Hand annealing brass

Ah ok that makes sense, i get free brass so if i get a junk case i don't think twice and just toss it in the scrap bucket to bring to the recycler.

Good to know though, because i'm sure there will be a day in my lifetime where every single piece of brass is like gold and i will want to do everything i can to get as much life out of each case i can!
 
I shoot with a guy who is in the running for a world record bench rest, his advise to me was "get an Annie", I did, and I use it. I use a chronograph regularly also and noticed a lower SD, better groups, fewer flyers, and extended case life.
 
A lot of people would call reloading a huge waste of time. Premium factory ammo like Federal Gold Medal Match .308's can be bought for about a dollar a round. Cheap 9mm and .45 are readily available these days for less than 20 cents a round and .223 plinkers for about a quarter

When you look at the several hundred to several thousands wrapped up equipment and the time you spend loading you are not saving much if any money

I reload because I enjoy it and know that the ammo I produce is the best quality that can be had. I can anneal 100 cases in less than 15 minutes so why not do it. It might not do that much but then again it might give me that 1 extra X
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Good points!

I reload to be able to shoot ammo that is tuned to my guns so I shoot better. It also has the added bonus of costing a fraction of match grade ammo so I can shoot more quality.

I have less than $100 tied up in my annealer and I have had it less than a year. It has already paid for itself in the cost saving of replacing brass every 4 loads. My 6.8SPC brass is expensive and fragile if not annealed often. If I shot only 223 it would take much longer as that is much cheaper and available brass.

My presses more then paid for themselves within their first year of use. I used my dad's equipment well into my 40's when I finally broke down and got my first press. My logic is that if you are a serious shooter it is silly not to reload.
 
AMPs are great but decent results can be achieved for a lot less

This Lapua brass that has been shot so many times the primer pockets are getting loose. Necks and bodies are still good but they will be in the recycle bin next week.They have been annealed by a 300 dollar machine after every firing.

I prepped by wet tumbling, annealing, a full length resize, another quick tumble and rinse to get the lanolin off then checked for length and a slight chamfer was applied on the inside of the neck. They were randomly pulled from the storage bin. Primers were inserted then seated to -.003. Then neck sized with a Lee collet with the decapping pin broke off, powder was loaded and bullet was seated. After bullet seating concentricity was checked and adjusted to less than .001 runout.

Notice annealing was mentioned once in that. I am convinced annealing helps in brass life but it is just one small step in getting consistent velocity.

Nosler Range Test Digital Link
Powder test 44.1gr
Spread: 22
Average: 2731
Standard Deviation: 8
Shot List
# Velocity Date
5 2726 11/10/17 10:36
4 2721 11/10/17 10:35
3 2737 11/10/17 10:34
2 2743 11/10/17 10:33
1 2732 11/10/17 10:33


Nosler Range Test Digital Link
Powder test 44.5 gr
Spread: 11
Average: 2728
Standard Deviation: 4

Shot List
# Velocity Date
5 2726 11/10/17 10:10
4 2726 11/10/17 10:09
3 2726 11/10/17 10:08
2 2737 11/10/17 10:07
1 2726 11/10/17 10:05

Nosler Range Test Digital Link
Powder test 44.3 gr
Spread: 28
Average: 2739
Standard Deviation: 10
Shot List
# Velocity Date
5 2737 11/10/17 10:02
4 2721 11/10/17 10:01
3 2749 11/10/17 10:00
2 2749 11/10/17 09:59
1 2743 11/10/17 09:58

Nosler Range Test Digital Link
Powder test 44.1 gr
Spread: 17
Average: 2730
Standard Deviation: 7
Shot List
# Velocity Date
5 2726 11/10/17 09:46
4 2743 11/10/17 09:45
3 2726 11/10/17 09:44
2 2726 11/10/17 09:43
1 2732 11/10/17 09:41

Nosler Range Test Digital Link
Powder test 44.0 gr
Spread: 112
Average: 2681
Standard Deviation: 43
Shot List
# Velocity Date
5 2609 11/10/17 09:37
4 2721 11/10/17 09:36
3 2699 11/10/17 09:35
2 2721 11/10/17 09:34
1 2656 11/10/17 09:33


Nosler Range Test Digital Link
Powder test - 43.0, 43.3, 43.6, 43.9
Average: 2667
Standard Deviation: 53
Shot List
# Velocity Date
4 2715 11/10/17 09:27
3 2710 11/10/17 09:26
2 2661 11/10/17 09:22
1 2583 11/10/17 09:20

the first four rounds were pressure check rounds
 
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Bill DeShivs said:
A candle simply does not have enough heat to warm brass to annealing temperature. You would have to have an awfully long candle.
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According to NIST, a typical candle flame is putting out 77 watts and change. That's 77 Joules/second, by definition. Figure 10% lost as light, same as an incandescent light bulb, so 70 J/s of actual heat. A typical .308 case neck and shoulder plus a little below the shoulder weighs about two grams. Matweb says the specific heat of brass is 0.375 J/°C. So if we wanted to raise that brass to 380-CENSORED-°C, at which it could anneal in about 14 seconds, from a room temperature of 25°C, we would need:

(380-25)×0.375×2= 266 joules of energy, or about the amount of heat the candle puts out every 3.8 seconds. Now, this does not consider heat drawn into the rest of the case nor the heat transfer coefficient at the flame interface, but it does show the energy needed is at least present even though those other factors will slow it down.
 
Think it the rest of the way through UncleNick. Your post refers to potential energy with 90% being focused into the mass of brass just in the neck area not what happens in the lab

as you point out you also have to factor in the body of the case conducting heat from the neck then forgot that most of it will be lost due to radiation from the neck and body of the case into the atmosphere. Also you have to have someway to focus that heat energy just into the case neck none into the atmosphere

physics says that annealing brass with a candle just is not going to happen, not with the amount of heat being lost or never received by the neck brass. I was using Fluke professional grade equipment for measuring and could barely break 300 F let alone 300C


Anyway I would much rather discuss whether even perfect annealing really makes that much difference as far as accuracy. I am beginning to wonder
 
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Back to my take.

1. If you shoot a lot and it save brass, (extends case use x 4 or 5) then it may be worth it on a cost basis depending on how deep your pockets are (time spent is a factor and of course those are subjective to the person doing or not doing it.

2. It does clearly make smoother more consistent bullet seating. How that plays into accuracy I don't make any claims, but you can feel the difference. It maintains low seating force on the brass itself and that alone is good I think.

There does seem to be a great deal of evidence that the smallest velocity deviations are not relative to accuracy. So measuring velocity as a direct correlation to accuracy would look to be a mistake.

That also is variable on range.
 
@RC20

on #1 I agree 100%

on #2 I used to think it did but after several months of experimentation I am beginning to be skeptical

On # 3 I could not disagree more. Common physics says that the larger the velocity differential the larger the vertical spread will be at medium to long range.

That is also why even at medium to close range a low velocity ES across several tenths of a grain of powder will be the more accurate that charge perform in the field. That way if you are off by a tenth or so in either direction when measuring it will make no difference as to the accuracy. I am thinking that is how the short range benchrest boys can get by throwing their charges with Culvers. Which is why my goal for the future is to load develop to the granule of powder while looking for a load so that it can be off by a minimum of 1/10 if not more in either direction when doing day to day loading.

Notice that load that I posted above. After that test I went with the 44.1 load not thinking that when throwing the charge on my chargemaster might be 44.1 one load and 44.0 the next and 44.2 with the third due to the chargemasters scales accuracy and programming. I am going to go back and revisit that load looking at the higher nodes which are flat as a machinists straightedge. At 44.5 grains 4 of the fives shots measured the exact same velocity. Could be chrono error or the best load node in the world. I won't know until I play with it a bit. From 44.1 to 44.5 the velocity is pretty flat and possibly for a couple of tenths more.I wont know till I see but that powder is getting further tests
 
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We went through about an eight year period when brass was very hard to come by, and expensive. That's when I become interested in annealing, my race guns like to split the necks every few rounds. The side benefits have been noted before. We could be only one election away from no brass again.
 
houndawg: Point taken on medium and long for velocity, though I would put medium at 600 yards and long >/=1000 .

Good point it would explain whey the shorter range (100 to 300) can get away with the powder loading methods mentioned.

My direction has been to raunche on the case necks and should as little as I can.

Ergo move to the M die and get the ball out of the sizer.

I don't know if stiff gets really bad before neck split, but it does get bad, so the anneal is a major difference there. No claims to how it affects accuracy, but it does make reloading and mental annoyance /uncertainty a non issue.

Furthest I can shoot within a reasonable drive is 300 meters.

Lounger range where the velocity change does add up really gets more meticulous, and then while you master that (or reduce the variable) you have to deal with wind and heat waves.

So I am happy to stick within something I seem to be able to do decently to my satisfaction.
 
Lounger range where the velocity change does add up really gets more meticulous, and then while you master that (or reduce the variable) you have to deal with wind and heat waves.
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wind has less of an effect at shorter ranges than longer but mirage is a killer for everyone. Even the smallbore shooters get it. Oddly though someone recently showed me that mirage is much easier to read than wind in windy conditions less than 12 mph.

the point on the thrown charges that was all powder throwers be they either a Lee Perfect Powder to a brass and polished aluminum Culver all throw stick + or - .1 to .2 charges with extruded powder yet bench resters swear by them. My theory is if you find a .3 wide node then charge to the middle load and if the throw is off by .1 you still will be in the safe zone for that velocity node. Even a RCBS Chargemaster can be off by .1 to .2 grains on a mid 40's charge I can verify that every time I verify a charge with my beam

While I have no way to verify this but my gut instinct is telling me that barrel harmonics also play into it with the bullet exiting at minutely different spots from the muzzle at slightly different velocities. Just a guess here

Bottom line is world class shooters such as Erik Cortina think long spans of consistent velocities make for consistent verticals spreads so who am I to argue with that
 
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As long as you can get enough time at level of heat to normalize the neck it doesn’t mater what the source is from (candles, friction, funky magnetic fields, plasma touch, whatever)
That said, low heat candle might take a unreasonable amount of time
 
I think I need a break from ammo... This morning, just before waking, I was having a dream that I was using my brass for rocket motors. When I took one apart after falling back to Earth I notice the casing had been annealed by the heat of the combustion. I took them to a bench rest competition and made lots of friends. Everyone from the firing line was there.
 
We could be only one election away from no brass again.
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I must be doing something differently, I have never experienced a shortage of brass.

I will admit I have not spent any time talking about how difficult brass is to find, I have spent a lot of time looking; with the exception 284 cases, there was no shortage, they were not making them. I had a barrel, dies and reamer, I would not build the rifle until I found the cases.

F. Guffey
 
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