings unannealed when neck sized with a LCD. Nearly all my brass is range recovered however I don't load too hot.
YMMV

 

[Dub]

I'm trying to figure out where the point of diminishing returns is with reloading. Like I said, the guns I shoot the most are semi auto's and I shoot mostly military surplus fired brass. I've got thousands of rounds of brass that I haven't even fired yet. I've got a 338 LM and a 300WSM that I've purchased expensive norma and Lapua brass for. Those guns I shoot the least as they're mostly hunting rifles and not pleasant to shoot anyways. Then there's this creedmoor which will be my most fired bolt gun. I really don't see any point at using better brass than Hornady as it shoots better than me. Not sure it's really worth annealing Hornady brass as long as it's available to purchase. Hell, if I can get 6 or 7 firings out of Horandy and it still shoot accurately, I'd say the hell with annealing. Thoughts?

yes, not for you

 

[D-4297]

The best answer to whether to anneal or not is to look at the number of top shooters in the different disciplines and ask , "Do they anneal" ? The simple answer is yes . The majority of them do . Why do they do it ? Consistency ...So regardless of which machine you use to anneal , it does have a benefit . Unless you have a forever , non-ending supply of once-fired brass . I shoot F-class , TR with a 308 , Lapua Palma cases , and have over twenty firings on my "Practice" brass , and I'm only now starting to lose 1 or 2 cases per 50 practice rounds due to primer pockets enlarging . If you do the math , I think that has come close to paying for my Anealeez , when you consider the cost of Lapua cases .

 

[Sniper338]

when you get anal about accuracy and precision, and you count firings on brass, and you have good brass Then dip further into it. While your doing cheap brass and surplus brass, aint worth the $1500 deeper dive into reloading