Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Annealing old brass

Moved and finally got back to having a decent sized shop. Dragging a few hundred pounds of rifle brass out of storage. Some of it is max 15 years old but it's all once fired commercial stuff.

Having seen lots of old ammo with cracked necks, and heard about brass possibly getting harder with age, should I anneal this once fired old brass (30-06, 270, 7mm-08, etc) or just clean it and load it? I've got a Giraud annealer, but have plenty of other stuff to do.

Thanks in advance.

I would do it for piece of mind and to know everything is ready but that’s just me.

Would not hurt at all.

I’d tumble it and anneal it. Certainly won’t harm anything.

Gosh durn it. I was hoping for "don't worry about it." I guess I'll fire up the Giraud...

Yep agreed, clean and anneal

I wouldn't worry about it if you have other things to do. It'll be fine until you're ready to load it.

Edit...nevermind, I misunderstood what you were asking. If it's just sitting in storage don't worry about it. If you're loading it I'd anneal. Might as well, you have a Giraud

Anneal before the Lee collet die or after?

I always do before, but wonder what other folk do. There's a little blip in the collet instructions about crushed shoulders from over annealing.

Got some vintage 33 WCF brass recently from a member on the fire. As it’s pretty hard to find, the first thing I did was anneal it....loads like a dream.

I anneal before running brass through a LCD. It seems to make sense.

If I am necking brass down, I anneal afterward and then resize again to try to achieve the most consistent bullet pull possible.

I have over-annealed before, and it didn't take very much error to make itself known. I had case necks sticking to the mandrel so hard that necks were snapping off when I tried to withdraw cases from the die.

I’d just resize it as-is. If for some reason there’s going to be an issue with a particular batch needing to be sneaked, you’ll know it pretty quickly.

It sounds like you are working with relatively common calibers and significant quantity. In my mind, yet another reason to proceed with resizing. If you find a catch that needs sneaking g but lose a handful to split necks is during the discovery process, you’ve lost almost nothing in brass.

Now, if you are working with rare, expensive brass then I’d probably go ahead and anneal.

Legitimate once fired brass hat has been stored in a clean, dry place for 15 years should not suddenly start cracking.

Years ago the NRA wrote up several articles on brass. One had to do with hardening due to aging. What the article stated, and I'm going from memory, was that a sample was put on the roof of one of the military armories in the east, and another in controlled environment. The exposed brass hardened, the other did not. They speculated it was due to the chemical pollutants in the heavily industrial area where the test was conducted.

Personally I would NOT anneal the brass. I'd clean it, use it, then anneal a couple of uses, of if you get any cracks during initial use. You should be able to discern hardness of the brass in the initial sizing. If smooth and soft, it's gold.

Personally I don't consider 15 year old brass to be "old". Anneal it for peace of mind if you feel you must.

As mentioned it's all common calibers and I've got large quantities and most of the time it was stored indoors, though some lived in a carport for a while. I went ahead and tumbled and sized and loaded some up and it was very consistent. Been too lazy to get my annealer running.

I had some old military clips of ammo that sat in a drawer for unknown (<40) years where the necks cracked.. but that was probably related to the primers in that stuff...
Unless it really got banged around...

??? I don't understand how priming compound in unfired ammo would cause necks to crack.

i have always been able to tell when necks needed annealing when i run a chamfer tool in the mouth.

I recall reading that mercury fulminate priming would make brass brittle, but I must have assumed that it happened after firing. Apparently, this is not so. Interesting article here...pay close attention to the eighth paragraph:
https:www.bevfitchett.us/ballistics/priming-compounds-and-primers-introduction.html

As I understand it Mercury fulminate is not the most stable of compounds.
I assume it degrades with time /conditions like old dynamite...
I just know that several necks were cracked, they were old military stuff (based on headstamps) and I don't recall anything in the drawer that would cause that...


Note that I may be influenced by a recent conversation regarding indoor ranges and where the source of the basic vapor/particles come from...