When to anneal?
- Thread starter L W P
- Start date
You wasted a lot cash boy. All you needed was a $5 plug.
I don't understand the "factors"........and I rarely follow the "rules"
I have to defer to Gufey to explain the "factors".I don't understand the "factors"........and I rarely follow the "rules"
My "universal translator" is broken.
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. By "individual handling" I mean picking up each piece of brass and doing something to it one-at-a-time. For example, wiping off case lube by hand. Or lubricating the inside of a case neck with a Q-tip; things like that.
I dont' have to "come back again" as you say because I have an auto case feeder on my progressive press. So after I bulk lube my brass, I can dump in a load of 100 pieces of brass and de-prime, neck size, body size, and insert a mandrel in one pass simply by pulling the press handle.
I clean in bulk using a wet SS tumbler. The idea of blowing out each case and then carefully standing them up to let them dry drives me crazy. I shake off most of the water, juggle the brass in a towel to remove much of the rest, and run them through the clothes dryer for 20 minutes using a tennis shoe rack.
My annealer also has an auto feed capability, so I can just load the hopper and let it feed itself.
I can prime and do final neck sizing using the auto case feeder and auto primer feeder and neck mandrel in another pass through the progressive press.
When I make AR plinking ammo, I use an auto powder dispenser to charge the cases. Of course for match ammo I am forced to handle the cases one at a time when charging them and I seat the bullets one at a time.
Bottom line: There is no way to avoid individual case handling, but it can be minimized and cleaning can be reduced to one time per reloading cycle.
If you dont I suggest you start.
Oh no, don't tell him that. We don't understand him sober as it is (or if he is).
Oh no, don't tell him that. We don't understand him sober as it is (or if he is).
You think it could possibly get worse?!
A backwards remedy for a backwards person
Some new brass needs to be annealed, especially Hornady. Just got 200 pcs of .308 match brass. They were expanded, neck turned to .014" thickness, then resized with a Forster F/L die using an expander ball. The shoulder was .002" under a piece of fired brass. Fired these last night and they shot a full inch higher at 215 yards than before with everything exactly the same and powder charges within .002 grain. Same temperature outside and I didn't clean the barrel since the last time. The fired cases didn't grow in length much if any. Running them through the die and they were still about the same. I annealed a few and the overall length increased an average of .005" while keeping the shoulder length the same.
Sorry but I couldn't resist!
Yes it can get worse!
That would be absolutely scariest day when we start to understand him.
Is that because you have specific /06 for distance you shoot or for location where you shoot?
Do you color code your brass for each rifle?
Oh no, don't tell him that. We don't understand him sober as it is (or if he is).
I get my reloading advice from this guy. At least I understand what he is saying.
Boils down to this.......(must have sound turned on)
http://www.filmsite.org/wavfiles/coolhandluke.wav
http://www.filmsite.org/wavfiles/coolhandluke.wav
I annealed a few and the overall length increased an average of .005" while keeping the shoulder length the same.
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I screwed up the length measurement. The factory Hornady brass is not trimmed square on the necks. The average increase in length after annealing was only about .002".
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I screwed up the length measurement. The factory Hornady brass is not trimmed square on the necks. The average increase in length after annealing was only about .002".
I found when my bullet neck tension starts to diminish, it's time to anneal. I was not getting sufficient neck tension in my 300wm after about 4-5 firings and annealing BEFORE resizing restored my neck tension for a few more firings. If you resize first and have poor neck tension because of work hardening/not enough spring-back, annealing afterwards will do nothing to restore neck tension until you resize again. For this reason, I always anneal before resizing.
To answer your question, I anneal when my neck tension starts to noticeably diminish. This will vary from load/case to load/case.
Tension should increase with repeated firing and sizing, not diminish. Working the brass firing and sizing smaller cold works the brass. More cold work, more hardness, more tension.
It doesn't really work that way. Harder, cold worked brass is more stiff and brittle so it obturates (forms around) the mandrel more and doesn't spring back as much as softer, annealed brass. Think of metal fatigue, if you bend it enough times without heat it will eventually stretch out and break.
Yes, harder, cold-worked brass is stiffer but that makes it MORE "springy", not less. In fact the dictionary definition of spring brass is: "common brass stiffened by cold working or heat treatment". Spring brass is used where corrosion resistance and low cost is important.
Consider a non annealed case neck which has been work hardened by firing and sizing vs a fully annealed one. If you size both necks to the same diameter, let's say .002" smaller than the diameter of the bullet, the harder case will grip the bullet more tenaciously. It will resist the expansion associated with the seating process because it's harder, stronger, and more "springy".
The soft neck, on the other hand, will comply and expand more easily when the bullet is seated and not provide as much bullet grip.
To visualize the difference in grip, think about a pin or bearing inserted into a piece of steel with an "interference fit" vs sticking that pin or bearing into a ball of pizza dough. Which one is harder to extract?
It's important to realize that if you use the same neck sizing bushing on two different cases, one hard and one soft, the softer annealed one will have a smaller finished diameter because it has less "spring back" than the work-hardened one. So to reach the same finished diameter, you gotta' use two different sized bushings. It follows that you can't predict that a hard case will have more bullet grip than a soft one unless you specify the diameter. That diameter depends on the neck bushing size and the amount of spring back associated with the hardness of the brass. It isn't rocket science, but you must consider the important factors.
Remember, the differences we're talking about between annealed brass and brass which has been fired a couple of times is no where near the difference between steel and pizza dough. Therefore, quantifying any effects when the bullet hits the target is tricky. Brian Litz tested brass fired many times against brass annealed each cycle. He found no difference in performance. Still, I anneal each cycle.
It's not that I don't believe the results of Mr. Litz's tests. Rather I'm convinced there is a genuine performance gain by annealing every time, but it's like much of what we do in that trying to isolate and measure a tiny difference in actual performance is difficult when our testing procedure involves a gun held by a human along with bullets flying through air. That is to say, the noise associated with gathering data like this obscures the tiny improvement we're looking for, but that doesn't mean that the effect isn't real.
The reason shooters see less neck tension on hardened brass is because the ignition of powder generates a lot of force than can over come a hardened brass to expand. Once the neck is expanded, the small amount of pressure from bushing cannot bring it back. Specially if someone using ,ore than .003-.004 clearance for loaded round. It gives the illusion that the brass cannot hold neck tension. If you measure the neck, you'll see the diameter is .001 or more larger than the bushing size.
As I said, Annealing is accumulative, you don't have to wait until your brass is 30-40% hardened to anneal. If you do it after every shot, it only needs few seconds at lower temperature to recover. Lower temperature means less risk of compromising metal integrity. Propane flame temp is about twice the melting point of brass, you do the math.
For those with propane annealer, if you see flame changes color, your case is ruined.
As I said, Annealing is accumulative, you don't have to wait until your brass is 30-40% hardened to anneal. If you do it after every shot, it only needs few seconds at lower temperature to recover. Lower temperature means less risk of compromising metal integrity. Propane flame temp is about twice the melting point of brass, you do the math.
For those with propane annealer, if you see flame changes color, your case is ruined.
well i am a firm believer in annealing. i use a 21st century hydro press and very light neck tension. After each firing i see seating pressure increase. i anneal at least every 3 firings and agree it would be better done at every firing.
as for ruining brass, now i don't reccomend this to anyone, i have over annealed in the.past. some i have thrown away but some i have loaded and shot. seating pressure was low and the groups were not great but nothing disasterous happened. now only the necks were overheated not the case itself. that could be disasterous. after firing and sizing they were back to normal. i know all the science behind the AMP annealer and don't doubt that is best but from experience i find there is quite a range of sucessful times and temperatures for the reloader.
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