How often do you anneal brass?

[TheDude8102]

Fairly new to reloading and wondering how often to anneal brass. I worked up a load for my Tikka in 6.5 CM. I am averaging about 2,560 fps out of a 20" barrel so nothing too hot. Using Lapua brass which is supposed to have a pretty good life to it and boy the price of it makes me want to keep it healthy.

 

[Leadeye]

A friend of mine who is on this board did a study on annealing and found it was of limited value for case life. He'll probably be along to post a link to it. That said I have used the practice for case forming.

 

[red_zr24x4]

Been loading since the early 90's and never annealed anything

 

[shibumiseeker]

You anneal every 3-4 shots to give consistent case mouth tension. Annealing does not appear to increase case life, and in my study it seemed to reduce it 10% in our study group.

 

[TheDude8102]

You anneal every 3-4 shots to give consistent case mouth tension. Annealing does not appear to increase case life, and in my study it seemed to reduce it 10% in our study group.

Ah ok, more for consistency than longevity. Looking to get consistency out of my handloads so ill try sticking to annealing every 3-4 shots. Sounds like after the next load on this brass I will run it through the annealeez .

 

[TJ Kackowski]

I found this thread to be a very good read on annealing ... and what will happen if you troll somebody too hard or too long.

https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...g/467550-who-has-auto-annealling-machine.html

 

[sloughfoot]

Never. it is a waste of time

 

[TheDude8102]

I found this thread to be a very good read on annealing ... and what will happen if you troll somebody too hard or too long.

https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...g/467550-who-has-auto-annealling-machine.html

Thanks for the good read there! Reading some of that reminded me of that old turbo encabulator joke haha

 

[Floivanus]

Just get a case comparator and bump the shoulder a consistent amount. For example on my 54r reloads I’m going 20 thousandths as that give me consistent results with my SVD.

resizing just the right amount (and not overdoing it by “eyeballing”) is going to go a long way towards case longevity.

I measured cases before I set things up with the comparator and was bumping some cases 100 thousandths or more, I switched my resizing to a dedicated single stage from the turret I had and dialed it in, cases work much easier and smoother now

 

[autogun]

Been reloading since the mid 60's and never is the correct answer.

 

[BGDave]

https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...g/467550-who-has-auto-annealling-machine.html

How in the wide world of sports did I miss that cluster #### of a thread. I lose more cases in the weeds.

I once ran my reloads against Federal Gold Medal Match. Pretty humbling. I sure wasted a lot of time weighing cases, primers, bullets and powder by the 1/10 th grain. FGMM is magic in a box.

 

[Goodcat]

I anneal every firing, for consistency. Annealing every 4-5 firings helps with larger belted cartridges. Annealing at 750* internal neck temperature, before FL resizing with bumping the shoulder back, along with setting neck tension with a mandrel die, after finding my node and costing bullets with hexagonal boron nitride has netted fantastic results. On its best day, I shot an SD of 0 for 3 rounds. 3 round groups as tight as 1/8 moa at 300.

Generally, this 6.5 creedmoor round groups consistently 1/3 to 1/2 MOA, has won tightest groups at 1k and made it to the mile. Annealing every firing is a stacking of tolerances that helps ever so slightly for uniform neck tension, aided by the mandrel die.

 

[TheDude8102]

I anneal every firing, for consistency. Annealing every 4-5 firings helps with larger belted cartridges. Annealing at 750* internal neck temperature, before FL resizing with bumping the shoulder back, along with setting neck tension with a mandrel die, after finding my node and costing bullets with hexagonal boron nitride has netted fantastic results. On its best day, I shot an SD of 0 for 3 rounds. 3 round groups as tight as 1/8 moa at 300.

Generally, this 6.5 creedmoor round groups consistently 1/3 to 1/2 MOA, has won tightest groups at 1k and made it to the mile. Annealing every firing is a stacking of tolerances that helps ever so slightly for uniform neck tension, aided by the mandrel die.

Sounds like I might just anneal after ever firing for consistency then. It doesn't take much time and is easy to do. I am only bumping necks back a .002" but I since I am also using a bushing die that is slightly smaller desired neck tension then opening the neck back up with a mandrel might help me out since it is working the brass a little more.