Annealing

[QuietTexan]

If the warm fuzzies comment was in good faith, I'll apologize. Came off condescending, typically the annealing threads devolve into ****ing matches over which method is better and AMP is a favorite target of trolling by a group of people who refuse to accept tangible evidence that refutes their opinions. I'll eat it, thanks for not being a Richard back

Flame annealing can produce very consistent, quality results. There's no reason not to do it if it's working. It's actually much harder to over-anneal with flame than is commonly thought based on a lot of testing done by several flame-annealing proponents. It might not have the repeatable precision of induction annealing but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a place as a valid process. Avoiding split necks alone is enough of a reason to do it, and if your shoulder bumps are consistent then that's about as good as you can ask of any by-hand process, including DIY induction annealers.

 

[PA Plumber]

My post was in good faith.
I have reloaded a long time but am not an expert at all. I just try to be brutally consistent and careful.
In trying to get more life out of my brass, I've started researching annealing. The pic I attached is my first try at it.
I did notice the brass was very easy to full length resize after.
Now I'm wondering how often to anneal. I don't have the "feel" for when brass needs annealed again or if every time is necessary.
As far as if my budget annealing set up is working, I don't know yet. Not that far along in the learning curve.

 

[QuietTexan]

All good sir, my apologies.

You're correct that resizing will be easier. If you're seeing that, it's working for you. You should see more consistent movement of the shoulders on the case, but you might have to readjust your die to account for the reduced amount that the brass is springing back after annealing. Do you have any kind of a headspace comparator like the Hornady tool? If you do you can take actual measurements, but if you don't you can use your chamber as a reference.

One method of figuring out how often to anneal is based on readjusting your sizing die. Back your sizing die off until it's at least a full turn above contacting the shell holder, size a case, and if it chambers in the rifle then load and shoot it. Repeat firings until the case won't chamber any more. At that point anneal the cases, then adjust the sizing die down down in 1/8ths of a turn increments until a case chambers in the rifle.*

Then resize and shoot however many cycles it takes until that die setting isn't enough to resize the case and they stop fitting in the rifle again. That's when you anneal again, and after resizing in the die (without adjusting it) the cases should fit again.

* - Try not to size the same case more than once if you have enough cases, you can resize all these "test" cases at the end at the final setting, but using a fresh case each turn of the die will help you be more accurate. No cases get damaged as part of this, they're all useable but it's better if they only get sized twice as part of setting the die.

 

[PA Plumber]

All good sir, my apologies.

You're correct that resizing will be easier. If you're seeing that, it's working for you. You should see more consistent movement of the shoulders on the case, but you might have to readjust your die to account for the reduced amount that the brass is springing back after annealing. Do you have any kind of a headspace comparator like the Hornady tool? If you do you can take actual measurements, but if you don't you can use your chamber as a reference.

One method of figuring out how often to anneal is based on readjusting your sizing die. Back your sizing die off until it's at least a full turn above contacting the shell holder, size a case, and if it chambers in the rifle then load and shoot it. Repeat firings until the case won't chamber any more. At that point anneal the cases, then adjust the sizing die down down in 1/8ths of a turn increments until a case chambers in the rifle.*

Then resize and shoot however many cycles it takes until that die setting isn't enough to resize the case and they stop fitting in the rifle again. That's when you anneal again, and after resizing in the die (without adjusting it) the cases should fit again.

* - Try not to size the same case more than once if you have enough cases, you can resize all these "test" cases at the end at the final setting, but using a fresh case each turn of the die will help you be more accurate. No cases get damaged as part of this, they're all useable but it's better if they only get sized twice as part of setting the die.

No worries.
Other than the basics, beam powder scale, powder throw, lee primer seater and a digital caliber, I do not have any specialty tools. I figure my distance to lands with a bullet, shell, and lots of messing around until I get consistent readings. I have a friend who made me a couple of trim-to measuring guides for my 280 and 223.

Thank You for taking the time to explain the when to anneal process. I have standard RCBS 280 dies. Nothing fancy.

 

[QuietTexan]

Sounds like the chamber fitting method would work well for you, nothing else to buy. And if it ever causes problems screw the die back down until things fit and start over, nothing lost but time.

 

[Donneric]

It represents 100 on the Vickers hardness scale.

Vickers hardness test - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

AMP did a series of articles about why they think 100 Vickers Hardness is the correct spec, this is the link to the first in the series that they did:

Induction Annealing Brass | Our Research | AMP

View the latest articles from AMP Annealing. Get tips and tricks from our R&D. Here we upload articles to provide your the best possible information on innovations in the annealing process.

www.ampannealing.com

Perfect, thanks again!