223 Remington casings

[Craigwood]

I have about a thousands new 223 casings. I see that they have an annealing heat process added them. When I use a once fired or several other casings I have collected on the range grounds from others........

How many times can the rifle round be reloaded before I no longer use?
And if I do how often is an annealing done? Will a propane torch be sufficient? And how many times can it be annealed? If and when required.

[milotrain]

There is a great article over on accurate shooter about annealing.

[J-cat]

All factory new cases are annealed. Some are polished prior to leaving the factory which removes the evidence. This is done because some mentally challenged persons are offended by annealing marks.

If you anneal correctly, you can do it after every firing to maintain that nice factory case neck tension. A case can theoretically go 10-15 times before splitting the neck, but it gets harder after every firing and the neck tension changes. This is especially important if you use bushing dies to size the neck minimally.

I anneal after every firing. I use a micro-torch. It has a small flame and I am better able to control the temperature.

[Craigwood]

How hot should the flame get. Someone at work had said he gets them red hot

[pdq_wizzard]

How hot should the flame get. Someone at work had said he gets them red hot

I don't anneal my 223 brass anymore (it don't seem to start splitting before the primers start getting loose 8-10 reloads) also they seem to get lost at the range.

as for my 30.06 / .243 and 30-30 I sit in a somewhat dark room and heat until they look red from the top of the neck to about 1/4" below the neck. It has seemed to work good for me. I know you don't want them too hot but if you don't get them hot enough you are just wasting time.

[milotrain]

If you aren't using a temp stick then you are going to suffer a lot of ruined cases at first. Seriously, a forum is not a great place for "I've just heard about this thing, tell me all the things I need to know about it."

Read this.

[J-cat]

How hot should the flame get. Someone at work had said he gets them red hot

Red hot is too hot.

I use a medium flame and heat the neck until it turns dark brown and somewhat black at the flame's contact point.

[Craigwood]

and do I resize before or after annealing

[J-cat]

After.

I have found I get less runout if I resize after annealing.

[Craigwood]

please explain the term "runout"

[milotrain]

Runout

Alternatly

[BigJ]

Red hot is too hot.

I use a medium flame and heat the neck until it turns dark brown and somewhat black at the flame's contact point.

+1. Red is way too hot. Your target temp should be somewhere around 750-800deg, for a few seconds. Brass starts to glow orange at 950. Red is probably 100+ deg even beyond that.

If you don't quite have the timing down and you're looking for a visual queue, apply a swipe of 750deg temperature indicating fluid and flip the case out of the flame as soon as it starts to indicate.

As for the process, check out the Anneal Rite for a pretty solid home solution for relatively cheap:

[cruddymutt]

+1 on red hot is too hot. lots of videos on Youtube also. I get mine just where it starts to turn a blueish color and instantly drop them in water.
I only anneal cases when I modify them ie. 30-06 into 8mm Mauser or 223 into 300 BLK. The reason to anneal is that each time the brass is worked (resized, etc) it gets a little bit harder. Annealing (correctly) "softens" the brass. I no longer anneal after each firing as I personally do not see an advantage but I do anneal when doing a major reforming as stated above. IMO the brass gets a pretty hefty workout on a reform especially when the new shoulder/neck is where the body of the parent case was. My .02.

[Dutch Henry]

I don't bother to anneal. It's not a bad idea, but I just choose not to do it and brass isn't that expensive.

My rule of thumb is to shoot moderate loads, about 200-300 fps under factory specs, and I only trim brass four times before scrapping it. YMMV