blow torch, water and brass cases

[cracked butt]

If you look you will see that the brass was chilled (it looks) before they start to torch it. you can see the condensation on the brass

Nope, not chilled. There is always going to be moisture (or oil, resizing lube, or other volatiles) in the pores or rough surface of the metal. When you heat it, the moisture is dried off.

When you set the brass down, the rest of the case will eventually get hot to the touch- but not any hotter than if it were fired in the chamber of a rifle which isn't enough to anneal the brass.

 

[Slamfire]

Contrary to some folks opinion, it works just fine.

Without it, case loss is unacceptable when re-forming or fire-forming 30-06 & .308 to many other calibers.

With it, every case is a good one when you get done.

What sort of case life do you have after annealing. I am interested because someday I may shoot 6.5-08 or 35 Whelen, and I have lots of 308 and 30-06 cases.

I did this for a while, but then realized that both case stretching and case hardening were more related to shooting hot loads. I was not shooting hot loads and noticed that my full length resizing and shooting was not making the cases longer like some folks shooting hot loads. Pretty soon I realized I really did not have to trim or anneal my cases.

I took one set of 100 LC 64 cases 22 or 24 reloads in a M1a. I lost more cases in the weeds than I did to case neck cracks or body splits. I finally retired the remaining brass because the pockets were getting large and I was getting leery of taking the stuff much further.

Based on my experience, I don't anneal cases. They seem to last fine as is. Assuming that you are setting up your sizing dies with cartridge gages. Setting the shoulder too far back is one good way to get a case head separation, and you can't anneal your way out of those.

 

[Rook rifle]

Annealing

NOT to many WILDCATERS on this thread we have to anneal all of our cases necks and shoulders

 

[CBS220]

Haven't read the posts, but unless you are significantly modifying the case to form a new one, annealing is almost entirely uncalled for.

 

[taliv]

yeah, i mean, when your necks start to get brittle, why anneal when you can just buy new brass, sort it, trim it, turn the necks, uniform the pockets, etc?

heck, it's not like brass is expensive these days. i'm sure if you called lapua and told them you've only shot your brass 8 times and were getting split necks, they'd send you your money back.

 

[HJ857]

heck, it's not like brass is expensive these days. i'm sure if you called lapua and told them you've only shot your brass 8 times and were getting split necks, they'd send you your money back.

HA! I have a whole pile of 6.5 Grendel brass that I'd be happy get refunded for.