I bought an Annie a couple of weeks ago but haven't even plugged it in yet. Weather and work have kept my shooting and reloading time to a minimum. What kind of time will I set initially for my 6.5 CM and .308's? I have the 750F Tempilaq. And, how much smoke are we talking? I'd like to use it in my reloading room in the house. Sorry OP to derail a bit.
I just decided to begin annealing after many years of not doing it. I've watched a couple of my friends SD's stay very low after many reloads on some everyday brass that I would have probably tossed. Accuracy stayed better also. We compete in a club - basically shooting groups out to 1300 yds with various set ups. Annealing never really mattered much to me when our range was limited to 700 yds but when that nearly doubled, I began paying to have my cases annealed after 4 firings. That was the point (5th firing) where I started to see my accuracy fall off and I believe it was due to my SD's since vertical was the biggest issue. I then began having them annealed after the 3rd firing and the results were significant. Less vertical and just better groups all around.
I bought the Annie but everyone else around here uses a torch of one type or the other. They are waiting (a bit skeptically I think) to see me use the Annie. I will only be doing 60 rounds or so at a time and the manufacturer told me it would suit that application easily. I'll report my results after I get some experience with it and the weather gets a bit warmer/dryer to go to the range. My .02...
The time on the annie can vary a bit based on a couple things.
You will get 4 coil halves (2 red, 1 blue, 1 yellow) and the different combinations of those halves will allow you to set different widths. Each color is a different height and creats a different sized gap for the case to sit in.
For my 300 BO and 223 I use 1 red half and 1 yellow half. For 6xc, 270, 3006 I use both red halves.
For 223/300 BO RP and Federal brass using the red and yellow halves I get a time of 1.2 seconds.
I have only tested one combination in multiple half set ups; the RP 223 brass is 1.2 seconds on the skinny R&Y and 1.5 seconds on the wider R&R set up. So the wider channel dilutes the field and takes longer.
For 223 Lapua in the R&Y set up its 1.5 seconds, so the Lapua takes .3 seconds longer to heat to the same point as the RP brass.
- 2) Positioning of the case inside the work coil gap
I can hold the case deeper into the gap or shallower. I started with the center of the neck in the middle of the field, this caused the neck to heat up real quick but left the shoulder under annealed. I have found that the larger the case gets the further down the neck and into the shoulder the case needs to be positioned.
For my super short 300 BO cases I hold it so that the top of the neck extends half way into the jaws. I do this so that I dont get very much energy going into the base body and case head on those tiny cases. I have tested with 450 tempilaq on the body and it doesnt get that hot that low but Im not one to push stuff.
On 223 I started by placing the middle of the necks in middle of the gap and noticed that the heat wasnt going all the way down the shoulders. Pushing the case deeper into the field so that the neck shoulder junction is what I place in the middle (move the shoulder deeper into the field) has shifted the energy so that the shoulders and neck are now both turning the tempilaq at the same time.
For 270win winchester cases which have a long neck and shallow shoulder I found that I actually have to put the middle of the shoulder in the middle of the gap to time it so that both the neck and shoulders all the way down turn at the same time. This particular case takes 3 seconds with the R&R jaws.
My 6xc norma brass uses the same R&R jaw combo as the 270 but it only takes 2.5 seconds and I put the neck shoulder junction in the middle instead of half way down the shoulder. The shoulder is steeper so it puts more of that material closer to the middle of the field.
My 3006 RP brass is the same set up as the 270 but it is only 2.8 seconds I think (havent done this since the beginning of deer season so the details are foggy)
So... if I were a betting man you will want to use both red jaw halves and it would be anywhere from 2.3-2.8 seconds for a creed case. Apply the tempilaq to a hand full of cases and test. You might be inclined to paint it all on thick but thats not required. A light coat will go on almost transparent but then it dries it will turn to the white/green chalky seafoam shade look, the thicker it is the greener it looks, the wetter it is the greener it looks. The thinner the coat the more responsive it is to the temp change. When it heats up and hits the temp it turns back to the clearish liquid.
If you heat one case with the end of the neck in the gap you will see that the neck tempilaq turns from the end of it and slowly works back towards the body, by doing this you can see how the heat is traveling down into the case. If you put the shoulder in the middle you will see how the shoulder will take a bunch of the heat and slowly but it will quickly migrate into the neck all of the sudden.
In this pic each painted 223 case is .1 seconds apart gaining time as you move tot he right. (large jaw set up used here which is what the testing times are different from my above listed recipe for the narrow jaw set up)
1.5 (left most pair) didnt do anything, 1.6 (second pair) didnt do much but you can see that it kind of sort of started to turn a bit. Its not quite as white. The 1.7 had the tempilaq just starting to turn from the white/green to clearish down the whole neck but is only just getting to the shoulder body junction. 1.8 seconds (visually inline with the power switch) finally went all the way down the case shoulder and turned into the case body as evidenced by the tempilaq turning into the dark green color that happens as it turns. 1.9 shows that the tempilaq has gotten to temp down past the shoulder and into the case body and 2.0 looks pretty close to the 1.9 and I assume the leveling out is due to the case body having a higher capacity to absorb more heat that the shoulders and neck thus reducing the amount of change.
I think thats enough typing for now as my mind is starting to talk itself in circles. Any more questions, just fire away.
