Annealing before or after resizing

A

akinswi

New member
Do most of you anneal before or after resizing your brass?

Do most of you anneal just the neck or do you get the shoulder too?

noticed I had to back my sizing die off if I anneal before the resizing process.
 
I watched the videos on the AMP product from Australia where the changes in structure to the brass was documented. He showed the softening effects of the brass following annealing, then the hardening effect from sizing. He also showed that back to back annealing doesn't do anything...neither harmful nor helpful...just wasteful. Seating a bullet and shooting a bullet appear to have no effect in brass hardening. I recommend you watch the videos to get a better understanding, or to ensure that I interpreted the material properly.

Anyway, I gathered from the videos that a best practice should be shoot, anneal, clean, then resize. It was shown that the hardening effect of stainless pin cleaning was imperceptible. I suppose one could clean and then anneal, but dirt and lube appeared to have no effect whatsoever on annealing.
I've been annealing after sizing and cleaning, which seems to be the wrong process as you want to produce the proper neck tension to hold the bullet. Loading annealed brass means you have a soft base neck.
I do not have a AMP machine...I'm using the Burstfire Annealer and Case Prep Center, and I've only had it since January. I did two torch annealing before that.
So...I plan to anneal before resizing going forward.
 
I resize, clean then anneal.

Gets the carbon out, no smoking so I can anneal mid winter when ventilation is a bit brisk (AK) to say the least.

My opinion is anneal is more consistent with no carbon though its an opinion not validated.

If using Lapua brass in a modern gun I anneal after 10 firings.
 
You do realize you don't have to anneal a case every time you resize it .
Anneal ... then shoot and reload 5 to 10 times depending on the rifle's chamber and how much the brass is worked , will usually do fine .
I do the neck-shoulder of 30-06 cases when I anneal .
Gary
 
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I’ve tried it both ways and settled on annealing after cleaning and sizing. Through my very scientific method of touch, I’ve noticed while seating bullets they feel more consistent seating pressure wise when annealing after cleaning and sizing. As far as neck tension, when scientifically testing them using an inertia type puller they have plenty of tension. It takes at least 4-5 good hard whacks with the hammer to knock them loose. I’ve also loaded up ten dummies and cycled them numerous times in my AR’s without any change in seating depth or runout.
 
mehavey said:
Clean, Anneal, and Resize in that order.
(Minimizes resizing stress on the case/neck/shoulder)
Click to expand...
This is my method as well. Clean, anneal, size. I figure if you are not getting the neck hot enough to fully anneal, you are not able to say with certainty that all the necks are softened to the same degree. Some might argue that fully annealed brass is too soft to be usable, which I also do not subscribe to. I anneal the necks to be hot enough to be annealed soft. Then size them to provide a nice little bit of work hardening.

I think worth noting is that since I have been annealing prior to sizing, I have less than .001" variation in cartridge base to shoulder datum with both my 308 Winchester and my 6.5 Creedmoor. Additionally, I have realized a significant reduction in my velocity spreads across the board. I do not know if my way is the right way, but the evidence, at least through my specific experience seems to suggest that I am headed in the right direction.
 
I too clean, anneal, then resize, but only after several shooting/reloading cycles. Much less frequent for 223 Rem, around 7 cycles for 308 Win and 6mm Rem, and 2 to3 cycles for 460 S&W Mag.
 
kilotanker22 said:
This is my method as well. Clean, anneal, size. I figure if you are not getting the neck hot enough to fully anneal, you are not able to say with certainty that all the necks are softened to the same degree. Some might argue that fully annealed brass is too soft to be usable, which I also do not subscribe to. I anneal the necks to be hot enough to be annealed soft. Then size them to provide a nice little bit of work hardening.

I think worth noting is that since I have been annealing prior to sizing, I have less than .001" variation in cartridge base to shoulder datum with both my 308 Winchester and my 6.5 Creedmoor. Additionally, I have realized a significant reduction in my velocity spreads across the board. I do not know if my way is the right way, but the evidence, at least through my specific experience seems to suggest that I am headed in the right direction.
Click to expand...
Kilotanker22,

You are getting better neck tension and seal on the bullet reason for better deviation. I asked the question because I see some people that anneal is there last step before bullet seating.
But I currently wet tumble after decapping which my decapping method is using a lee collet die to make the necks perfectly concentric. Then I will anneal then I run thru a sizing die minus the expander ball then I will resize the necks on the lyman m dieTrim if need too. then last final polish in corn cob.

My method is little harder on the necks but anneal after every firing because I wanted to be consistent.
 
I like to clean, anneal and then size. I find that I get better more consistent sizing results especially shoulder set back.
 
akinswi said:
Kilotanker22,

You are getting better neck tension and seal on the bullet reason for better deviation. I asked the question because I see some people that anneal is there last step before bullet seating.
But I currently wet tumble after decapping which my decapping method is using a lee collet die to make the necks perfectly concentric. Then I will anneal then I run thru a sizing die minus the expander ball then I will resize the necks on the lyman m dieTrim if need too. then last final polish in corn cob.

My method is little harder on the necks but anneal after every firing because I wanted to be consistent.
Click to expand...
Me too man. I anneal after every firing for the sake of consistency as well. I figure every time you work the brass it will harden slightly. The only way to make sure the brass is in the same condition every time I fire it, is to use the exact same process every single time. So far, it has been working well
 
I recently acquired the Burstfire Annealing and Case Prep center. Batch annealing makes this so much easier to do. I’m annealing much more frequently, and I hope to see some improvement in my shooting…otherwise I’m just annealing to burn propane.
 
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