Do you need a fancy machine to anneal?

Weather has been not good for much the last couple days so I spent most of my time reloading.
I biffed all my flash Lapua brass a while ago and started mucking around with cheap Rem brass. For some reason everything improved markedly.

I have around 50 cases Rem brass that have 2 firings.
I normally sent my brass to a mate to get annealed but after reading some articles on the benefit of annealing after every firing I thought there may be some merit to it.
Being a gear freak I was fully intending to buy a flash machine to achieve this.
With the weather being as it was, I had to occupy myself somehow so I did some experimenting.
I prepped 10 cases and got out the old propane torch.
Secured my cases in my battery drill with a Sinclair case holder.

http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...78145fc97e.jpg
Held the case neck with the drill full noise at the tip of the inner blue flame for 7 seconds as steady as possible.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...55f5953db4.jpg
And dropped it into an ice cream container full of water.

Dried them out. Necksized and loaded them up.
While seating the projectiles I normally use graphite powder. I still used it but noted how consistent, seating felt thru my press despite it.
I went out and shot some groups and tested velocity. Results were good and I repeated the process a couple times.

The following results are from the 6th firing of the tested cases and 3 times annealed in the most scientific fashion😆

A combination of things could be at play regarding accuracy of the rifle but I normally could group 5 rnds around .8"
ES was usually between 10 - 20 fps but most of the variation was evident on the 4th and 5th shots.
My new barrel could have also settled a little as it has fired 136 rnds.
Barrel has not been cleaned for 20+ rounds and projectiles are HBN coated.

I normally only fire 3 rnd groups to test zero and accuracy as it is hunting rifle not a target rifle, besides shooting paper bores the hell out of me all be it necessary.

ES was pretty good. I took the pic after deleting everything on my chrony by accident. The first 2 shots were 2974 and 2980.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...68871ec223.jpg

Group was shot at 109 yrds. MPI needs to be at 1.4" for 200yrd zero.
Bottom hole has 2 in it.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...2fcf0dfb5c.jpg

Back of box sort of shows the key holed shot.
http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...ea96a49378.jpg

Early days yet but I think I will hold of on a flash annealing machine.

With the weather mending, my son will hopefully put one of my flash harry bullets into a Haast spiker in the next couple days.

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Another really good post R93 thanks for that:)


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What made you do 7 seconds? Was that when the colour looked right?

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Originally Posted by Gibo

What made you do 7 seconds? Was that when the colour looked right?

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It was the colour and recommended by some other backyard nutter on an American shooting site😆
As I said, it is early days and not really scientific but has worked so far.
Brass is not to soft so I am happy for now.
I would get between 8-10 loads out of my brass with the same load only annealing twice at the most.
Will see if it I can improve on it, but as long as it remains accurate I am happy.
After all the benefits of loads like these are only seen at extended ranges.

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Originally Posted by BRADS

Another really good post R93 thanks for that:)


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Cheers mate. Pretty boring but until the weather improves so am I😆

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Originally Posted by R93

It was the colour and recommended by some other backyard nutter on an American shooting site��
As I said, it is early days and not really scientific but has worked so far.
Brass is not to soft so I am happy for now.
I would get between 8-10 loads out of my brass with the same load only annealing twice at the most.
Will see if it I can improve on it, but as long as it remains accurate I am happy.

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Cheers. The time would be dictated by the anount of heat put out by the tourch. I have a pissy little one. May have a jam myself. Got heaps of old brass to practise on first. Thanks for the post

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Originally Posted by R93

Cheers mate. Pretty boring but until the weather improves so am I[emoji38]

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Want to swap for some 28 degree heat wave?
Assuming 260brass on the 93?


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Originally Posted by Gibo

Cheers. The time would be dictated by the anount of heat put out by the tourch. I have a pissy little one. May have a jam myself. Got heaps of old brass to practise on first. Thanks for the post

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The case neck showed a very, very dull red in the right light. Temper marks are the same colour and at the same point on new Lapua brass, so hopefully I have it right😆

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Do you size and champh etc before or after? You mentioned preping first.

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Originally Posted by BRADS

Want to swap for some 28 degree heat wave?
Assuming 260brass on the 93?


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Na!!! We had 44° days in PNG last swing.
I am happy to be in a cooler place.
Still a bit muggy despite the rain tho.

Yup .260 Rem brass. It was necked turned as well.

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I was trying to figure how to make an annealer for a while but need a very grunty transformer. The one the duleys have are farken expensive.
Did you try the Lapua .260rem brass, you were saying you had poor results with the resized .308 stuff.

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Originally Posted by Gibo

Do you size and champh etc before or after? You mentioned preping first.

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I anneal then resize Gibo.

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Originally Posted by K95

I was trying to figure how to make an annealer for a while but need a very grunty transformer. The one the duleys have are farken expensive.
Did you try the Lapua .260rem brass, you were saying you had poor results with the resized .308 stuff.

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Yeah mate, I had only Lapua brass for all my cals except .223
The Rem brass as cheap as it is just works better in my barrel for some reason.

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I put my resized cases into a 3 jaw lathe chuck turning at about 300rpm. I use a butane torch, same as you and hold until a very slight dull red colour appears on neck- shoulder. I then remove case from chuck holding with pliers and place into a steel container, but no water. Water cooling is not necessary except for production speed.
I have found that MV drops about 30-40 fps in newly annealed case necks. I figure this might be due to the softer brass exerting somewhat less neck tension, but I am not totally sure about this. (Cal 7*61 with MV around 2850+fps using 160 SMK.) Accuracy is maintained compared to non annealed brass. (All NORMA brass)

I found it essential for any kind of consistency running subsonic .308
I would just do the same as you on my portable bbq but for subsonic I would "over anneal" it so was soft as in the neck, if un annealed the low pressure would not seal the neck against the chamber and es was around a hundred Fps, annealed as close as a f1 will measure.