Anneal....when in the process?

Tim

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probably a dumb question....at what point in the reload process do you anneal?

I'm not talking about deciding if a case needs it.

I'm assuming...

- tumble
- anneal
- size/trim
- etc
 
Annealing serves two purposes, one to extend case life; the other to keep case neck tension consistent. It keeps the case neck pliable and returns the brass pre-firing hardness after it has been hardened by the heat of firing. In theory, if your loads are consistent, the amount that hardness increases with every firing should be relatively consistent, provided all of the brass is fired under the same environmental conditions. In fact, I suspect that unless your annealing process is very consistent, you may well introduce greater variability in case neck tension by annealing after every firing than you would annealing at a set interval simply because the temperature may exceed the mechanical working variation of firing and resizing. I base this on empirical evidenced offered by some shooter who use the AMP annealing machine and claim that it tightened up their groups significantly when they changed annealing equipment. Unfortunately, though I have read several of these claims, none have disclosed their annealing intervals. It makes sense to me though.

While you cannot over anneal brass if you keep your temperature under control, I suspect that you can actually increase the variability of the hardness of the case neck from one firing to the next.

I anneal before every reloading for three reasons, first, I am confident in my ability to maintain consistent annealing temperatures, secondly, it gives me something to do and keeps me out of my wife's way without getting into trouble, and third, because I have never seen any testing or studies that anyone has done to support some any quantitative way to determine when to anneal. Most people say every 3rd to 4th firing, or maybe when you need to case trim, but they offer nothing to support whatever interval they use for annealing. Maybe someone on the forum, has done their own testing to determine a good interval.

So, with the realization that if temperature is set properly, you cannot over anneal, and with no quantitative means of determining the best annealing interval, I opt for annealing after every firing, even though I realize it is most likely overkill.

Any metallurgists on the forum?
 
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The other end of the spectrum (another reason to anneal besides ultimate accuracy and case life as is being discussed above) is to anneal 300BLK or similarly reformed cases after initially reforming it from the parent case (223 for 300BLK), because the new neck is a completely differently part of the brass than in the parent case.

Just thought I'd mention that. Carry on.
 
The other end of the spectrum (another reason to anneal besides ultimate accuracy and case life as is being discussed above) is to anneal 300BLK or similarly reformed cases after initially reforming it from the parent case (223 for 300BLK), because the new neck is a completely differently part of the brass than in the parent case.

Just thought I'd mention that. Carry on.

Quite correct. I don’t form brass and therefore neglected that. But then, I guess my wife is right and I do live in my own little world.

Don’t tell her I admitted that.


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