Thread: Annealing

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...14785322026700

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT9TAqasA4o

Not scientific but when I started reloading again back in '05 I started in rifle with my old teenage growing up calibre, the mighty 303B. Brass was CAC boxer primed from the 1940s. Using some Walker Cast bullets around 180gn IIRC, and 3031 powder I made about 20 on my brand new Dillon 550B. Expanded the case mouth slightly to seat the bullets, closed them up lightly with crimp die. Sat them on the bench on a reloading block, bullet up, for a few days to admire my handiwork. About 5 days later the necks started splitting. Oner half of them. Just sitting there splitting. Read up everything I could find, discovered annealing, bought a butane torch and proceeded to learn the hard way. Eventually I got it reasonably sussed. Have never had a recurrence. Yes I eventually wear the old brass out but I hand anneal every 3rd shot. 308Win I anneal around every 5th shot. Old brass just keeps on going. Over annealing causes the case to collapse at the shoulder when seating = brass too soft. You figure that out pretty quick.
So I don't have any data on accuracy etc but I can load slow shoulder brass and after a little annealing it at least stays loaded and can be reloaded over again. FWIW

The only bits of info I can contribute and not to any data set, but

1. as long as it's done properly and not over or underdone, not a lot of difference in my opinion between induction and flame. The issue is the ability of the user to be repeatable and the brass temp to get to the right figure for the right time.

2. the only time I've known annealing to be actually critical for the points you mentioned is one rifle where for whatever reason the neck cut of the chamber seemed to be oversize or something else weird going on. Resizing whatever brass fired in that rifle without annealing resulted in very light neck tension, which gave erratic performance on target and the odd smokey firing. Annealing allowed a lot more consistent resizing and neck tension, and a much better SD. Oddly the rifle wasn't inaccurate. This was a unique situation though.

I too would be interested to see the results of a well-set-up investigation of this!

Hello all, this my first post as a new member though I have been hanging around listening to what others have to say for a while. Would it be correct to assume after reading a few of the above links putting a bit of heat on case necks and shoulders every few loadings is most likely to help with case life? As in do more good than harm? I’ve only been loading for a short time but some hornady 270wsm cases I have only lasted about 3 loadings before they started splitting badly around the necks. Not hot load’s really, about book max in the nosler and Alliant data. Tried about a grain heavier without high pressure signs but accuracy dropped so went back down.

I always remember the test that a bunch of guys did on Lapua SRP brass, 6.5 Creedmoor. They did the load development up to 43gr H4350 with 143gr ELD-X, which is right on the limit of too hot, then proceeded to FLR / reload / fire until the point of brass failure. Except it didn’t fail.

IIRC they got to 20 firings and gave up.

I looked at that and said 20x 100 is 2,000, for a hunting rifle I’m never gonna have to worry about annealing or any other might-maybe-possibly trickery, and haven’t looked back since. KISS principle rules here.

If I can remember who it was I’ll post the link.

I remembered…. https://youtu.be/JmDFtQ4DJmA?si=Y8uD6ZmpCmuIsymw

Im sure @akaroa1 did the reload and fire of a .30/30 round and gave up after a dozen??? loads...dont think it was annealed

There wasn't the hard data so the 'nay brigade' all ho-hummed induction annealing.
Amp went and did said testing (a tonne of it) but the nay brigade still think because its their testing that it
should be viewed with extreme suspicion..... cant win!

But brass doesn't 'work harden' the way other metals do (correct me if im wrong) but it does go brittle and then crack.
Maybe the difference is that there is no increase in strength as with real work hardening??

Not sure the cracking is due to work hardening, more likely to be a form of stress corrosion cracking.

Originally Posted by gimp

Has anyone got a link to a well designed, valid, statistically meaningful test to demonstrate whether there is


1. value in annealing vs not annealing in terms of velocity change over brass life, velocity consistency, and/or dispersion?
2. performance of induction vs flame annealing?

One tip.
Go and watch the result videos of annealing made perfect.
They will cover all your questions.
Awesome machine

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