Should I anneal? If so, when?

[JMP]

Yes, I want all the bullet hold I can get and I can not measure tensions because I do not have a gage that measures tensions. I do have dies that align the bullet with the neck, nothing new, some of my dies were made in the 60s. I made a seater for 25 cal., I can not call it a seating die because it does not use a die body. Nothing I have purchased seats bullets straighter and with less effort. the seater offers neck and shoulder support. I do not have to be concerned with shortening the case because of the lack of effort when seating.

Guff, one thing I forgot to mention earlier. I was wondering if you could post a picture of this die you created in order to get a better sense of what the die is doing.

[Cujo]

I try to anneal match rifle each firing using a Benchsource.

[JTROKS]

You single load 75gr Amax out of your HBar and then your brass can't go on after 3x firing? wut?

looks like you are using range pickups fired unknown times . . .

I single load 75/80Amax, 80 SMK, and Berger 82. The brass lot, once fired 5.56, is normally retired after the 6th firing. Primer pockets are still tight.

Then, the retired lot then becomes my practice brass. Depending on the lot, I see neck splits around the 7th or 8th firing. Brass is recycled after this.

No, not range pick ups. Unless it's a big lot of once fired 5.56 with crimped primers.

I don't do it anymore since I only get to shoot 100 yards and sometimes 200 yards in California. Back when I was in Utah shooting as far as my rounds can hit was an easy thing to do. Nowadays time and family does not allow driving 1.5 hrs 1 way to shoot 1K.

[LynnJr]

We have

J-cat, why do you say that? I don't ever split necks, but my primer pockets will fail; that is without annealing. This is why I question the benefit. There are some cases, namely the CheyTac/505 Gibbs variants where the primer pocket ALWAYS fails in quick order with any of the available cases made (Jamison or Bertram are all I know of). That's the one case that kills me.

I won't use any expander balls period. Those RUIN brass.

I also do not like a ton of bullet hold as I have found this can result in some damage to your bullet if you do not lubricate the inside of your necks while seating.

bsumoba, I am a bit confused. For competition purposes, why would you run a lot of neck clearance? Is this for ease of feeding? I have never had issues feeding with tight neck clearances as long as the ammo is made to correctly fit the rifle. In fact, I prefer chambers with little neck clearance as it doesn't force you to over-work the brass.



I believe that you are talking about measuring the force applied to seat the bullet, and I agree with you on this topic. In my opinion, the best way to go is with a force gauge on your press. As you have alluded to, you will get inconsistent readings due to how you seat the bullet. Also, it will vary with the leverage you have set up in your press.

For those that have even a remedial idea of Newtonian Mechanics, they at least understand that F=ma. Ergo, a gauge will not correctly work with a human pull.

The problem is the "a" as we need to keep that in a steady state, but it is sensitive to factors that the press operator will cause. In practice, I believe the best way is to have the loader learn to develop a very steady pull. Then, the gauge will still fluctuate, but find a range of consistency rather than an actual metric of F. Otherwise, the ram would need to be mechanically operated by machine for the force gauge to to function correctly.

Tension, measured in the colloquial manner that loaders do in 0.001"s is a rather bizarre metric, but it is the one thing that is a bit easier to control. Getting uniform metric consistencies are the trick, once you do this, a loader will find out what works best. I have found that my tension, measured in 0.001"s will increase with the area of the bullet as it is the area that best influences pressure. Thus, I go from looser in 0.001"s to more 0.001"s as the caliber increases. However, this is to the extent of the design of the tensile strength of the neck. Generally, sticking with a manufacture's brass, it will remain fairly constant in properties among small cartridges. Thus, that rule of thumb seems to have worked for me. However, once you get to the much heavier "50 BMG gauge" brass, much more tensile strength is restored; therefore, the tension in 0.001"s will be reduced.

That's my way of thinking.

JMP
Consistent bullet seating and annealing have very little in common.
When you seat bullets while looking at your Gauge you will find the human arm can be very consistent.
That said if you jerk the handle of course you can disrupt the results but a person doing that should not be reloading in the first place.

The gauge will point out errors and this is why it can be important to accuracy.

If you leave a burr behind after trimming or forgot to chamfer it will pick it up.

If you load 100 rounds of ammo and shoot 75 rounds at a match a lot of shooters don't track those remaining 25 rounds real well.

This can lead to 75 rounds with 5 firings and 25 rounds with 3 firings and inconsistent neck tension case to case.

Annealing necks corrects for bad tracking of your brass and poor reloading practices.

Its only benefit is on cases that have rules/regulations placed on them from a sanctioning bodybody/organization and wildcats requiring a lot of brass movement.

I have used the torch method in a poorly lit roomroom and the tempilac is merely used as a timer.
I have used the Ken Light annealer and still dodo on wildcats and the 50 BMG.

I have used molten lead in a casting pot and they all make brass softer to one degree or another.

In the world of accuracy the key to winning is consistency so if you can't pull or push a handle with great consistency your ammo will never make the cut.
If your annealing softens your necks but they aren't consistent you will need to fire them several times which will loosen your primer pockets soonersooner and uses up barrel life.
As to the comment about loading to hot your brass should be able to handle SAAMI pressure levels without the primer pockets losing grip on your primers.

As to minimal spec chambers resulting in 200 fps velocity drop well I will keep my opinion to myself.

[J-cat]

Why? Lemme have it!

[LynnJr]

Why? Lemme have it!

J-Cat
I don't understand your question. Are you telling us that when we purchase brass for the specific purpose of reloading the primer pockets should not last?

[JTROKS]

I may still have some of that brass that has loose primer pockets with no neck splits. Had this lot as once fired with the primer pockets reamed to get crimp out.

[J-cat]

No.

What I'm saying is that sometimes we do stupid stuff that makes primer pockets not last. In my case, what I did was take a RP 22-250 case and designed a minimum chamber so that my FL die would size the case minimally. Basically, the chamber allowed the case to expand .002". And that chamber design cost me 200 FPS. Why? Because I severely limited the volume. If you have a chamber like that you can't use book data. It's all gonna be hot. The min load will be max, etc. But if you then push for whatever velicity you think it should yield you'll stress the case and the primer pockets will let go.

So whenever I hear about tight chambers and primer pockets failing I reminisce about my 22-250.

Now, I agree that some brands of brass have stronger case heads than others and are better suited for 65,000 PSI applications, LC vs FC, for example. But saying that FC cases are crap is wrong. Not that I'm accusing you of this.

Wildcatting a case designed for 40,000 PSI in applications generating 60,000 PSI will lead to primer pocket failure.

Tightening SAAMI spec chambers will lead to primer pocket failure.

Achieving amazing velocities from conventional cartridges will lead to primer pocket failure.

What I'm saying is use brass designed for the application and stay within the parameters thereof. Or not, and female dog about loose primer pockets.

[JTROKS]

That's true it's all about the specs of the chamber/bullet leade and ammo. Someone with a pocket rocket load that is safe in my Colt H-Bar may not be safe to shoot in my Stag 6. Some brass are also softer than others. When they test their brass usually just need to pass 1 firing with all areas not stretching out of spec.

[JMP]

We have

JMP
Consistent bullet seating and annealing have very little in common.

Lynn, the normal convention is to quote folks then comment below.

The first was responding to a J-cat post. The second was responding to a Guff post. Thus, when you simply quote it all without the original quotes, you make me sound like a schizophrenic.

And, J-cat, I believe it was I that said that FC cases are soft, not crap. I use FC for 308. I use 44.4gr of 4064 with a 168 SMK, and yes, I will lose the primer pocket after 4-5. But, I have so many of those damn 308 FC cases, I'll probably never run out. I like the case as it is pretty consistent brass.

[JMP]

No.

What I'm saying is that sometimes we do stupid stuff that makes primer pockets not last. In my case, what I did was take a RP 22-250 case and designed a minimum chamber so that my FL die would size the case minimally. Basically, the chamber allowed the case to expand .002". And that chamber design cost me 200 FPS. Why? Because I severely limited the volume. If you have a chamber like that you can't use book data. It's all gonna be hot. The min load will be max, etc. But if you then push for whatever velicity you think it should yield you'll stress the case and the primer pockets will let go.

So whenever I hear about tight chambers and primer pockets failing I reminisce about my 22-250.

Now, I agree that some brands of brass have stronger case heads than others and are better suited for 65,000 PSI applications, LC vs FC, for example. But saying that FC cases are crap is wrong. Not that I'm accusing you of this.

Wildcatting a case designed for 40,000 PSI in applications generating 60,000 PSI will lead to primer pocket failure.

Tightening SAAMI spec chambers will lead to primer pocket failure.

Achieving amazing velocities from conventional cartridges will lead to primer pocket failure.

What I'm saying is use brass designed for the application and stay within the parameters thereof. Or not, and female dog about loose primer pockets.

That is what I figured when you said you don't like tight chambers for velocity as I assumed you were using the larger chamber for more volume. That's fine, but how do you reload for them? Do you FL? In such a case, you must need custom FL dies or just chamber form. If you use regular dies, the case will have too much play and expansion in your chamber, it seems.

It really doesn't matter what size your chamber is as long as you fit your brass correctly. "Tight" is mostly important just for the neck as you are regulated by the thickness of your brass. It's fine to have a bit fatter body for more volume, but you just don't want to squeeze out that volume every time with an FL.

[FromTheGrave]

JMP, what kind of primers do you use?

I know if you use Federal or better yet Wolf you'll get increased primer pocket life due to increased primer diameter. I'm thinking about making the move to one or the other. Seems like my pockets are worn after less than a handful of firings with mid-range loaded .308.

[JMP]

JMP, what kind of primers do you use?

I know if you use Federal or better yet Wolf you'll get increased primer pocket life due to increased primer diameter. I'm thinking about making the move to one or the other. Seems like my pockets are worn after less than a handful of firings with mid-range loaded .308.

For primers, it varies with each cartridge, but in general it goes something like this:
CCI 200 for Large short action rifle
CCI 450 for standard short action with small primer pocket
Federal 215 for magnum and Lapua cases
RWS for BMG cases
Applicable CCI across the board for semis like handguns or ARs.

The only case where primer pocket becomes a problem is with CheyTac (that uses a Federal 215). Those cartridges are simply a lost cause due to the quality of brass available. Really, the only choices are Jamison and Bertram, and I think that's because nobody has made a real case and these are simply products made off of 505 Gibbs, which are just straight walled large dangerous game cases so the primer pocket wasn't engineered to handle CheyTac/SnipeTac pressures even though the brass can.

If it is available, I will always use Lapua brass. In every case where Lapua is available, I find no issues with primer pockets lasting. If I get more than 10 firings, I am happy. With small primers, the cases seem to last forever, which makes sense. I do not get neck splits, but what promped me to consider annealing is for large capacity wildcats.

Then, I saw the Giraud Annealer, and it looks so simple to operate where it wouldn't be an inconvenience. The Giraud Annealer looks pretty easy peezy, after I suppose you will need to test a few to get the flame correct. I sure as heck don't want to go through the exercise of annealing and end up making my brass worse by over-annealing.

Now folks are thinking that the induction method is better. In that case, I can wait until the Giraud Annealer with the flameless Fluxeon induction package comes out. However, once I look at that, it again seems to be a little of a turn-off to me as it introduces more equipment that again adds a bunch of extra crap to my process.

I am wondering now that the majority of rifle loaders that participated in the poll have indicated that they anneal, which methods and gear are they using?

[J-cat]

That is what I figured when you said you don't like tight chambers for velocity as I assumed you were using the larger chamber for more volume. That's fine, but how do you reload for them? Do you FL? In such a case, you must need custom FL dies or just chamber form. If you use regular dies, the case will have too much play and expansion in your chamber, it seems.

It really doesn't matter what size your chamber is as long as you fit your brass correctly. "Tight" is mostly important just for the neck as you are regulated by the thickness of your brass. It's fine to have a bit fatter body for more volume, but you just don't want to squeeze out that volume every time with an FL.

But youre not squeezing out the volume by FL sizing for a loose chamber. The chamber dictates pressure, not the case. There will be a near zero difference in pressure from a FL sized case vs a neck sized case. What I should have done is designed a custom die to size the case minimally, instead of designing a custom chamber to produce cases that would be sized minimally in a standard FL die.

[JMP]

But youre not squeezing out the volume by FL sizing for a loose chamber. The chamber dictates pressure, not the case. There will be a near zero difference in pressure from a FL sized case vs a neck sized case. What I should have done is designed a custom die to size the case minimally, instead of designing a custom chamber to produce cases that would be sized minimally in a standard FL die.

I think when some of us talk "tight chambers" we are talking the neck. The body can be large (standard) and it's still tight because you allow the case to expand, but you don't want to undersize it and work the brass. Like you said, you should simply send out fired brass and get custom dies made based on your larger volume chamber. That's what most folks do, and the chamber is, in effect, "tight" because you have the correct size dies.