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Annealing Lapua brass. How often?
- Thread starter Cerwinski
- Start date
I like it. I haven't gone so far as building a trap door system for it yet. Right now I run it on the edge of my kitchen counter, with the coil over the edge, and above a drawer. Have a couple pieces of wood resting on top of the open drawer, and I slide the top wood piece to drop the case out from under the coil. Then I take a small screw driver, insert in open mouth of the (Hot) case laying on its side, and chuck it into a fiberboard basket. Slide the piece of wood back into position, drop another case into the coil, and anneal. I have the water cooling tank resting in the sink. Works pretty good, but a trap door system would still be better.
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Zero springback is not a result of 1000F on an induction annealer. Annealing is temperature vs time. I’m hitting 1000F and total time is 3.1 seconds. The 750F target is junk. You can’t anneal the neck at 750F long enough and not impact the body.
You are conflating two different topics. Properly annealed brass is properly annealed brass regardless of what happens on your target. If down range accuracy is what demonstrates proper annealing then the metallurgists of the world can toss their high dollar labs and go spend their remaining days at the range.
Properly annealed brass resets you to the same starting point (or close). You are striving to achieve consistent grain size. If you don’t anneal properly your starting point is shifting each firing. That shift may not make one Fing bit of difference for you or your configuration down range. But when you are weighing to .1 or .02 grains, neck sizing to .001” , trimming to 0.001”, seating to within .001” why the F wouldn’t you want your brass to be as consistent as possible between firings if you are going to anneal to begin with?
Do it right or don’t do it. Blindly targeting 750F because some gun mag said that’s the correct process is garbage. You can go buy some pins and find out for yourself that your annealing process is flawed. If the pin fits sized new brass but won’t fit your identically sized once fired brass there is a discrepancy. It’s not the pin.
I never once said annealing will make or break your results at the range. I never once said the goal is zero springback. I’ve only maintained that with a set of pin gauges you can verify that your annealing is working or it isn’t. At 750F you aren’t achieving any meaningful anneal so why do it? If you are going to keep spending the time annealing why wouldn’t you spend a few bucks on some pins and test/refine your process to maximize it’s effectiveness? Worst case you find your process is working. Best case you find your process isn’t doing squat and you now have a means to dial it in.
Properly annealed brass resets you to the same starting point (or close). You are striving to achieve consistent grain size. If you don’t anneal properly your starting point is shifting each firing. That shift may not make one Fing bit of difference for you or your configuration down range. But when you are weighing to .1 or .02 grains, neck sizing to .001” , trimming to 0.001”, seating to within .001” why the F wouldn’t you want your brass to be as consistent as possible between firings if you are going to anneal to begin with?
Do it right or don’t do it. Blindly targeting 750F because some gun mag said that’s the correct process is garbage. You can go buy some pins and find out for yourself that your annealing process is flawed. If the pin fits sized new brass but won’t fit your identically sized once fired brass there is a discrepancy. It’s not the pin.
I never once said annealing will make or break your results at the range. I never once said the goal is zero springback. I’ve only maintained that with a set of pin gauges you can verify that your annealing is working or it isn’t. At 750F you aren’t achieving any meaningful anneal so why do it? If you are going to keep spending the time annealing why wouldn’t you spend a few bucks on some pins and test/refine your process to maximize it’s effectiveness? Worst case you find your process is working. Best case you find your process isn’t doing squat and you now have a means to dial it in.
I’m not conflating anything. What you call property annealed will not shoot accurately. That is unless you do something different during case prep. I’m wanting to know what that is.
Keeping in mind mag length ammo that jumps a bit, here’s what I do: I use a combination of dies that end up sizing the neck minimally in order to achieve .002” neck tension. I seat using an arbor press which is very sensitive. If I were to anneal to your spec I would end up with inadequate grip on the bullet and poor accuracy. I’ve been there, done that. A standard FL die will work the neck a lot and a harden the brass. But that one sizing cycle after annealing to your spec still does not produce good accuracy.
So my question remains: how do you prep your brass and do you chase lands?
Keeping in mind mag length ammo that jumps a bit, here’s what I do: I use a combination of dies that end up sizing the neck minimally in order to achieve .002” neck tension. I seat using an arbor press which is very sensitive. If I were to anneal to your spec I would end up with inadequate grip on the bullet and poor accuracy. I’ve been there, done that. A standard FL die will work the neck a lot and a harden the brass. But that one sizing cycle after annealing to your spec still does not produce good accuracy.
So my question remains: how do you prep your brass and do you chase lands?
I have to argue here, that ALL that matters is what happens on target. The end.
I’m still using a torch and socket using a method that is in the sticky’s using flame color as a guide.
It’s been working for years.
It’s been working for years.
Mostly, but time at the reloading bench vs accuracy gained is also important. Even if something works well, if you can achieve the same results in half the time. Maybe its just me, but I don't like reloading.
Of course. There's always many ways to accomplish the same goal. If the result of two methods are the exact same, but one takes half the time, then there is only one, "rite" way.
I use pin gauges .001 - .004 under cartridge size and anneal with an Annie. I have a specific time for several types of brass that results in a consistent "feel" with the pins after sizing. It did end up being slightly more time than what was required to melt the 750 tempilaq. I spot check a few and that's it. I have seen better results on paper after doing it this way and I'm able to keep that same "feel" for at least 2 firings. So, I now anneal every third firing. Just my .03.
Pin gauge and arbor press perform different function.
A pin gauge will verify your neck tension. Arbor press shows you the seating force or pressure (depending what type of gauge/setup you run).
There’s many times when the two are completely independent of one another.
Your arguement sounds more absolute than informative and I cant see any consistency or true data and how it actually backs up what you are claiming.
While obviously they are gonna make a sales pitch, there’s really not reason for them to skew their data for temperature.
They aren’t selling temperature, they are selling convenience/consistency. They could sell the same amount of machines with 500 deg temps if that’s what they believed was the “proper” temps.
You don’t need to be a metallurgist to look up what temperature brass anneals at, but it helps.
Induction Brass Annealer | Repeatable Neck Hardness | AMP
In order to determine the optimal annealed neck hardness, we tested multiple cartridges, brands and dies. We ran a range of hardnesses from 85 HV to 125 HV, and did multiple reloading and annealing cycles with each. The objective was to find a level of annealing that is repeatable each and every...
www.ampannealing.com
Everytime is the way to go.
Exactly, 3 minutes at 500 and you’ll have the whole case cooked instead of just the neck.
It’s good data which sells itself. Anyone intelligent would tell you as much. And the fact that it comes in a convenient package is just icing on top.
You don’t have to anneal brass till it’s dead soft, just until it’s soft enough so necks don’t split. Factory brass isn’t annealed until it’s dead soft. It’s annealed to a semi hard state. Different brands of brass are annealed to different states of hardness. Hornady seems the hardest to me, Lapua the softest.
Not disputing that at all. But when you claim that AMP’s data is just a sales pitch, then specifically claim 525 for 8s.......you should have data to back that up.
I was just about to say the same thing.
A simple stress relief process is all my loads need to see very low SD and very long brass life.
I’m not selling anything. I’m also not telling you what you should spend your money on. I’ll leave that up to AMP. Salt bath annealing does work for the intended purpose of prolonging brass life, and creating more consistent neck tension than simply sizing and shooting.
A simple stress relief process is all my loads need to see very low SD and very long brass life.
I’m not selling anything. I’m also not telling you what you should spend your money on. I’ll leave that up to AMP. Salt bath annealing does work for the intended purpose of prolonging brass life, and creating more consistent neck tension than simply sizing and shooting.
I found that AMP’s data, when applied to my 308, caused a decrease in accuracy because it rendered the brass too soft.
I was able to collapse the case mouth using my thumb nail.
Accuracy went to shit.
That’s when I got a 650 deg Tempilstik. I ended up reducing their settings by 10-15% and the accuracy came back.
I’ll keep and eye on mine. Haven’t noticed any issues yet.
Using Aztec mode, mail in, or just what they posted online library for settings?
Their posted settings. I haven’t tried the Aztec mode yet.
This was with their first machine, several years ago.
I understand that brass thickness varies from lot to lot and it could have been that the recommended settings assumed the thickest lot from that particular brand of brass.
Am curious . . .
Do you turn the necks? If so, to what thickness?
I ask because the thickness is a big issue for the induction process.
Having carefully ready the lab reports on AMP's web site along with some other reports on annealing brass, it's my understanding that a precise temperature (like 750°F, or very closes to this) really isn't all that important and in fact, a range (like 650° - 1,000°) does what is needed to relieve (or reset) the brass's stress without effecting it's hardness much. One certainly doesn't want to over anneal. Getting a consistent anneal on the cases is what's important and that's where the induction annealers tend to be best, though good propane annealers, like the Bench-Source do just about as well, IMHO.
I use an Annealeez machine and anneal after ever firing and set the time so that the necks just begin glow as seen in a dark or very dim lighted room. And ever since I've been doing this (and yes, this is just my own anecdotal experience) my ES's have been improved where I am consistently getting single digits ES and get good results on paper. Though, I must disclose one other main thing has helped do that, which is I've improved my powder weighing technique for more consistency.
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I don’t turn necks. There isn’t enough neck thickness variance in the brass I use to matter. The Tempilstik would have reacted to neck thickness variance and it did not.
I turn necks. But I also have mk2 so Aztec *should* be accounting for that.
If you Aztec 5 seemingly identical pieces of brass, my guess is you’ll get 5 different codes.
This has been covered. You’ll get 5 codes very close to each other. Which will all be within an acceptable range.
Also why they recommend checking sample of brass and using the average piece for your code.
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