Annealed Brass Question

In short anealing case necks softens work hardenned brass and extends case life. After anealing it should shoot like new or once fired brass.

AWS

On 6mmBR.com there is a great article called " The Art and Science of Anealing"
 
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When you fire a round the case expands and stretches and then shrinks back, though not quite to it's original dimensions (why you resize).

After repeated cycles of firing/resizing the brass gets hard and more brittle, work hardened as AWS said.

Depending on the chambering, it may become difficult to resize the cases. WSSM cases are notorious for this, the shoulders start to not be pushed back enough and they get hard to chamber (or jam in an AR). The cases will also become more prone to splitting and separation.

Annealing softens the brass back to it's original condition and lets you keep using it.
 
So I should not worry about shooting it in the same lot as the brass that are not anneald then right. They should shoot the same as a non-annealed case?
 
Acctually annealing don't need to be n done very often. You should not mix lots of brass or annealed and new cases as a general rule most people try to keep brass from the same lot togeather . I use the fifty round plastic boxes from midway. keep the fired brass in them until the box has only fired brass then I reload that box. or boxes. I buy brass in minimum fifty round lots usually several hundred at a time. then initial inspection and put them into fifty round boxes. Sometimes I size and prime or just handload a box or two. Or save for load development. But if I decide I need to work up a new load I do it on paper first. Then load twenty for testing Twenty round plastic boxes come in handy as well. Test them and fine tune that load. But I never try load developing with less than twenty rounds.
 
Make certain you learn how to properly anneal brass cases before doing any. You can easily over anneal them and ruin the strength of the brass. Also, mixing annealed with non annealed cases will produce loads with differing bullet pull. That won't affect safety, but may affect accuracy of the loads if they are shot as mixed.
 
it maintains consistent neck tension when shooting BR matches. It also keeps you from splitting necks on cases with multiple firings. Another use is for wildcatters who size up or down from another parent case. The annealing returns the softness to the necks after being worked to another dia.

FYI, the IBS 1000yd world record is still held by cases that were annealed after every firing. Rich says he doesn't know if that was the deciding factor, but it damn sure didn't hurt anything since he has not as of yet been dethroned.
 
Annealing is really pretty simple. Stand cases in a pan filled with a half inch of water, a cake pan works well. Heat just the necks red with a propane torch. Tip them over in the water with a screwdriver or such. Let dry and tumble clean before reloading.

I've been doing this for 45 years or so. I anneal about every fifth firing. Using this system along with Lee's collet neck sizing dies gives me 243 cases, for instance, with more than 20 firings on them.
 
IDBOB thanks for that info it sounds simple but I am still a little sketchy on doing it myself. I guess the worst I could do is ruin a couple of brass huh?
Also how do you know when to anneal the brass?
 
CDR,
That is a pretty sweet website.

IDBOB,
They said on this website that we should not use water when annealing cases. Have you ever seen any downside to doing it the way you have done it? The way they make t sound that it has to be the right temp. for the right amount of time or your repeatability and accuracy suffer.
 
I have used the water technique in the past. Also used the hold in the fingers, heat up the neck in the dark and dunk it in the water method. The problem with both is the uneven heating may heat part of the neck too much, or heat part of the neck too little to anneal it properly.

I had one case, a .22-250, where I must have gotten the shoulder too hot, because when I ran the case through the sizing die, upon extraction from the die, the expander ball pulled strongly on the neck so that the shoulder was pulled forward enough that the shell wouldn't chamber in my gun.

Generally, I didn't notice any other problems with using the "stand the case in the water" technique except sometimes it seemed that I had to apply a lot of heat to the neck to get all of it heated. I was concerned I was heating the brass too high and ruining it. Brass sitting in water acts as a pretty effective heat sink. That's why I stopped using it and went to the "hold the case between the fingers and heat in a dark room" method.

The temp sticks, with the case being rotated is probably the best way to do it properly for most shooters. However, it is slower than putting the cases in a pan of water first, then heating them.
 
I've annealed cases in the past. It works but just isn't worth the trouble. Can't imagine myself annealing 200 30-06 and .243 cases again. It is not worth the time when anyone can buy a hundred cases at Midway for a few bucks. I'd rather spend my time reloading then going to the range not spending hours and hours to do the job, My opinion.

Frankie B.
 
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