AMP annealer question

[Krob95]

Hello folks, I'm a lazy piece of shit and don't really want to have to tumble brass twice in order to anneal and after sizing. My questioned posed to y'all is this:

Does it matter if the brass is "dirty" before running it through the amp? I can't imagine a little bit of carbon is going to affect things that much but i am hoping there's some feedback. The brass is not caked in mud or dirt. It's just been fired and that's it.


Any input would be awesome!

 

[KZP]

I run fired brass through my AMP.

 

[ACard]

Nope, I shoot and then anneal when I get home, no prep

 

[Krob95]

hell, that saves me several hours of prep time in the tumbling and drying department. Thanks fellas!

 

[TylerN]

Hello folks, I'm a lazy piece of shit and don't really want to have to tumble brass twice in order to anneal and after sizing. My questioned posed to y'all is this:

Does it matter if the brass is "dirty" before running it through the amp? I can't imagine a little bit of carbon is going to affect things that much but i am hoping there's some feedback. The brass is not caked in mud or dirt. It's just been fired and that's it.


Any input would be awesome!

I anneal dirty, capped brass to avoid tumbling twice. The Aztec setting will be a little different with dirty brass but other than that I see no difference.

After annealing I lube and size then wet tumble after that. I've been happy with the simplification of my reloading process like this.

 

[Krob95]

I anneal dirty, capped brass to avoid tumbling twice. The Aztec setting will be a little different with dirty brass but other than that I see no difference.

After annealing I lube and size then wet tumble after that. I've been happy with the simplification of my reloading process like this.

this is exactly the process I'm going for. I'll run one through the Aztec dirty and see if it varies from the clean brass. I have 490 pieces of brass so another burnt one won't hurt lol

 

[Bacarrat]

I decap and anneal. Cleaning doesn't even come into play until after resizing. Even then I stopped stainless media cleaning and just corn cob. It was just too much work to clean.

 

[PatMiles]

I clean and then anneal. I don't want to bake any shit on the neck and shoulder and then run it through my dies.

 

[OREGUN]

I usually dry tumble, anneal, decap. In that order. Sometimes, with really clean (think benchrest, never touched the ground clean) I’ll skip the tumble entirely. Generally speaking though, there’s less gunk in the ceramic bowl of the AMP and in my dies if I tumble first.

And something to consider, I usually aztec several (5) pieces and use the average.

 

[Hawk in WY]

less gunk in the ceramic bowl of the AMP

What is this ceramic bowl of which you speak?

 

[rustyinbend]

I clean and then anneal. I don't want to bake any shit on the neck and shoulder and then run it through my dies.

That's how I feel too. I don't want my AMP's life degraded with "stuff" falling into it from the fired brass, and I don't want my brass degraded by baking "stuff" into the neck. The extra tumble is no big deal for me ... I'm retired so I've got nowhere to be, and all day to get there.

 

[Lawnboi]

I tumble then anneal. Have done it without and the carbon on the outside to the necks ends up baked on and then in my dies.

I’m only dry tumbling.

 

[rustyinbend]

I tumble then anneal. Have done it without and the carbon on the outside to the necks ends up baked on and then in my dies.

I’m only dry tumbling.

I get my best results (and less mess) from a wet tumble, but other than that, I agree ... clean, then AMP.

 

[Lawnboi]

I get my best results (and less mess) from a wet tumble, but other than that, I agree ... clean, then AMP.

I hate tumbling, always looking for a better faster way. It’s the worst part of my load process without a doubt. I’m considering a wet tumble without pins but then I need to dry. Right now I can go from the media to the annealer immediately.

 

[rustyinbend]

I hate tumbling, always looking for a better faster way. It’s the worst part of my load process without a doubt. I’m considering a wet tumble without pins but then I need to dry. Right now I can go from the media to the annealer immediately.

I wet-tumble without steel media, and then dry with a Frankford Arsenal case dryer. The tumbling is 5 minutes of prep followed by 90 minutes of ignoring it. The dry process is 5 minutes of prep followed by 3 hours of ignoring it. I'm doing other stuff while it's tumbling and drying ... so I don't see it as a big deal. Tried dry-tumbling a long time ago ... hated it almost as much as I hated the steel media in wet tumbling ... so I don't do either of those. That's just how I roll.

 

[PatMiles]

... I'm retired so I've got nowhere to be, and all day to get there.

Rusty, you remind me......................................of ME!
Ain't life grand?

 

[rustyinbend]

Rusty, you remind me......................................of ME!

That should scare the crap out of you ...

 

[Lawnboi]

I wet-tumble without steel media, and then dry with a Frankford Arsenal case dryer. The tumbling is 5 minutes of prep followed by 90 minutes of ignoring it. The dry process is 5 minutes of prep followed by 3 hours of ignoring it. I'm doing other stuff while it's tumbling and drying ... so I don't see it as a big deal. Tried dry-tumbling a long time ago ... hated it almost as much as I hated the steel media in wet tumbling ... so I don't do either of those. That's just how I roll.

I may have to give this a go, sounds like a better way to do bulk brass.

 

[rustyinbend]

I may have to give this a go, sounds like a better way to do bulk brass.

I recommend and use this combination for media-less wet tumbling:

Platinum Series Rotary Wet Tumbler 7L

The Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler delivers a whole new level of brass cleaning performance. The wet tumbler drums hold up to 1000 pieces of .223 brass

www.frankfordarsenal.com

Amazon product ASIN B07799B8TL
Amazon product ASIN B00RPABBG0

 

[OREGUN]

What is this ceramic bowl of which you speak?

Look straight down into the AMP with the case holder removed. Looks like ceramic to me.

 

[TF160 Guy]

I wet tumble, dry in the warming drawer for 45 minutes, resize and wipe the lube off the brass with a rag. Only one tumble.
But I may be missing something here. What is the urgency? If your inventory of brass is so small that you need to process it in time for the next event, then you may want to consider increasing your brass inventory. That way you won't have to rush to process and reload.
Just a thought.

 

[Krob95]

As mentioned above, I have 490-500 pieces of brass. Due to work and wanting to have a life outside of strictly reloading when I get off work and on the weekends, annealing fired brass prior to cleaning on the low end would save me 2.5hrs.

It's easier for me to tumble for an hour after sizing instead of doing it twice.

 

[Baron23]

While I absolutely do recognize individual's right to prefer whatever the fuck they want in terms of loading process, I have never quite understood many people's ire at having to tumble brass.

I use dry medium in a vibratory tumbler and just turn it on and let it run in the garage on a bench. Sometimes turn it on and go to bed...turn it off when I get up to piss which, at almost 70, happens every night! haha

Cheers

 

[rmfield]

I tumble until clean then anneal. I don't want to bake stuff on to the brass and I also don't want dirt/grit to be scratching up my sizing dies.

 

[OREGUN]

While I absolutely do recognize individual's right to prefer whatever the fuck they want in terms of loading process, I have never quite understood many people's ire at having to tumble brass.

I use dry medium in a vibratory tumbler and just turn it on and let it run in the garage on a bench. Sometimes turn it on and go to bed...turn it off when I get up to piss which, at almost 70, happens every night! haha

Cheers

I’m with you on this. I throw mine in a dry tumble as I walk past the garage coming home from the range. I set the timer on my phone for 2 hours and when it dings, I grab the brass out and it’s a done deal. Usually I’ve just barely had time to unload and put away the stuff, analyze and record whatever I’m trying to learn from the range session and grab a snack. It’s probably the easiest, least stressful or time consuming part of the whole reloading process for me.

 

[Bacarrat]

To the people say stuff will bake onto the brass, it won't. I clean after annealing and resizing and you can barely tell that its been annealed once I take it out of the cleaning process.

 

[Hawk in WY]

Look straight down into the AMP with the case holder removed. Looks like ceramic to me.

Yes. It sounded like there was a bowl that needed to be removed for cleaning.

 

[Rocketmandb]

I wet-tumble without steel media, and then dry with a Frankford Arsenal case dryer. The tumbling is 5 minutes of prep followed by 90 minutes of ignoring it. The dry process is 5 minutes of prep followed by 3 hours of ignoring it. I'm doing other stuff while it's tumbling and drying ... so I don't see it as a big deal. Tried dry-tumbling a long time ago ... hated it almost as much as I hated the steel media in wet tumbling ... so I don't do either of those. That's just how I roll.

I kind of feel the same way - though I use an ultrasonic instead of wet tumbling. But, similarly, I find it to be not a big deal to let the ultrasonic run for two or three 30-minute cycles before rinsing the cases and dropping them in the dryer for a couple hours. My total time added up over all the steps is probably 5-7 seconds per case.

After it's done, every case is starting from the same point. I use graphite neck lube (even with carbide mandrels), and the stuff that remains after the mandrel essentially takes away friction differences between cases. I get exceedingly consistent seating forces.

 

[parshal]

I have more than one person tell me that you should clean after annealing. "They" said something about it making the brass a little rougher or something like that. I have no idea if there's truth to it or not.

For me, anyway, I anneal dirty brass, tumble in walnut, load and then tumble the loaded rounds in corn cob for about 15 mins to remove any lube. It's way quicker this way if loading on the Dillon.

 

[BuLLet]

Yes. It sounded like there was a bowl that needed to be removed for cleaning.

This bowl and the surrounding areas is full of gunk that just today I cleaned up with a bunch of qtips, the long wooden stick version. My white bowl is filthy looking now.

Anyone done more to clean this out?

 

[rustyinbend]

I always clean my brass before annealing, and that prevents this problem. One of those tiny keyboard vacuums would probably help ... that's what I'd try.

 

[BuLLet]

I dry tumble before annealing, so what's likey burning up in there making a mess is some rouge powder leftover from the media.

 

[rustyinbend]

I dry tumble before annealing, so what's likey burning up in there making a mess is some rouge powder leftover from the media.

An excellent argument for wet-tumbling ... I do it with THESE, and without any pins or media ... comes out super clean.

 

[roberthu526]

I anneal dirty, capped brass to avoid tumbling twice. The Aztec setting will be a little different with dirty brass but other than that I see no difference.

After annealing I lube and size then wet tumble after that. I've been happy with the simplification of my reloading process like this.

Why do you lube then wet clean? Won’t that just wash the lube off?

 

[DeathBeforeDismount]

If you want to run the AMP mate and automate the process a bit, you will need clean brass. I ran a few hundred dirty pieces in a buddys system and it kept jamming up the Mate.

Now if you are just hand annealing each one I don't think it matters.

You should be wet tumbling twice anyway.

Once before you size and once after you size to clean off the lube. You can use just water if you want but a few splashes of Brass Juice or Brass Cleaner will really clean the cases well and you wont have to deal with a bunch of foam and bubbles when you dry them.

I will never dry tumble again, its retarded compared to how easy fast and efficient wet tumbling is.

 

[Bacarrat]

Wet tumbling is faster and more efficient then dry tumbling? Wut?

 

[DeathBeforeDismount]

Wet tumbling is faster and more efficient then dry tumbling? Wut?

100%.

Zero Mess
No having to shake every piece of brass to get media out
No dust from all the media
Water gets to places media won't and will clean better
You can run much bigger batches at a time. I do 500 case runs.

Welcome to 20 years ago.

 

[Bacarrat]

I have both setups. You do have a mess, with the dirty water and rinse water.... I never have any media stuck in the case. You also have to make sure all the pins get out of the case too, thats a push. Wet tumbling takes up way more time to do it's not even close. You have the extra step of drying out the cases. Super clean cases are nice, but has no effect in shooting.

 

[parshal]

I've started using the Thumler UV45 on a WEMO timer. I can dump 500 or more cases in it and walk away. A quick run through the media separator and it's good to go. I swapped back to this setup after using SS media for a couple years. Pouring out the water, picking up the pins that inadvertently pour out and drying the cases was more time consuming. Not to mention I can do way more cases at a time in the UV45.

 

[DeathBeforeDismount]

No one who knows what they are doing is using Pins or Media wet tumbling. You still have to deal with media stuck in primer pockets and other bullshit with dry tumbling. You aren't saving time, you are wasting it.

Doing both side by side, One is much easier and the results (Clean brass) are much better with the wet/no media method.

 

[Robert4]

AMP says dirty brass doesn't affect the annealing process. The induction current only heats metal. Non metallic stuff like dirt, ash, unburned powder, etc. is not affected. AMP does say dented case necks can affect annealing.

I don't clean before annealing. After a few hundred cases, there is a little ash and powder in the ceramic area. AMP suggests Q tip with alcohol which mops it right up. Annealing definitely leaves the inside neck area very dry so lubing it before bullet seating is necessary.

I don't clean brass before sizing, only after and then only to remove case lube. A big sonic cleaner works fine and 6-7 minutes in a 350 degree oven makes short work of drying

 

[DeathBeforeDismount]

LOL doesnt clean before sizing.

Tell me you don't shoot precision rifle by not telling me you don't shoot precision rifle.

 

[Trever]

I don’t clean before annealing.