Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters When to anneal?

In all my years of reloading I’ve only did it once, when I was forced to by the lack of elasticity in my .243 Winchester necks. Had a nice varmit/target rifle and I shot the same 60 Hornday cases over & over. My load was mild so the primer pocket’s stayed usable for like 12 reloads, think I annealed after shot 7-8.

Do any of you have a routine, or set number of rounds fired when you know it’s time to anneal?


41

On 4th reload for non mag and 3rd reload for mag cartridges. YMMV

3 to 5 firings seems to work well for me.

Every firing if you want consistency. How could you do something different every time and expect different results?

I usually anneal after every 4 firings.

Have experimented considerably, and found that even works with my my 6mm PPC benchrest rifle, which results in the same .15" to .20" 5-shot groups as annealing after ever shot. But it might not work that way with other brands of brass--or other rifles....

You have got to be kidding

Not at all. Talk to the best shooters in the world and see what they say.

When I was shooting for a living it was every five shots with gas...now I shoot for fun it is every shot with amp.

When I want the utmost in muzzle speed consistency for LR applications, I use induction annealing every firing. Where the application is less demanding, such as in most of my hunting rifles, I anneal every 4 firings.

Every 3rd time with the exception of my M1a. They are hell on brass. The most you can realistically expect is three firings from a piece of brass. I anneal every time on those .308 cases.

All my new brass I anneal regardless. After that, on the 3rd or 4th go-around.

After every firing.

I just did this, for the first time ever, on a batch of Nosler blem .243 cases from SPS (no idea if it would have been indicated just as much with "not blem" Nosler cases). I noted the neck tension seemed too high when seating bullets in the new Nosler cases compared with a batch of once-fired Winchester cases that I'd annealed as part of the case prep process to work up loads in my friend's newly inherited Rem 788. On a whim, I annealed a handful of new Nosler cases and compared their performance to unannealed. The annealed cases were clearly more accurate. So, I went ahead an annealed the whole batch of new cases. I've never done that but in this case, it proved to be worth it.

Live and learn
Rex

With unknown range brass I anneal after the 2nd firing. It's worked so far.

kwg

after 5th or 6th firings.

except the 35/30-30 Starline brass. it is on the 14th or 15th firing and it has yet to be annealed.

John, on my 30BR chambers a light touch up every 7 firings keeps the shoulders where the die is set. After that, they start to get a bit snuggish.

Good shootin' -Al

Works for me. Can't see the need to anneal every loading for a hunting round.

Thanks for that info, Al!

My range buddies. who are long range accuracy buffs, anneal after every firing. I was doing it after every 3rd firing with the candle method but since I bought an annealing machine, I will do it after every firing. It is a lot easier now and being retired, I have the time. It only takes minutes with the machine anyway.

For most cartridges, I never do.
For cases that have been reworked such as 280AI, I anneal every 5 reloads.