Thread: Do you need a fancy machine to anneal?

Weather has been not good for much the last couple days so I spent most of my time reloading.
I biffed all my flash Lapua brass a while ago and started mucking around with cheap Rem brass. For some reason everything improved markedly.

I have around 50 cases Rem brass that have 2 firings.
I normally sent my brass to a mate to get annealed but after reading some articles on the benefit of annealing after every firing I thought there may be some merit to it.
Being a gear freak I was fully intending to buy a flash machine to achieve this.
With the weather being as it was, I had to occupy myself somehow so I did some experimenting.
I prepped 10 cases and got out the old propane torch.
Secured my cases in my battery drill with a Sinclair case holder.


Held the case neck with the drill full noise at the tip of the inner blue flame for 7 seconds as steady as possible.

And dropped it into an ice cream container full of water.

Dried them out. Necksized and loaded them up.
While seating the projectiles I normally use graphite powder. I still used it but noted how consistent, seating felt thru my press despite it.
I went out and shot some groups and tested velocity. Results were good and I repeated the process a couple times.

The following results are from the 6th firing of the tested cases and 3 times annealed in the most scientific fashion😆

A combination of things could be at play regarding accuracy of the rifle but I normally could group 5 rnds around .8"
ES was usually between 10 - 20 fps but most of the variation was evident on the 4th and 5th shots.
My new barrel could have also settled a little as it has fired 136 rnds.
Barrel has not been cleaned for 20+ rounds and projectiles are HBN coated.

I normally only fire 3 rnd groups to test zero and accuracy as it is hunting rifle not a target rifle, besides shooting paper bores the hell out of me all be it necessary.

ES was pretty good. I took the pic after deleting everything on my chrony by accident. The first 2 shots were 2974 and 2980.


Group was shot at 109 yrds. MPI needs to be at 1.4" for 200yrd zero.
Bottom hole has 2 in it.


Back of box sort of shows the key holed shot.


Early days yet but I think I will hold of on a flash annealing machine.

With the weather mending, my son will hopefully put one of my flash harry bullets into a Haast spiker in the next couple days.

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Another really good post R93 thanks for that


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What made you do 7 seconds? Was that when the colour looked right?

Originally Posted by Gibo

What made you do 7 seconds? Was that when the colour looked right?

It was the colour and recommended by some other backyard nutter on an American shooting site😆
As I said, it is early days and not really scientific but has worked so far.
Brass is not to soft so I am happy for now.
I would get between 8-10 loads out of my brass with the same load only annealing twice at the most.
Will see if it I can improve on it, but as long as it remains accurate I am happy.
After all the benefits of loads like these are only seen at extended ranges.

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Originally Posted by BRADS

Another really good post R93 thanks for that


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Cheers mate. Pretty boring but until the weather improves so am I😆

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Originally Posted by R93

It was the colour and recommended by some other backyard nutter on an American shooting site��
As I said, it is early days and not really scientific but has worked so far.
Brass is not to soft so I am happy for now.
I would get between 8-10 loads out of my brass with the same load only annealing twice at the most.
Will see if it I can improve on it, but as long as it remains accurate I am happy.

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Cheers. The time would be dictated by the anount of heat put out by the tourch. I have a pissy little one. May have a jam myself. Got heaps of old brass to practise on first. Thanks for the post

Originally Posted by R93

Cheers mate. Pretty boring but until the weather improves so am I

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Want to swap for some 28 degree heat wave?
Assuming 260brass on the 93?


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Originally Posted by Gibo

Cheers. The time would be dictated by the anount of heat put out by the tourch. I have a pissy little one. May have a jam myself. Got heaps of old brass to practise on first. Thanks for the post

The case neck showed a very, very dull red in the right light. Temper marks are the same colour and at the same point on new Lapua brass, so hopefully I have it right😆

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Do you size and champh etc before or after? You mentioned preping first.

Originally Posted by BRADS

Want to swap for some 28 degree heat wave?
Assuming 260brass on the 93?


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Na!!! We had 44° days in PNG last swing.
I am happy to be in a cooler place.
Still a bit muggy despite the rain tho.

Yup .260 Rem brass. It was necked turned as well.

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I was trying to figure how to make an annealer for a while but need a very grunty transformer. The one the duleys have are farken expensive.
Did you try the Lapua .260rem brass, you were saying you had poor results with the resized .308 stuff.

Originally Posted by Gibo

Do you size and champh etc before or after? You mentioned preping first.

I anneal then resize Gibo.

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Originally Posted by K95

I was trying to figure how to make an annealer for a while but need a very grunty transformer. The one the duleys have are farken expensive.
Did you try the Lapua .260rem brass, you were saying you had poor results with the resized .308 stuff.

Yeah mate, I had only Lapua brass for all my cals except .223
The Rem brass as cheap as it is just works better in my barrel for some reason.

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I put my resized cases into a 3 jaw lathe chuck turning at about 300rpm. I use a butane torch, same as you and hold until a very slight dull red colour appears on neck- shoulder. I then remove case from chuck holding with pliers and place into a steel container, but no water. Water cooling is not necessary except for production speed.
I have found that MV drops about 30-40 fps in newly annealed case necks. I figure this might be due to the softer brass exerting somewhat less neck tension, but I am not totally sure about this. (Cal 7*61 with MV around 2850+fps using 160 SMK.) Accuracy is maintained compared to non annealed brass. (All NORMA brass)

I found it essential for any kind of consistency running subsonic .308
I would just do the same as you on my portable bbq but for subsonic I would "over anneal" it so was soft as in the neck, if un annealed the low pressure would not seal the neck against the chamber and es was around a hundred Fps, annealed as close as a f1 will measure.