Never did much annealing and have been fairly successful in 1000 yard competition ( won IBS national score championship and several state championships) and long range hunting having taken several deer over 1000 yards. However this past hunting season I noticed some vertical dispersion when testing loads (408/338 Big Baer and .338 Baer) and had some very high SD using newly purchased LabRadar. After talking to Bruce Baer he informed me that I should be annealing. So being on a fixed income I decided to make an annealing machine. this is what I came up with and the results from that endeavor.
Please comment on the photos of my test annealing. The Tempilaq below the shoulder is 450°F and I had 750°F inside the case mouth which melted. The cases are 408/338 Big Baer and .308 Baer
Interesting machine you've come up with there. Is it hand-indexed? How are you making your cases rotate like that?
I think I like how the case falls into the sleeve after coming out of the flame. That seems as though it might help retard further heat conduction down toward the case head.
Are you going to post more details?
Don't be the darkness.
America will perish while those who should be standing guard are satisfying their lusts.
Very cool piece of engineering there. Also I can't believe you have done so well without annealing. The more anal short range guys anneal with each reloading. If you decide to market this and need any one to test the prototypes count me in.
"When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred." Niccolo Machiavelli
What I did for consistent neck tension was I make a shallow tapered gauge. After prepping the cases making sure they were all uniform, I placed the taper gauge into the case mouth and sorted the cases by over all length. With this method you can measure the ID of the case mouth into the millionth of an inch if you want to do the math. My thinking was the harder the case neck brass was the more spring back it would have. So the shorter the OAL of the case the harder the brass would be.
If I am understanding the concept, you are estimating case neck hardness or temper by precisely measuring the ID of the case mouths. Do I have this right?
I have to wonder---and ask, how sensitive to the extent of inside case mouth chamfering is that method? It seems like that could have a lot of influence on the value you arrive at.
Don't be the darkness.
America will perish while those who should be standing guard are satisfying their lusts.
You are correct, Chamfering the case mouth must be the same from case to case. The first thing I do is make sure the cases are trimmed to the same length, then using a jig I chamfer the case mouth so all the cases are the same. Having said that I found that if a shallow taper is used it is not as critical but for the best results the case mouth taper should be the same from case to case.
