Anneal or not to anneal?

[Kwaynem]

Other than helping brass last longer does it help with accuracy reloading enough to worry about?

 

[milboltnut]

Anneal.. it makes more consistent neck tension along with turning necks

 

[Walkalong]

What application?

But no, annealing doesn't automatically mean better accuracy. It's for consistency from batch to batch and case life. Back when I shot Benchrest no one annealed and we shot bugholes, just like they do now when many shooters anneal every time, or every other time etc.

I have been annealing my Dasher cases every other time. It would take some serious testing/shooting to prove a difference.

There are a lot of other factors in accuracy as well. More important factors.

 

[milboltnut]

With walkalongs platform no need for much tweeking

 

[NMexJim]

https://www.sinclairintl.com/guntech/the-not-so-arcane-art-of-brass-annealing/detail.htm?lid=16032

In a bolt gun, when it takes quite a bit to lift the bolt after firing, it’s time to anneal or go get some new brass.

 

[AJC1]

If you have the discipline to anneal every firing on a device that provides a consistent job it will give you more consistent neck tension. A case will harden a little each firing sizing cycle. If you wait 10 cycles the change will be drastic. You may find that your process does not work the brass because your chamber and dies are a good match. Going every other may be effective. A plain yes no answer does not honestly evaluate the major factors at play.

 

[Slamfire]

My F class friends claim that case neck annealing produces smaller groups, but they are seeing things I never saw with a sling shooting irons, or a scope. And they are shooting rigs with forward rests and sand bags, which works well at the range shooting off a bench. I have yet to see a National Forest where there are 600 lb concrete benches every 50 yards for bench rest shooters to use when hunting. So the practicality of their shooting has its limits.

and you sure don't need F class or Bench rest class accuracy in woods like this.



If you are happy with keeping your shots in the ten ring of the NRA SR-3 target at 300 yards, then neck annealing is something you do primarily to keep your case necks from cracking. Which will happen as the work harden.



I do recommend annealing if sizing case necks up or down. I found that my 30-06 cases lasted longer if annealed after necking up to 35 Whelen.

I got decent annealing colors on this 30-06 cases necked up to 35 Whelen.

 

[Airborne Falcon]

Other than helping brass last longer does it help with accuracy reloading enough to worry about?

Anneal ... it's worth doing if you're really really really into reloading.

 

[Airborne Falcon]

Hey Slamfire... awesome post, great cartridge!

 

[Warpiece]

I don't understand the hair gel, what is the reasoning?

 

[Slamfire]

I don't understand the hair gel, what is the reasoning?

Keeps the cartridge case neck from gripping the chamber. Hair gel is mostly vasoline with a bit of pleasant perfumes. And, it won't make me sick if I ingest it when I suck my thumbs. That grease actually migrates back, coats the whole case and prevents it from gripping the chamber. Some of it blows out the tube, reducing jacket fouling. The primary reason I am doing this, is when fireforming, the case neck cannot stick to the front of the chamber, and therefore the whole case slides to the bolt face, the shoulders fold out, and I end up with a stress free, perfectly fireformed case. All I have to do is push the shoulder back 0.003" on the next sizing and I am good to go, and can fire it again, dry, or lubricated, depending on my preference.

Given the cost of these 300 H&H cartridges, and the fact that base to shoulder distance is not controlled, I decided the smart thing to do was coat them on their first firing.





shot well too.



Dipping bullets in grease was common back in the pre WW1 era with cupronickel bullet jackets. Those jackets fouled something awful. Greasing them prevented fouling build up. I have found in one rifle that has a chrome plated barrel, dry bullets foul the barrel quickly. Lubricated, that is greased bullets, prevented jacket fouling in that barrel.

I fired this 30-06 with this much grease, just to see what would happen.



This is a huge, excessive amount of lubriplate AA130, and I could see the air in front of the muzzle become hazy with the amount of grease blown up the tube. The fired case is on the right.

Shot well enough at 100 yards.







Clean up is messy when you over lube.

 

[Varminterror]

If you sort brass by firing, and bail on brass before too many firings, each firing can sustain very consistent neck tension. Crossing between firing counts, life gets pretty complicated without annealing.

 

[Warpiece]

I would've expected something like this to do some very bad things just from the hydraulic side of it. Guess it just goes to show how some things are simply not intuitive. Thank you for the explanation

 

[milboltnut]

Slamfire said...

The primary reason I am doing this, is when fireforming, the case neck cannot stick to the front of the chamber, and therefore the whole case slides to the bolt face, the shoulders fold out, and I end up with a stress free, perfectly fireformed case.

without the lube how would the neck be effected ? I can't see how that little bit of rearward movement would effect the neck diameter, unless I'm missing something, I can't see it. I see neck diameter springing back after the bullet is fired. A loose military chamber can explain that, soring back that is, but not a factory rifle

 

[milsurpguy]

I have asked before for someone to quantify annealing versus no annealing in units of moa. The closest I can get to an answer is it won't matter till at least 300 yards.
I do it for case life on guns that have a 99% or better brass recovery rate.
Anything semiauto, no.

 

[milboltnut]

It also depends on how often you load. Maybe when some people see a annealed case from factory or surplus ammo, they assume they need to do it and run into some others who do it. During manufacturing there is a multiple step process to forming cartridges case and the thinnest part is the neck the next the shoulder. When seating the bullet the neck could crack and have. Case work hardening becomes an issue. I never had an issue from sizing, during normal loadings, when I wasn't trying to enhance accuracy. That should tell you something. But FL sizing without a expander ball, expanding mandrel, neck turning, annealing is needed, and I believe it's a great idea, then back to expanding again creates, for me, a more uniform neck and more consistent neck tension and most likely makes the brass more malleable . Others may disagree, but to each their own. As one said here some benchrest shooters don't anneal. I noticed slow burning powders produce higher velocities but lower pressure and the headspace doesn't change at all. That should tell you something too.

 

[milboltnut]

https://www.sinclairintl.com/guntech/the-not-so-arcane-art-of-brass-annealing/detail.htm?lid=16032

In a bolt gun, when it takes quite a bit to lift the bolt after firing, it’s time to anneal or go get some new brass.

Case shoulder needs to be set back.. that's all.

 

[jmorris]

Other than helping brass last longer does it help with accuracy reloading enough to worry about?

It can, some methods can also give worse results than if you left them alone.

I would suggest you take a small sample group of cases that you can anneal and test side by side with ones you did not. Using the same load and test at the same time on target.

If your annealing process gives results inferior to untouched cases, at least you didn’t ruin all of them.

If you can’t tell any difference, you can decide if it’s worth the extra effort.

If it makes your results better, you will now know by how much.

 

[Walkalong]

Case shoulder needs to be set back.. that's all.

For those who don’t anneal, sooner or later the case resists sizing enough this can (It won’t alway, multiple things in play) happen, and you should have adjusted the die for the harder/springier brass, or annealed before it happened.

 

[Slamfire]

Without the lube how would the neck be effected ? I can't see how that little bit of rearward movement would effect the neck diameter, unless I'm missing something, I can't see it. I see neck diameter springing back after the bullet is fired. A loose military chamber can explain that, soring back that is, but not a factory rifle

What I do not want is this:



or this



or this




These case head separations occur under the following conditions: a dry case is fired in a dry chamber, and the base to shoulder length is less than chamber headspace. That is, there is clearance between the case and chamber. When there is a gap between bolt face and cartridge face, because the dry case neck is fixed to the front of the chamber, something has to give when pressures climb. And what gives is the sidewall of the case. The sidewall stretches.

You can see the stretch develop in Varmit Al's finite element models.


Rifle Chamber Finish & Friction Effects on Bolt Load and Case Head Thinning FEA Calculations done with LS-DYNA





it is particularly bad in semi autos. These guns are designed to unlock when there is still some residual pressure in the chamber, that low pressure, less than 650 psia, helps pop the case out of the chamber (called the residual blowback effect) and increases the time there is energy to move the mechanism. It was common advice to fire a cartridge in a Garand or M1a no more than five times, or the reloader would experience case head separations. Sidewall stretch and case head separations can be reduced to almost nothing by lubricating cases fired in Garands and M1a's. This is my experiement, I took one set of LC cases 22 firings without any evidence of sidewall stretch, in a match M1a



I shot Master class and High Master scores with these rounds, so accuracy was excellent. I used paste wax on the cases because paste wax dries hard and does not attract dirt, like grease does. Paste wax is a combination of several waxes, but one of them is the same stuff that Pedersen applied to his cases.



what caused the loss of these cases were case neck cracks and body splits



I could have reduced the number of case neck cracks by annealing, but when you are shooting in NRA competition every weekend possible, at least three times a month, case neck annealing takes too much time. At least then, expensive rotary case neck annealing machines were not on the market. And also, my ammunition would mostly hold the X ring at all distances, which is good enough accuracy to win the National Matches. Winning the National Matches takes more than just good ammunition and a rifle, but if the combination will hold half the ten ring, then not winning is not the fault of the rifle and the ammunition.

Lee Land is a Civilian Service Rifle Champion, winner of the President's 100, F class and bench rest shooters would consider his reloading process primitive and barbarous. I was squadded with the guy, his ammunition would chamber, go bang, and extract. And with a properly thrown powder charge, in a case that was hand trimmed with a file, full length sized in a standard sizing die, with a good bullet and the cheapest primers around, he would clean the target.

 

[edwardware]

Other than helping brass last longer does it help with accuracy reloading enough to worry about?

Depends. . . how much accuracy are you worried about?

I suspect it's relevant once you're at 0.5MOA, chasing 0.25MOA.

I use it for case forming, and extending brass life. As usual @Slamfire has provided an excellent thesis on the subject, and my experience mirrors his. With careful sizing and annealing, I've worn out M1 .30-06 brass for loose primer pockets at 15-18 reloads, with no incipient head separations. Without annealing they go ~5 reloads and then split necks.

 

[EricBu]

The 3 main calibers I anneal are:

338 LM...I anneal after every firing now. This because over the years, starting with new unfired Lapua brass, I could actually measure the spreading of my 100 yard groups after each firing. By the 4th firing, I had lost 1/4 MOA, which translated to an inch at 400 yards. Annealing each firing has eliminated that completely. Note: Lapua explicitly says to not anneal their brass.....of course, they are in the business of selling you brass. With consistent annealing......Lapua brass seems to last forever. Heck, if I keep it under 92 grains of H1000 under a 300 SMK, I don't even have to trim but every 4 loadings or so.

.308....basically the same reason as above, but also because in this case....I get a bit more life out of crappier brass, which is all I've been able to get the last year.

300 BLK. This is all about 5.56 conversion. When you cut down 5.56 to form 300 BLK, you cut to the hardened portion of the case. This results in completely random neck tension, and neck cracking, especially if you crimp. Annealing after cutting and forming alleviates those problems. If you're shooting mostly coated cast and belling/crimping, it's not the accuracy difference isn't really relevant, but if you are shooting light jacketed supers that don't need belling to load, you don't need to crimp as you'll have proper neck tension, and the accuracy downrange is much improved. Consistent annealing means I load converted military brass until the primer pocket stretches, and I don't ever see cracked case mouths.

 

[Walkalong]

Lapua explicitly says to not anneal their brass.....of course, they are in the business of selling you brass

Yep, but I too anneal Lapua brass for match/accuracy type applications.

 

[JFrank]

https://www.sinclairintl.com/guntech/the-not-so-arcane-art-of-brass-annealing/detail.htm?lid=16032

In a bolt gun, when it takes quite a bit to lift the bolt after firing, it’s time to anneal or go get some new brass.

That would be increased radial expansion near the .200 line known as clickers. Annealing the CSJ won't help that.

 

[Ru4real]

Sometimes when to anneal becomes self evident.

I was loading 358 Win once in multiple use brass and seating the bullet collapsed the shoulder, two cases in a row.

I annealed the rest of the batch of cases. Not another problem for the remaining 90 or so loads.