Do you consider the AMP Annealer or any annealer an essential piece of equipment regardless of skill level?
- Thread starter shoedo
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No.
But for long range precision shooting, yes . . . I would consider annealing essential to get the most consistency and it appears most LR shooters do to. If you haven't read what the top shooter's do in this article, Then here:
precisionrifleblog.com
The biggest benefit from annealing is it makes brass last longer and I think that's why most reloaders doing annealing do it.
But for long range precision shooting, yes . . . I would consider annealing essential to get the most consistency and it appears most LR shooters do to. If you haven't read what the top shooter's do in this article, Then here:
Reloading Like A Pro – Tips From Top Precision Rifle Shooters
I’ve surveyed the top 100 shooters in the Precision Rifle Series (PRS) for the past 4 years, and pub...
precisionrifleblog.com
The biggest benefit from annealing is it makes brass last longer and I think that's why most reloaders doing annealing do it.
A lot of people go many, many years without annealing and do just fine. Then there are people who explore annealing, but do it wrong. The main reason, in my opinion, to anneal is to extend brass life and squeeze a little bit of extra uniformity out of loads. It's not necessary if your brass only lasts 5-6 loads. It's also not necessary unless you're doing precision shooting (I think).
If you are shooting long range precision, then it becomes more important because you will probably be shooting expensive brass that you really take care of and work hard to make as uniform as possible. You might also be shooting wildcat cartridges that really benefit from annealing.
The AMP machine really just makes it simple to do correct annealing.
If you are shooting long range precision, then it becomes more important because you will probably be shooting expensive brass that you really take care of and work hard to make as uniform as possible. You might also be shooting wildcat cartridges that really benefit from annealing.
The AMP machine really just makes it simple to do correct annealing.
Yes.. I have just stared annealing this year and have been able to get a more consistent neck tension with that and the use of expander mandrels together.
My ES/SD have dropped to the single digits and my reloads are consonantly producing better groups, if I do my part.
My ES/SD have dropped to the single digits and my reloads are consonantly producing better groups, if I do my part.
As long as you only do salt bath annealing. All the others are just fancy stuffs guys use to get strippers naked. Or is it bath salt annealing? IDK but the AMP with the thingy on top looks titties to me.
I do not own or use the AMP but you may want to read the article below before you try salt bath annealing
Salt Bath Annealing - Does It Work? | Learn More | AMP
View the latest articles from AMP Annealing. Get tips and tricks from our R&D. Here we upload articles to provide your the best possible information on innovations in the annealing process.
www.ampannealing.com
No, I was thinking the same thing that I needed to anneal my brass. If you don't shoot professionally or matches, and don't shoot thousands of rounds a month you do not need one.
If I was forced to drop one step, it would be annealing.
It’s nice but not essential to success.
It’s nice but not essential to success.
The real question is... did both of those things equally increase consistency or did you just start both at the same time and got results?
When I switched over to using mandrels is when my numbers came down and my seating depth consistency improved. I doubt annealing would do anything to improve my setup. (I'm not shooting ELR).
Annealing may or may not help groups with your specific rifle - you'll have to test (I'd argue improvements in neck sizing using mandrels/etc are more important) - but you'll get more life out of your brass. That's why I anneal; any accuracy improvements are a bonus.
When I started annealing, I experienced an immediate and significant difference, mainly in consistency. And the big surprising one for me, in terms of getting various things consistent, was improved SD's. And I would say it had a lot to do with keeping the harness of the neck consistent.
I'm sure we all know that the brass gets work hardened a little more each time we fire the case. A case that's been fired 7x - 10x, for example, the brass is going to be a lot harder that when it was fired at 1x - 2x. You can see that in the report for the Salt Bath Annealing in the above post. When the brass in the neck gets harder and harder, it puts more and more pressure on the bullet when maintaining the same neck tension. If neck tension is important to maintain consistent pressure on the bullet to get consistent results on paper, then one shouldn't want that pressure to be increasing every shooting cycle of the brass, huh?
The idea behind annealing is not only to extend the life of the brass, but also to keep the pressure on the bullet as consistent as possible, which in turn helps with consistent bullet release resulting in better consistency on paper. If one is a precision shooter at long range and trying to get as many as they can into the X ring, that can be a big deal. If one is not interested in shooting like this, like just interested in hitting steel 300 yds, then annealing seems to me to be a total waist of time and expense.
I'm sure we all know that the brass gets work hardened a little more each time we fire the case. A case that's been fired 7x - 10x, for example, the brass is going to be a lot harder that when it was fired at 1x - 2x. You can see that in the report for the Salt Bath Annealing in the above post. When the brass in the neck gets harder and harder, it puts more and more pressure on the bullet when maintaining the same neck tension. If neck tension is important to maintain consistent pressure on the bullet to get consistent results on paper, then one shouldn't want that pressure to be increasing every shooting cycle of the brass, huh?
The idea behind annealing is not only to extend the life of the brass, but also to keep the pressure on the bullet as consistent as possible, which in turn helps with consistent bullet release resulting in better consistency on paper. If one is a precision shooter at long range and trying to get as many as they can into the X ring, that can be a big deal. If one is not interested in shooting like this, like just interested in hitting steel 300 yds, then annealing seems to me to be a total waist of time and expense.
I'll echo the majority here and say no, definitely non-essential. But I will say that once i started playing around with the big, straight-taper cases and the weird issues i was getting with inconsistent shoulder bump and neck tension, I was annealing every firing and got 117% fed up with the blow torch and drill/socket. I bought an annealeez to automate the process, and boy it sure is nice. You do have to babysit it, but it beats the the shit out the drill and socket.
I was gonna say he meant straight wall but then he mentions the shoulder.. so I have no idea lol. Im curious too now.
Let me say first, we all have differing degrees or levels of acceptable accuracy. I have always felt that neck tension consistency has been an ace in the hole. You almost need to anneal for this to come to fruition, but now you have opened another can of worms that takes time and maybe money. You have altered your brass. But we take different paths or use different methods to achieve this, bushings, mandrels, etc...
There is only so much you can do with your powder charge, or seat depths.
I am going to continue to anneal after every firing, that is my standard to work from.
Here is the kicker, about a yr ago, I met a guy at the range, shooting a Bergera H14 in 6 creed. shooting Prime ammo. His combo flat out shot for all factory.
We became friends, his hours matched mine, one outing I told him we could improve his guns accuracy. So we made a load, awesome, Peterson brass from Prime ammo, RL 16, Berger 105 hybrid. Being I do not have AMP pilots for Creedmoor, we cannot anneal. He is on 6 firings of his brass and that rifle shoots beside most all that I own, impressive.
So right now I am questioning the validity of annealing my self. Common sense says that different brands of brass, or different compositions of brass may dictate the actual effectiveness of annealing. If I get a new barrel, I may try not annealing with Lapua brass, but it would not be a fair comparison to compare my Lapua, which is not creed brass, to his Peterson and come to a conclusion.
I know I did this, I hated the feel of neck tension on hydroformed Dasher brass, so I went 3 firings before I annealed, and believe it paid off.
Lol, I guess I really do not know what I am trying to tell you here, other than an experimentation without commitment is not the answer.
There is only so much you can do with your powder charge, or seat depths.
I am going to continue to anneal after every firing, that is my standard to work from.
Here is the kicker, about a yr ago, I met a guy at the range, shooting a Bergera H14 in 6 creed. shooting Prime ammo. His combo flat out shot for all factory.
We became friends, his hours matched mine, one outing I told him we could improve his guns accuracy. So we made a load, awesome, Peterson brass from Prime ammo, RL 16, Berger 105 hybrid. Being I do not have AMP pilots for Creedmoor, we cannot anneal. He is on 6 firings of his brass and that rifle shoots beside most all that I own, impressive.
So right now I am questioning the validity of annealing my self. Common sense says that different brands of brass, or different compositions of brass may dictate the actual effectiveness of annealing. If I get a new barrel, I may try not annealing with Lapua brass, but it would not be a fair comparison to compare my Lapua, which is not creed brass, to his Peterson and come to a conclusion.
I know I did this, I hated the feel of neck tension on hydroformed Dasher brass, so I went 3 firings before I annealed, and believe it paid off.
Lol, I guess I really do not know what I am trying to tell you here, other than an experimentation without commitment is not the answer.
If you're on the fence about annealing, it's worth a little exploration with some online research, a blowtorch and some tools. I spent years annealing in a dark bathroom with a fan on, spinning the cases in an electric hand drill with a socket adapter on the neck/shoulder area until they just started to glow. This is not ideal and you're not likely to get very good consistency, but it can work if you want to try annealing with very little investment.
Now if you're a regular annealer and want to up your setup to something fast, easy, and very consistent - then the AMP is worth the money without a doubt. It has made the process so effortless that I'm annealing after every other firing.
Now if you're a regular annealer and want to up your setup to something fast, easy, and very consistent - then the AMP is worth the money without a doubt. It has made the process so effortless that I'm annealing after every other firing.
Hey... It was late... and the sun was in my eyes. What i meant to say was low body taper.
I've got a couple different improved 338LM chamberings that have almost no body taper and they're absolute bastards to resize. It feels like you're on the edge of sticking every case, even with what i would consider excessive lube. When i wasn't annealing every loading, sometimes it would take 4 strokes to get the shoulder pushed back 3 thou. Sometimes it wouldn't bump at all after 5 strokes and I'd adjust the die to actually set the shoulder set back, forget to change the setting back, send the next piece through and have pushed the shoulder back 8 thou. Then I'd throw everything across the room in a fit of rage.
Now that I anneal every loading, the first stroke gets pretty much all of them right to 3 thou, with the odd one needing a second pass. Plus much less anger.
Not necessary. It's a nice way to roll, but is not a thing that has to happen. I do anneal, but I have already ran down a rabbit hole. If you want to test it, send it to a brass service and have them anneal for you. If you find it's the cats pajamas, buy an annealer.
Something I noticed over this past weekend is that it appears that proper annealing can also help with runout issues. I've been chasing an increasing amount of runout in my precision loads over the past year or so. While a little runout is expected, I was seeing between 0.004" - 0.007" and spent a lot of time refining my process to mitigate it as much as possible, but still couldn't get it back to where I expected. Then I annealed several batches of brass over the weekend and checked runout after loading and found them back down to acceptable levels. I used to half-ass anneal (blowtorch in dark room), but haven't done it in years, so a lot of my 6.5 and .338 brass has anywhere from 8-12 firings without being annealed. Generally these cases get dumped when I start seeing the light rings around the case web (or much less common neck cracking or loose primer pockets). I'm starting to think that my brass had just work hardened enough that any induced runout was being accumulated and amplified over time without being reset.
Anyway, now that I have an AMP hopefully this is a non-issue.
Anyway, now that I have an AMP hopefully this is a non-issue.
Yes, it stands to reason that annealing should help with runout issues . . . for the same reason it helps with getting consistent head space when bumping the shoulder back. How much it might help will depend on how consistent neck thickness is, where some brands of brass can have a substantial difference.
But, if one turns necks, then ithat's not an issue.
As much a I really like the AMP, my pocketbook just can't get me to justify it (that's just me). And so I went with the Annealeez, even though a machine like the BenchSource is a good option, and it has work out just fine for me.
Annealing is essential. Actually owning an annealing machine is one option. Sending brass out to be annealed is another.
Since the majority here say annealing is not a big deal...
Is using a die that makes a minimal neck adjustment a good consideration to avoid working the brass while sizing?
Basically are the bushing dies going to help the brass last if not annealing it?
Is using a die that makes a minimal neck adjustment a good consideration to avoid working the brass while sizing?
Basically are the bushing dies going to help the brass last if not annealing it?
The issue when talking about annealing has to do with the work hardening of the brass. The more the brass is worked the more it's work hardened. Annealing, in effect, resets the brass back from the work hardening and the work hardening essentially starts all over. So . . . if one can reduce the work being done on the brass that causes it to get hard, then whatever is done to reduce that is "a good consideration". "Minimual neck adjustment" where the neck (and the shoulder, for that matter) doesn't get much work on them helps a great deal when not annealing.
Everyone throws the term “work hardening” around. We are talking about a few thou.
Guys did just fine without annealing for a long time. I anneal as it helps. But if I didn’t, I wouldn’t care too much.
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