Annealing

[shakey jake]

That’s a different ball game, I go to chill out from life at the coal face, a fish is purely a bonus, you lot get excited about punching paper and shooting gnats fart size groups and wasting bullets shooting gongs, I can do that in my back garden!

If you wanna get anally retarded over your brass carry you on but I’ve got better things to do like go stalking or fishing, luckily for me I have the ability to go to the cupboard get my rifle walk out of my gate and go to so happy days.

Dont worry lee, i have no interest in anealing, i cant really be bothered to reload. Just dont see the point in bullying fish for the fun of it, if i can get a meal out of the fish ill have a go but carp waters get funny about that

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

Dont worry lee, i have no interest in anealing, i cant really be bothered to reload. Just dont see the point in bullying fish for the fun of it, if i can get a meal out of the fish ill have a go but carp waters get funny about that

All you have to do is remember this, shooting will be banned before fishing

 

[shakey jake]

All you have to do is remember this, shooting will be banned before fishing

Im not so sure, catch and release fishing isnt great, pest control, im fairly sure i will be ok. Might even be abke to employ people to do the dirty work

 

[25 Sharps]

Im not so sure, catch and release fishing isnt great, pest control, im fairly sure i will be ok. Might even be abke to employ people to do the dirty work

Used to fish a lot as a kid, bullying fish is very much my view on catch and release now, saw too many with smashed up mouths to think it’s anything but cruel.

 

[Norfolk Deer Search]

Used to fish a lot as a kid, bullying fish is very much my view on catch and release now, saw too many with smashed up mouths to think it’s anything but cruel.

That’s what happens when you fish day ticket waters where people don’t care, when you start paying the money and going to nice places and fishing syndicate Waters you get pristine mouth with old big fish.

I’ve not fished a day ticket watet for best part 30 years!

Just like stalking syndicate, you pay good money you get a good syndicate if you put the time in

 

[C h r i s]

luckily for me I have the ability to go to the cupboard get my rifle walk out of my gate and go to so happy days.

Now you're just showing off....

 

[C h r i s]

Annealing is useful, in fact essential if you use extremely rare or old cases. Try finding .55 Boys cases in your local gun shop.

 

[hunta]

Annealing is useful, in fact essential if you use extremely rare or old cases. Try finding .55 Boys cases in your local gun shop.

That is a very good reason to anneal. I've been reloading for 50 years and for 30 of those years was only aware of bench rest shooters annealing their brass. Now it seems that more and more reloading stalkers feel that they need to anneal their brass every few shots. I've always used good brass and load for accuracy and not for velocity and usually get well into double figures with my reloads before primer pockets loosen or necks start getting work hardened. I regularly shoot paper and long range gongs to assess accuracy so I'm happy that my loads are at least minute of deer/fox/rabbit etc. I would start annealing if brass became difficult to obtain or very expensive or l found that necks started splitting regularly but until then l don't see the point.

 

[MarinePMI]

Annealing is useful, in fact essential if you use extremely rare or old cases. Try finding .55 Boys cases in your local gun shop.

It's also very much required if forming any wildcat cartridges that have severe changes in parent case dimensions (17Ackley Hornet comes to mind).

 

[Making holes in things]

you're correct, it serves no purpose for the everyday shooter, other than the all important feel good factor. Primer pockets will normally loosen way before necks split if you're using quality brass. Although some calibers do suffer from necks splitting, but that's mainly while forming wildcat calibers.

Competitive long range target shooting is a different matter altogether. Consistent neck tension makes a difference too extreme spread and standard deviation, both of which only have any meaningful impact once you start getting beyond 600 yards.

As far as I'm aware short range benchrest shooters don't get hung up about extreme spreads, a small group is a small group. I had a 6BR that had a ES of 40 and shot silly small groups at 100 yards.

I do anneal using a AMP as I'm a competitive target shooter along with being a sporting shooter.

Hello Dillon,

Please share some of your wisdom with this (not yet even a) novice. Your comment about "primer pockets will normally loosen way before . . ." is something I've been wondering about since I started to see videos of experts saying they de-prime before washing brass, to get a better clean. I am leaning towards doing this myself after seeing it. However, I am more concerned about the primer staying put than the neck of the case, where that end is safe inside the rifle chamber, should something go wrong. The last thing I want to do is to add unsafe wear where the primer goes.

Do you de-prime before you clean your brass ? If yes, have found it reduced the 'holding' of the primer and if yes, by roughly how many reduced uses of the brass ?

Safety is more important to me than the price of getting new brass a bit sooner than I would otherwise have had to if I did not de-prime before a wash. I do not have a problem with the wear as long as it is still safe and I can see/feel the primes hole is wearing out.

That makes me think, is there a way to check for when the primer hole is to loose ?

Thanks.

 

[Bowland blades]

Annealing is worthwhile if you shoot a lot or use rare or expensive cases. Good brass is able to hold up to ten firings depending what Brass and how hot the load is , ten firings and no more was most followed before folks started annealing for matches or hunting use . If i remember correctly very few annealed their brass 15-20 years back , the norm in the match shooters was ten firings .
Annealing relaxes the brass back to how it was before it was used. Coppersmiths have been annealing a very long time and copper and a little zinc is basically cartridge brass . Its a lot better to bending to form and back . Aneling is heating the metal to keep it from cracking by heating to an orange then leaving the brass to cool off .
We then have constant bullet release on all through the entire batch
I do not anneal personally because its a faff and inside ten fire sequences and sizing , it makes no matter for stalking . I guess i loose say half my brass cases in the grass and my firings end up odd . If i was back in Competitive shooting - I would anneal

 

[Tikkat3rob]

Annealing is vital to maintain consistent neck tension, especially in fired brass, without annealing after 2-3 firings on virgin brass your sd and es will open up leading to loss of accuracy and grouping at extended ranges beyond 200-300 even more apparent on a 1000 yard target. For typical stalking distances 200 and under you can argue its not necessary and you just push to brass failure. For competition and range work i anneal every time get sd's of 4-9 paired with mandrel expanding the neck.

 

[Lateral]

Well I’m already getting 10-15 reloads, accuracy is .6” off sticks on a good day from my brass so as far as m concerned waste of time and money!

You’ve just cleared that up, ta very much

Cases will case harden differently from one chambering to another. Lower pressure cartridges will be slower to harden than high pressure barrel burners.

You can tell if a case has lost neck tension, when you seat the bullet, it just feels like it's seated too easily.

Ultimately, it's down to accuracy, and If it ain't broke............................ and for the vast majority of stalkers, it's far less likely to be an issue, but for the long range, target, anally retentive, and OCD suffering shooters, annealing is a MUST