Quick Anneal any users out there with reviews?

I'm on board with flame annealing as almost all of my posts on the matter record

I'm poo-pooing the QA induction annealer because it's almost the cost of the industry standard (AMP), and you have to "guess" so some degree the dwell time with it.

I saw a video of a reviewer in one of these threads recently where he said, with the dillon case feeder, it would "choke" and not drop a case (or was it that it fed two of them?) but the end result was that it annealed the base of the case sitting atop the target case then dropped both of them and you couldn't know which one had the base annealed accidentally. F that!

So my advice is if you're sexed up on induction, pay for the AMP. If you want throughput, get one of the many reliable flame annealers that has a feed mechanism for under $500. I'm still using my Giraud from 15 years ago just because I have it, but many more economical options now exist.

For my magnum cartridges (7PRC, 7RM, 338LM, 375CT, 50BMG), I use the AMP, because I care more about that brass, and it's less tedious to do it by hand with the smaller volumes I shoot those cartridges. But for the 223, 308, 260, it's flame all the way!
 
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All anyone has to do is google up cartridge case annealing and the first 15-20 articles are WRONG !. It's not a wonder so many people swear by this or by that ,garbage in garbage out .

Opinions are like assholes ,everyone is entitled too #1 . I personally prefer science as it's more suitable as well as repeatable results .

Fyi : In 1976 IMI stated after extensive research that 5.56mm cartridge cases showed much improved characteristics when , " Flash Annealed " around the neck and shoulder to a temperature of 1194 Deg. F. . And improvement of chamber sealing in auto weapons was noted .

Having the benefit of partial annealing for nearly 38 years now ,I personally prefer 115-132 HV neck hardness and know for a fact I've achieved that goal with MY method and Dwell . Although I NO longer BR shoot ,I still prefer accuracy from MY weapons .
I only partial anneal after #3 firings and have for 30 years at least . When you have access to equipment and experts ,you utilize both ,because a day comes when those are No longer unavailable . NO I Don't use or own an AMP annealer ,it's too slow for MY operation .

George tells and shows you everything you need to understand relating to brass cartridge partial annealing .

https://vacaero.com/information-resources/metallography-with-george-vander-voort/1440-deformation-and-annealing-of-cartridge-brass.html

Last note : AMP will clearly show all of you ,it's unnecessary to partial anneal after every shot . They've already done the leg work and their graphs show as much .


The basics of cartridge brass: FROM AMP Annealing
( I believe they use 1400 Deg. F. as the flash point but might be mistaken on that ? )


  1. We submitted six representative cases from five manufacturers for chemical analysis. They were all consistent with UNS C26000 specifications for cartridge brass, within analytical margin of error. (see Appendix 1 - 1.1 and Appendix 4).
  2. Cartridge brass melts at 915°C (1679°F). Up to that temperature it remains homogeneous (Appendix 1 - 1.1).
  3. Dezincification of brass can occur because of chemical attack, but heating brass, even to high annealing temperatures cannot cause dezincification unless chemicals are present. The zinc content of the alloy cannot burn or melt out up until boiling point (Appendix 1 - 1.6).
  4. Brass becomes harder with cold work such as drawing, stamping, forming etc., and softer when heated to annealing temperatures.
  5. The hardness of thin wall brass sections should be measured using micro hardness Vickers or Knoop testers (Appendix 1 - 1.2). Conventional Rockwell and Brinell equipment is not best suited to this application. The Vickers hardness scale is expressed as HV, with lower numbers being softer and higher numbers harder i.e. 50 HV is softer than 100HV.
  6. From testing on cross sections, the neck hardness of virgin cases from the two major brands tested averaged 100 HV. The hardness half way to the case head averaged 190 HV and the heads were 185 – 218 HV. The head hardness is variable depending on the region of the head being measured. (Appendix 2 figures 6.3, 6.12 and 6.13.)
Correct flash annealing applies just enough heat to the neck, shoulder and 3 – 4 mm of body to achieve annealing. While heat does dissipate over the length of the case, it cools down very rapidly (see graph above). Brass just several millimeters away from the annealed section doesn’t heat up enough to achieve annealing (see Appendix 2 Fig. 7.3 at 17mm from case mouth). Therefore, quenching is unnecessary to prevent heat migration, and adds no metallurgical benefit to the annealing process.


  • The annealed neck and shoulder hardness of the test cases used in this study was repeatable for at least ten reloads, using an AMP annealer with the correct program. This study does not include other annealing methods.
  • Grain structure of the neck and shoulder of the cases remains constant for at least the same ten reloading cycles.
  • The accuracy of induction annealing is not affected by case cleanliness.
  • The composition of the brass alloy is not contaminated by annealing if powder and primer residue is not removed from the cases first.
  • The force required to draw a bullet from a case neck using tensile test equipment is affected by the inside surface condition of the case neck. This was observed even when the case necks had the same interference fit with the bullets and the same hardness.
https://www.ampannealing.com/articles/40/annealing-under-the-microscope/
https://www.ampannealing.com/articles/42/annealing-under-the-microscope/