Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Annealing

I’m sure this has been discussed 1000 times in the forums. I’m considering buying an annealing machine for my bench. My question is does it help on neck tension consistently? I understand that it helps with case life but is there other positives?

Yes it helps with neck tension.

I don't understand the need for these machines people talk about getting... price aint cheap and annealing doesn't have to be that expensive..

I have a 7 gallon propane tank someone gave me... someone gave me one of those trees, to put more items on the one tank...

I paid $6.00 for a plumbers torch from a Grovers....Filled the tank with 7 gallons of propane about 9 or 10 years ago.. ( I shoot a lot AND Anneal a lot)

other two expenses? a 40 year old pair of needle nose pliers, and camp stove lighter to light the plummers torch..

a $1.00 galvanized decorative bucket, I bought to drop the annealed case into... I let them air cool... don't need this " quinch them" baloney...

Biggest expense when I started doing this, was the 7 gallons of propane.. .and that was a $1.40 a gallon when I did that...that has lasted me 10 years now...

Got batches of brass, that have had 50 plus shots on them... and still going.. so it works just fine...

as an experiment, I've also got a test batch of 223 brass, that has been loaded 120 times now...and that keeps working...

machines aren't going to do anything more than my set up does... except maybe impress your friends more...

I'm not cheap... I just don't believe in a $200 solution to a 39 cent problem.... when something simple works.. and the stuff I've got, the less moving parts, the less things to foul up...

The main reason for me considering buying one is for neck tension consistently. I just got into long range shooting a few years ago. I actually bought a batch of new Hornady brass about 6-8 months ago. Could not get the rifle to shoot. The rifle had always shot lights out. I noticed when seating bullets it took more pressure on some more than others. So I ordered a new batch of Alpha brass and my problem went away immediately. So my conclusion was that it was the brass hardness was all over the place within that batch of new Hornady brass. I have done a little research already on annealing. My concern about doing it by hand is consistency. It’s hard to hold each piece of brass the exact same distance and for the exact same time. I’m not saying the way you are doing it is wrong at all. You guys in this group have tons of knowledge. And my concerns may be irrelevant? I would like everyone’s input.

Yes it helps with neck tension and case longevity IF done correctly and consistently.


This is where the machines come in, they are consistent. I've used a BC1000 now for about 25 years it was one of the 1st, if not the 1st auto annealers:



https://bkceng.com/?page_id=111


Can you do it by hand, sure, maybe, depends on how consistent you are. The machines for the most part guarantee that each case spend "X" amount of time being annealed. As long as your flame remains constant, each case get's the same treatment.

You can over anneal and still get case longevity, but your consistency for neck tension will suck.

Also, I seriously doubt you can match the volume by hand annealing. My BC1000 will easily do 600 cases and HR. I just did about 2000 .223 last weekend in a couple hrs.

Like anything, time = money, or in this case money = saved time. Whether it's worth it or not probably has a lot to do with your required volume.

Is it really necessary?







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I personally don't believe it's as difficult as we sometimes make it out to be.....

And another from Cortina....

This




doesn't equal X ring consistency on an F-Class target at 1000 yards.

Perspective....

My ammo is divided into a " lot".. from size groups from 10 pieces ( range work ) to a 100 ( for field shooting sage rats)...

I'm really in no hurry, reloading gets me away from my husbandly "obligations" or Honey Do crap... I do it when my wife is glued to the TV and I could care less...shuts her up...

Never a shortage of loaded ammo...

For range shooting... groups of 10 in a zip lock bag.. snack bag inside has a 3 x 5 card in there also, and keeps the history of that batch of brass...
Load data, how many times reloaded etc... currently have about 15 bags in circulation for range duty lately ( last 3 or 4 months)..

I go over to the range ( 3 miles away) and might shoot 20 to 40 rounds in a visit...come home and load them again.. anneal each time before I start the other processing... 1 batch at a time...

I wouldn't know what to do with a fancy set up like above... nor have the space to keep it, much less the maintenance of it. Off season like now, I probably still shoot 300 to 400 rounds a month.... 3 or 4 trips a week over to the range...100 to 120 rounds a week on average.. an hour or so a trip.

works for me... we each have our own 'system'...

That is why annealing is mostly unnecessary. How many people that anneal are not just shooting, but shooting competitively at F-Class 1000 yard targets?


If they can improve their score through annealing, it makes sense, it’s just a topic that seems to be brought up more about case life for ever day shooting and I don’t know that it is worth it for that…

I sometimes do it to get more life out of my increasingly valuable cases, but not with an AMP machine for 1000 yard target ammo.

All my brass has never been annealed and case life on 1000’s are way past 10 reloads…

I consider 10 reloads as just getting broken in Shrap...

But after watching and reading all your posts over the last 20 years or so... I'll concede, you are one of the small number of campfire heroes I have.

you just do a lot of stuff with Style, as opposed to the Midget up on PoW Island AK...

For my more precise rifles I like to anneal after five loadings or so. I can feel the bullet seating pressure is more consistent round to round. I should have written "accuracy life" or similar.

Pressure definitely increases after five or so FL resizings - that's when I anneal. Brass last longer, isn't work-hardened, etc. Everything about it is better.

I have the Bench Source annealer. It was around $500 when I bought it and right after that, one was for sale on another forum used for $300. I wish I waited for it. I just got into annealing in the past three years. Before that, we never annealed anything. Neck tension was still important to us, so we did other things to make cases more consistent. Annealing along with other measures will make neck tension more consistent. Make sure to champher each case weather you trimmed or not. This will allow seating to be smoother and consistent. Not too much, just a little champher helps out. Also brush the inside of the necks of all casings. I put a brush in my case prep center so it rotates. Plunge it up and down twice and it’s done. The brushing clears up minor things that make cause more friction. You could turn the necks and play around with expanding balls or bushings during sizing and test those methods too along with annealing. Make sure to test against those methods with ammo you haven’t done anything to to see if there’s benefits. In other words, if you use those methods, you should see improvements, even though they’re small.

If you are worried about consistency with the hand methods you can always get a bottle of Tempilac and apply it on the inside of the necks until you get your timing figured out. Once you do that it's easy to be consistent either by counting or the heat transfered to the case head as you hold it.

I use a machine, and not because I think it performs better but because it's just less work. I can load the hopper up and watch the machine run and do the work. I've used Tempilaq enough times to know that about 8 seconds in the flame is just about right.

One time I over-annealed, I think, keeping the brass in flame for about 12 seconds. I don't remember why I tried it but I did. Using a collet neck die on .223 brass I had just annealed, the necks would stick to the mandrel as though bonded and the necks pulled right off of the cases. That might have been a combination of over-annealing and too much collet pressure both, but when I hold the time in flame down to about 8 seconds there is no issue.

In response to the OP's question...the real benefit I see to annealing is reduction of case loss due to split necks, but there is perceived benefit also---and that would be increased consistency of the feel of seating pressure. We do lots of things that we can't justify with proof on target. I do a lot of things just because it bugs me to NOT do them.

No doubt the machines are faster and easier and more consistent but my competition days are long past so for the 50-100 batches that I do anymore a propane torch is all that is required. YMMV.