would annealing reduce effort to seat bullets?

[NCHillbilly]

I was trying to load some test loads the other day and ran into a problem I've never encountered before. When it came time to seat the bullet, it was taking so much effort to seat the bullet that the seater stem was deforming the bullet jacket ( it was leaving a circular ring around the tip). This wasn't just a superficial mark, it was deep enough you could feel it with your fingernail. The cases had been f/l resized with the same dies I have used for years. The load was 223 rem. The cases were federal commercial brass (FC 11 to be exact). The I.D. of the neck was .216. The bullet was Hornady 68gr bthp. After noticing what was happening to the bullet tips, I switched to Lake City cases, which solved the problem. My question is: would annealing those FC cases soften up the necks enough so that I wouldn't have that problem? I have quite a few of those cases and would hate to toss em, but I don't want to damage my bullets and ruin my accuracy either.

 

[diverdon]

I think you must have something else wrong. Even hard brass should seat bullets with little effort.

 

[steve123]

Some things you could do are

Use NECO dry lube applied into the neck with a bore mop and polish the sharp edge off the bullet seater/ do both. If you have a bushing die get the next size up bushing.

Annealing does help reduce some tension if the cases are work hardened.

 

[spife7980]

What dies? Are you using an expander ball? .216 inside is a lot of tension on a .224 bullet. Annealing would even out the pressure but the bullet acting as a .008 expander is the primary problem I would say and I bet that the federal necks are thicker than the lake city which will exacerbate the problem if you're only squeezing down the outside of the necks.

 

[L.R.Novice]

I would certainly try annealing some. I anneal after 3 firings and you can certainly feel a noticeable difference between the last loading before annealing and the first loading after annealing. I would not described it as taking a lot of effort so there may be something else going on as well.

I agree .008" is a lot of neck tension but if you are measuring the id with regular calipers it might actually be closer to .004" neck tension which is more reasonable.

Depending on the fit between the stem and the bullet, it can be easy to leave a minor ring. Check your neck chamfer to be sure the case isn't digging in to the bullet causing increased force. Also check the powder fill to be sure you aren't compressing the powder at the bottom.

 

[Fursniper]

Annealing will help insure consistent neck tension, bullet release and neck expansion & springback (as well as longevity of course). You may have an odd batch of brass (fixable with an expander) or worse, a bad lot of bullets. Measure your bullets and make sure you didn't get an out of spec lot, it happens. It's possible depending how many loads you have on your brass that it has work hardened so much that the expander ball in your die just can't do its job and the neck is just resistant to sizing. Try annealing one or two cases then run them through your die again and remeasure against the other cases. But if you have some bullets from a past lot that were working ok, measure them against what you're using now. It's probably not that but I've seen worse!

 

[STI_1911_Guy]

To start, yes annealing can have a felt difference in seating pressure, but i dont think thats the underlying issue here. If the .216" is correct then that is the first problem that needs attention. If the spring back on the case is that severe there may be a problem with the brass that is not easily corrected. Since you said the lake city worked fine what does it measure after resizing?

 

[lash]

What dies? Are you using an expander ball? .216 inside is a lot of tension on a .224 bullet. Annealing would even out the pressure but the bullet acting as a .008 expander is the primary problem I would say and I bet that the federal necks are thicker than the lake city which will exacerbate the problem if you're only squeezing down the outside of the necks.

This. Compare your IDs. Different brass will have different neck wall thicknesses. Annealing will help, but cannot make up for a fit that is too tight.

 

[NCHillbilly]

I thought it may be an equipment problem also. I loaded the exact same loads in some Lake City brass and had no issues.The i.d. of the lake city cases were also .216, and the bullets came from a box that I had loaded from previously, with no problems. I can assure you that I have loaded thousands of rds of different weights and profiles with my set-up and never encountered this problem. It is, however, the first time I have used this particular brass

 

[gigamortis]

.008" is way too much neck tension. I run between .0015" and .002" neck tension with my annealed .223 and .308 brass. 1/4 MOA accuracy out of both rifles.

Excessive neck tension also contributes greatly to case deformation which induces bullet runout. I hardly ever have to correct for bullet runout at .002" neck tension. Properly annealed brass will only spring back about .001" to .0015" at most anyway. Any more stretching of the brass is just deformation beyond the yield strength of the brass.

 

[Mike_in_FL]

I would never recommend using Federal brass in .223. Too many problems reported and it used to be super soft, opposite of your problem. I won't buy it and scrap it if given.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk