Any of you bother to anneal your cases?

[DocSkinner]

A long time ago I had a friend that swore by annealing the necks of his pistol cases, saying the annealing kept him from ever getting cracks/splits. He would line them up on a metal bar, take a propane torch to the necks and kick them off into water after heating each one to keep the metal soft and limit work hardening.

Starting up and looking at a ton of .45 Colt brass, and wondering if I should try it or not. Figured I would see if any of you out there have tried it!

[brando]

I wouldn't anneal pistol cases unless you plan to use the brass about a dozen times. The main benefit you'd likely see is just prolonging the brass life. For precision rifles, it's a whole other story. I anneal after 3 loads to reset the brass softness at the neck, which tends to result in more uniformity, but only on .308 and larger cartridges. With .408CT and .50BMG it becomes critical to anneal regularly if you want to get the best performance.

[bubbapug1]

I'd love to have an annealer for my 50 bmg, 308, and 6ppc. You get a large investment tied up in those calibers. I'd also anneal 44 mag

[bruceflinch]

Gonna have to try that.

[vonderplatz]

I hate it when I have to googlize something, but at least I know what annealing is now. It does seem to be worth it for the more expensive brass.

[ronas]

I anneal with Benchsource machine.

I use 308 Lapula Palma brass and I anneal after every firing.

[robert101]

forget annealing pistol brass. I'm testing my 308 brass (a lot of 50) for how many firings I get before the mouth or neck has problems. So far I'm only on 4 loadings.

[grammaton76]

Need to get a Ken Light BC-100 one of these days...

[EL_NinO619]

No but I do want one of these.. But why the hell would you anneal pistol brass?

[bubbapug1]

The new Giraud annealing machine looks like the way to go. Just stack up the cartridges and let them go.

With 50 cal running $0.50 a case and 6 ppc running the same, it just might be worth it.

Once you add in your time to neck size and trim, throwing away cases that you have worked on for up to five minutes a piece gets to be very expensive time wise.

[brl0301]

forget annealing pistol brass. I'm testing my 308 brass (a lot of 50) for how many firings I get before the mouth or neck has problems. So far I'm only on 4 loadings.

I would imagine your primer pockets are going to loosen up before you have any issues with the neck or mouth. Are you just neck sizing or full lenght?

[ireload]

After getting 7 reloads per brass piece then on the 8th firing my .223 cases for my single shot rifle 25% developed cracks on the case necks. I'll be annealing pretty soon.

[DocSkinner]

So the benchsource machine - how are the cases quenched to get a strong anneal process?

Why anneal pistol brass? I shoot revolvers - the roll crimp on them works the metal more than taper crimp on autos and rifles.

[grammaton76]

The new Giraud annealing machine looks like the way to go. Just stack up the cartridges and let them go.

With 50 cal running $0.50 a case and 6 ppc running the same, it just might be worth it.

Once you add in your time to neck size and trim, throwing away cases that you have worked on for up to five minutes a piece gets to be very expensive time wise.

WOW. Looking at the price, there's no reason to mess with the Ken Light when the Giraud is available. I've got one of their trimmers, which works pretty nicely, too.

[Linkpimp]

I wouldn't anneal pistol cases unless you plan to use the brass about a dozen times. The main benefit you'd likely see is just prolonging the brass life. For precision rifles, it's a whole other story. I anneal after 3 loads to reset the brass softness at the neck, which tends to result in more uniformity, but only on .308 and larger cartridges. With .408CT and .50BMG it becomes critical to anneal regularly if you want to get the best performance.

^^^ This^^^^