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akinswi

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In my quest to save more time reloading and spend more time actually shooting, I invested more money in new brass vs maxing out the life of the brass I had on hand.

Now, I bought 1000 cases of 30-06 and plan on reloading them 2 times after firing for a total of 3,000 .

My main question is this, Do I need to anneal at all if im only reloading the cases two more times. Or would I need to anneal them new out of the box then not bother annealing them after that?

2nd question is would you save 500, cases to shoot in matches that are brand new or just cycle thru the whole lot?

3rd question, would you trim them back further than 2.484 so I would only have to trim once before I toss them?

This is for my M1s and they beat the heck out of the brass, I noticed after 2 to 3 firings, the case heads are so gouged from the extractors that , I can not fix them with a small file anymore . Trimming and annealing are my biggest time consuming activities when preping brass. It literally takes me hours to load 50 match grade rounds.

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I have pushed four reloads from cases, but had a couple of partial case head separations. I think your idea of three firings is good. Mine beats the life out of cases. I can look at the case head and tell how many times it has been fired from the dings on the rims. I do not know how you resize but i can recommend the RCBS case mic. Used per the instructions it will tell you how much you should set the shoulder back. It will help prevent too much set back which controls case streach.
 
Sorry i did not answer your questions.
I would anneal after each firing.
I would use previously fired cases. Resized properly they would fit your chamber better than new ones.
If using them in competition I would trim them all to a uniform length.

The correct name of the tool I recommended is RCBS Precision Mic
 
New cases, never previously fired, should be reloadable well beyond the life you are trying to get from them. One of Norma's inspection standards, for example, is to periodically sample cases from a run as it is being made and test to be sure it will handle 10 reloadings without annealing and without failures. While there are arguments about how frequently one should anneal, if it helps accuracy, it won't likely be the kind of help that you'll see on the target in a gun that can't shoot 1/2 moa. Nonetheless, try the experiment for yourself. Take 10 cases that you anneal every time and 10 that you don't and compare the accuracy you get shooting them through your expected life cycle. You may see some better consistency in the amount of shoulder resizing you get if you anneal every time, but the difference should be small for just three loadings.

The usual reason you hear for the old rule of thumb not to reload more than four times (five, if you count the new ammo firing) is head separations. These result both from long chambers and hard extraction while there is still residual pressure in the bore. My Garands mark the case rims, but not as badly as you describe. Since you are using the Garand Gear plug, I wouldn't expect yours to yank on them that hard, so the fact you are getting the issue suggests the cases are sticking pretty hard to the chamber. That is something you may mitigate by smoothing the chamber with the 30-06 Flex-hone tools and polishing them a bit. Board member Slamfire lubricates his cases and can get many more reloads that way, so that is another option. Much of the concern about that practice producing too much bolt thrust is greatly overblown. You can read Varmint Al's analysis if you want some reassurance in that area. He found petroleum-based lubes and polishing do not reduce friction enough to create a hazard that way, especially not with typical Garand level loads.

For match brass, I would get a tool to measure neck wall runout and sort the brass that has the most uniform necks to use in important matches. Say, the best 20%. These should have a slight accuracy edge for you.
 
I have gotten a lot more reloads than 3 or 4 from my 7mm mag, 7-08, 6.5x55 brass - but then I only neck size after initial firing. I still have brass from decades ago that load and shoot just fine
 
FITASC,

He is shooting a Garand. Neck sizing is a recipe for slamfire risk in that or other floating firing pin self-loaders and should be avoided.
 
Unclenick said:
New cases, never previously fired, should be reloadable well beyond the life you are trying to get from them. One of Norma's inspection standards, for example, is to periodically sample cases from a run as it is being made and test to be sure it will handle 10 reloadings without annealing and without failures. While there are arguments about how frequently one should anneal, if it helps accuracy, it won't likely be the kind of help that you'll see on the target in a gun that can't shoot 1/2 moa. Nonetheless, try the experiment for yourself. Take 10 cases that you anneal every time and 10 that you don't and compare the accuracy you get shooting them through your expected life cycle. You may see some better consistency in the amount of shoulder resizing you get if you anneal every time, but the difference should be small for just three loadings.

The usual reason you hear for the old rule of thumb not to reload more than four times (five, if you count the new ammo firing) is head separations. These result both from long chambers and hard extraction while there is still residual pressure in the bore. My Garands mark the case rims, but not as badly as you describe. Since you are using the Garand Gear plug, I wouldn't expect yours to yank on them that hard, so the fact you are getting the issue suggests the cases are sticking pretty hard to the chamber. That is something you may mitigate by smoothing the chamber with the 30-06 Flex-hone tools and polishing them a bit. Board member Slamfire lubricates his cases and can get many more reloads that way, so that is another option. Much of the concern about that practice producing too much bolt thrust is greatly overblown. You can read Varmint Al's analysis if you want some reassurance in that area. He found petroleum-based lubes and polishing do not reduce friction enough to create a hazard that way, especially not with typical Garand level loads.

For match brass, I would get a tool to measure neck wall runout and sort the brass that has the most uniform necks to use in important matches. Say, the best 20%. These should have a slight accuracy edge for you.
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Nick,

This M1 is using the GI plug, I left the Garand Gear Plug in the H&R M1. The SA M1 has been shooting so well with the new Criterion Barrel I didnt want to even sneeze on the gas cyclinder or remove the plug.

But both gouge the case heads pretty badly. I noticed it with anything from shooting 125 TNTS up to 168 SMKs.

Most of the time I can take very small slender file, and smooth them out. But its time consuming and when you lose a piece of brass that you hand filed in the grass its deflating.

Do you recall what he lubricated the cases with?
 
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As long as the cases only have at most 1 more firing than the other cases then I don't think any annealing is really needed. Where I ran into problems was when I mixed cases with 9 or 10 firings in with cases that had only 1 or 2 firings. My theory is that was caused by the necks having drastically different amounts of work hardening

the way I see it is that the purpose of "annealing" is to return the metal in the neck tpo appx the same hardness to give each the same yield point. Therefore as long as each case has the same number of firings annealing is not necessary.

I developed this theory 2 years ago when I moved and all my .260 Remington cases got mixed together. 300 + cases with different numbers of firings on them and none had been annealed for years. I began getting odd high/low flyers at 300 yards and out during matches.

So I picked out 50 cases from the bag and "annealed" them using my Annealeeze and the flyers went away. Now I know that the Annealeeze did not give me a full anneal. At 400C (750 F) all you get is a soft anneal, but the flyers went away and my problem was solved. For whatever reason the torch treatment seemed to bring all the cases back to where the elastic/plastic properties of the necks was consistent

I now use a AMP which gives me a full flash anneal, and it is super fast and easy compared to the torch and socket or the Annealeeze but score wise I am no better off than I was with the flame methods.
 
hounddawg said:
As long as the cases only have at most 1 more firing than the other cases then I don't think any annealing is really needed. Where I ran into problems was when I mixed cases with 9 or 10 firings in with cases that had only 1 or 2 firings. My theory is that was caused by the necks having drastically different amounts of work hardening

the way I see it is that the purpose of "annealing" is to return the metal in the neck tpo appx the same hardness to give each the same yield point. Therefore as long as each case has the same number of firings annealing is not necessary.

I developed this theory 2 years ago when I moved and all my .260 Remington cases got mixed together. 300 + cases with different numbers of firings on them and none had been annealed for years. I began getting odd high/low flyers at 300 yards and out during matches.

So I picked out 50 cases from the bag and "annealed" them using my Annealeeze and the flyers went away. Now I know that the Annealeeze did not give me a full anneal. At 400C (750 F) all you get is a soft anneal, but the flyers went away and my problem was solved. For whatever reason the torch treatment seemed to bring all the cases back to where the elastic/plastic properties of the necks was consistent

I now use a AMP which gives me a full flash anneal, and it is super fast and easy compared to the torch and socket or the Annealeeze but score wise I am no better off than I was with the flame methods.
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hounddawg, Amps are great but way out of my price range . If I ever got into Flcass and started shooting boltaction again would def invest in one!
 
akinswi said:
hounddawg, Amps are great but way out of my price range . If I ever got into Flcass and started shooting boltaction again would def invest in one!
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AMPS are great for convenience and speed but I don't think they do any better job at preparing brass than a plumbers torch, a socket, and a cordless drill used properly.

I bought my AMP when I melted the short plastic wheel on my Annealeez while annealing some 6.5 Grendel one Sunday afternoon. I had previously melted a set of wheels annealing 6BR a month earlier. The Annealeeze worked great for cartridges such as .308, .260 Rem, .223 and .204 ruger but short fat cartridges it sucked. Every 15 to 20 6BR or 6.5 Grendel cartridges with the Annealeeze you need to let the wheels cool off or cases will melt into the wheels which causes a train wreck.

I sold that Annealeeze to a guy at the club who had been using the torch and drill method. All he shoots are long cased cartridges and .223 . He went on this summer to win both the the mid and long range club championships in the AR Tactical using .223 brass annealed on that Annealeeze. In the mid range championship he shot 3 clean targets for a 600. Almost set a National record

If I had it to do over I would save myself about 1200 dollars and have a EP 2.0 sitting on the bench

https://www.epintegrations.com/
 
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The torch is way hotter than that @ 2000 - 3000 F. You don't aim the torch at the wheels or they melt instantly. You aim the flame at the neck of the case. What happens is that the brass that has been annealed heats the wheels slowly with each piece. After 20 or so cases the wheels start getting hot enough to get sticky. The case stacks to the wheel and bazinga...train wreck. As I said I destroyed 2 set of the short wheels. No problem as long as you use .308 or .223, or any long case just be careful with short fat cases.
 
My brass easily last for 20 loads. I anneal and trim every 5 loads.

I think the op's rifle is over gasing. The op rod must be over working. Probably no a good thing to keep on doing. I have no problem greasing the brass. But I don't explicitly apply grease to brass unless I see the necessity. I simply don't wipe the lube off after sizing.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
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