Thread: annealing help please

Originally Posted by Dama dama

So what I'm taking from this thread is unless you are after absolute precision or use rare/expensive brass then don't bother. Just chuck it out and buy new lot of cases.

Will pay freight for your 222. 223 and 243 brass.

Originally Posted by 10-Ring

Perfect annealing is not just about saving cases from splitting contrary to popular opinion. It's also and probably more so about consistent neck tension. Every time you resize a fired case you work harden the brass and that alters the neck tension from the previous reload of that case. Variable neck tension is not conducive to accuracy.

We do the unscientific way with Makita drill but no expander. Having a great trot with 53gr Barnes loaded that way. All deer been head shot. Froggy is a smart dude but then if you shoot golf balls at 800m you must know what you are doing. Reloading is like sex. Missionary resizing is not the only way. That rod is slaying trout.

Originally Posted by Cordite

Hope you are being sarcastic there.

Yeah kinda, not really.
In all honesty, pretty confused by the whole thing really. Surely I can get 5 or 6 reloads out of a peice of brass with out annealing -especially if I need a $1000 machine to do it!

Can one achieve, all be it labour intensively, the same out come with a gas touch from Mitre 10?

Originally Posted by Dama dama

Yeah kinda, not really.
In all honesty, pretty confused by the whole thing really. Surely I can get 5 or 6 reloads out of a peice of brass with out annealing -especially if I need a $1000 machine to do it!

Can one achieve, all be it labour intensively, the same out come with a gas touch from Mitre 10?

No

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I know some old hunters who routinely got 22 to 25 reloads per round out of their triple deuces in a time when a penny was worth a lot of money. They did not have full power loads but were quick to comment one in the swede is better than the fastest bullet.

Originally Posted by Dama dama

Yeah kinda, not really.
In all honesty, pretty confused by the whole thing really. Surely I can get 5 or 6 reloads out of a peice of brass with out annealing -especially if I need a $1000 machine to do it!

Can one achieve, all be it labour intensively, the same out come with a gas touch from Mitre 10?

They are closer to $2k probably a little over that.
I use hot salt annealing with my brass, sure it's not perfect but it's far better than not annealing at all.
I'm certainly not saying its "perfect" (pun totally intended) and if I could afford an AMP I totally would own one.
You won't achieve the same result with flame or hot salt but keeping the consistency as accurate as humanely possible ie temp and time, will still be better than doing nothing at all.
Now all that being said even though I own a hot salt annealing setup I will probably send my brass away to get AMP annealed with my new project as it is the very best most accurate way to anneal brass.
I don't need to own one there are a few forum members that offer this service as well as a couple handloading clubs that own a machine for members to use, also there is a fella on trademe that offers a postal service so no need to shit the bed on the outlay. If I was annealing 100's or 1000's of cases I would probably bute the bullet (yet another delicious intended pun).
No hate and no I'm not gonna read the book just some perspective from a non AMP owner.

Originally Posted by Dama dama

Yeah kinda, not really.
In all honesty, pretty confused by the whole thing really. Surely I can get 5 or 6 reloads out of a peice of brass with out annealing -especially if I need a $1000 machine to do it!

Can one achieve, all be it labour intensively, the same out come with a gas touch from Mitre 10?

It seems you are talking about annealing in order to avoid overworking your brass, to get more reloads per case. Here the main considerations are to heat sufficiently to anneal the neck/shoulder, but not overdoing it and ending up annealing (softening, weakening) the cartridge base.

Most on this thread who invest in annealing machines speak of annealing with utmost CONSISTENCY in order to minimise neck tension variability, thus achieving greater accuracy.

The M10 gas torch is just fine for the first application, and you can work on doing it the same way for each case. The M10 gas torch is probably marginal for the second application.

The hint above about not going for max loads but for accuracy is spot on. Allows longer case life and more fun shooting. And get a bipod.

Originally Posted by Cordite

It seems you are talking about annealing in order to avoid overworking your brass, to get more reloads per case. Here the main considerations are to heat sufficiently to anneal the neck/shoulder, but not overdoing it and ending up annealing (softening, weakening) the cartridge base.

Most on this thread who invest in annealing machines speak of annealing with utmost CONSISTENCY in order to minimise neck tension variability, thus achieving greater accuracy.

The M10 gas torch is just fine for the first application, and you can work on doing it the same way for each case. The M10 gas torch is probably marginal for the second application.

The hint above about not going for max loads but for accuracy is spot on. Allows longer case life and more fun shooting. And get a bipod.

What he said, this is the most sensible answer in the whole thread.
Like any new skill it takes time to learn, get hands on advice from someone that has experience.

I’m sending some 5x fired Norma 243 cases to the guy on TradeMw today, plus some 25 year old Lapua 7.62x51 I found in my reloading cupboard.

A while ago the ugly annealer was mentioned on here, I think it may have been fairly new to the market at that stage? It looked like a reasonable bit of kit for the $ https://www.derraco.com/ is there any local user experience out there on this machine?

However at the prices that guy on trademe is annealing for and the quality of outcome given he is using the AMP it is almost hard to justify the price of buying a dedicated annealer

Originally Posted by yerimaginaryM8

A while ago the ugly annealer was mentioned on here, I think it may have been fairly new to the market at that stage? It looked like a reasonable bit of kit for the $ https://www.derraco.com/ is there any local user experience out there on this machine?

However at the prices that guy on trademe is annealing for and the quality of outcome given he is using the AMP it is almost hard to justify the price of buying a dedicated annealer

I have hummed and harred about getting one to replace my hot salt bath, just for the fact you can load it up and let it feed itself instead of manually feeding shells in.
But in reality that money would anneal a lot of brass a lot more consistently even if I paid the trademe guy to AMP anneal it.
The trademe guy seems like a pretty reasonable service, send you dirty fired cases and he will decap, polish and anneal for $25 including return freight.
I have other options for getting my brass AMP annealed though.

Is that per 100? Took me 20mins to anneal 208 cases the other day, so if he's cleaning and decapping I'd say that's a good deal

Originally Posted by charliehorse

Is that per 100? Took me 20mins to anneal 208 cases the other day, so if he's cleaning and decapping I'd say that's a good deal

Yup per 100 cases

Originally Posted by Cigar

I’m sending some 5x fired Norma 243 cases to the guy on TradeMw today, plus some 25 year old Lapua 7.62x51 I found in my reloading cupboard.

I got my cases back today. 124 annealed for $20 including return shipping, and he even gave them a polish for free.
He uses the Aztec system that requires a sacrificial case to work out the best setting, so you lose one case per batch, but he records the setting so you don't lose a case for subsequent annealing of the same batch.

Pretty good price alright. There's no way I'd do it for that piddling amount. I just do a couple of close friends cases and my own after every firing.