Well, I have gone a long time reloading and never gotten into annealing. I have been researching the various MO's out there, and being in a cash crunch for a while, I decided to start with the Hornady annealing kit.
It is simply 3 holders that are basically 1/4" shanks attached to what amounts to a round piece of metal about 1.75-2" long and 3/4" in diameter (aluminum I think) that are drilled to hold various case sizes. The 'kit' comes with a bottle of Templaq 475 degree heat indicating paint, and you paint a stripe around the case just below the shoulder, and then you rotate your case in the holder, with the holder in your cordless screwdriver or whatever to spin it, and hold the tip of the flame from your torch on the neck, and when the Templaq disintegrates, the instructions tell you to tip the case into water--which I did/do.
The interesting thing to me is the significant difference in the amount of springback in brass after annealing. My first batch was 40 +/- Win WSM cases. After firing, 4th time in this rifle, Factory fired once, plus 3 times reloaded the case head to datum measurement (with a stoney point gage on Mitutoya calipers) read something like 1.7655-1.766. When sizing with a Full lenght die on the fired brass, which I had previously set up to set the shoulder back right at 2 thousandths, the brass would wind up at 1.764 or 1.7645 (1/2 ten thou capable dig. calipers) petty darn consistently, with an ocassional case coming in at 1.7635.
When I sized the annealed cases, they would wind up at 1.762 or 1.7625 pretty consistently. A few cases did NOT, they wound up at more like the un-anneled batch, coming back at 1.764 or 1.7635...I figured I didn't hold these in the heat long enough, and just didn't get them actually annealed.
After annealing the cases I didn't feel I got annealed the first try again, they followed suit with the ones that I must HAVE gotten annealed in the first try, springing back less, and maybe even springing back a little LESS even than the 'got em right on the first try batch'.
I suppose this is the whole point of the annealing process, I now wonder how deep is the rabbit hole? Does the fact that these will spring back less change my neck tension--on the surface of course it will, but.....since the neck material is actually softer than before, does it open more easily and yield a similar amount of resistance to bullet release than a case with less measurable neck tension--dimensionally--but a more hardened material?? e.g. a non annealed case, that when sized, the neck springs back more, and is dimensionally larger than the annealed case in terms of ID....
I imagine that folks have checked with a gage of sort to actually measure the pulling force required to pull a bullet--just wonder what the scoop is.
Hope this didn't keep somebody from making a cup of coffee while reading--maybe there is some useful intel here
It is simply 3 holders that are basically 1/4" shanks attached to what amounts to a round piece of metal about 1.75-2" long and 3/4" in diameter (aluminum I think) that are drilled to hold various case sizes. The 'kit' comes with a bottle of Templaq 475 degree heat indicating paint, and you paint a stripe around the case just below the shoulder, and then you rotate your case in the holder, with the holder in your cordless screwdriver or whatever to spin it, and hold the tip of the flame from your torch on the neck, and when the Templaq disintegrates, the instructions tell you to tip the case into water--which I did/do.
The interesting thing to me is the significant difference in the amount of springback in brass after annealing. My first batch was 40 +/- Win WSM cases. After firing, 4th time in this rifle, Factory fired once, plus 3 times reloaded the case head to datum measurement (with a stoney point gage on Mitutoya calipers) read something like 1.7655-1.766. When sizing with a Full lenght die on the fired brass, which I had previously set up to set the shoulder back right at 2 thousandths, the brass would wind up at 1.764 or 1.7645 (1/2 ten thou capable dig. calipers) petty darn consistently, with an ocassional case coming in at 1.7635.
When I sized the annealed cases, they would wind up at 1.762 or 1.7625 pretty consistently. A few cases did NOT, they wound up at more like the un-anneled batch, coming back at 1.764 or 1.7635...I figured I didn't hold these in the heat long enough, and just didn't get them actually annealed.
After annealing the cases I didn't feel I got annealed the first try again, they followed suit with the ones that I must HAVE gotten annealed in the first try, springing back less, and maybe even springing back a little LESS even than the 'got em right on the first try batch'.
I suppose this is the whole point of the annealing process, I now wonder how deep is the rabbit hole? Does the fact that these will spring back less change my neck tension--on the surface of course it will, but.....since the neck material is actually softer than before, does it open more easily and yield a similar amount of resistance to bullet release than a case with less measurable neck tension--dimensionally--but a more hardened material?? e.g. a non annealed case, that when sized, the neck springs back more, and is dimensionally larger than the annealed case in terms of ID....
I imagine that folks have checked with a gage of sort to actually measure the pulling force required to pull a bullet--just wonder what the scoop is.
Hope this didn't keep somebody from making a cup of coffee while reading--maybe there is some useful intel here
