Annealing Rifle Brass

This question has been asked many times in the past at other forums. Unfortunatly, the question never got answered but danced around...

I will need to start doing this soon, really, not sure exactly when to start...

You have new brass, they come already annealed from the company. You load it, shoot, now they are once fired. You FL resize, deprime, reprime powder charge seat bullet, chamber pull trigger boom, now they are twice fired. You repeat this and eventually the case neck splits and the brass is no good.

So, you get an x number of fireings from the case without annealing. This number increases when you anneal the case as the case work hardens every time you fire, resize on a repeated bases.

At what point in time, do you re-anneal your cases? Once fired? Twice fired?

What is the cut off mark? How many annealings before you deem the brass no annealable anymore if there is such a thing?

You buy once fired brass or pick up brass from the range not sure if it is once fired or not. Does it hurt to anneal a case after it has been annealed? Say like you annealed a case. A week or 2 later you can not remember what was anealed and what wasn't because you are unorginized and it slipped your mind. So you decide to anneal them just in case. Does this hurt the cases at all??

What is the going thoughts on this??

3-5 firings should be ok before annealing is needed....It depends on the brass really. If you notice your brass gets splits after 2 firings...it's either cheap brass or you need to anneal more often.

Annealing a second time after the process has already been done shouldn't change anything unless you get the brass hotter than you did the time before....then it will be softer.

It seems to me...and I might be wrong...that the smaller necked brass like 22-250,223,243,etc ,need annealing more often than the bigger calibers like 308 on up.

My 2 cents worth...

oh yeah...if the neck and shoulder is well taken care of ....you'll prolly start to have case head separation issues as the brass ages along with the the brass thinning at the neck to where it is no longer useable....that's when it is time for the scrap pile.

good question Tommy I have been loading since 1978 and I still don't have the answer i really don't think there is one. I anneal every 5 loadings. but that is just what I do. I cant give you a scientific cycle. I suppose if we all had a hardness tester we could test them and then know when they have work hardened to the extent they need annealed.
I hope someone has the answer you are looking for as I would like to know too.

I don't wanna throw this off topic...but this sparked an idea.

How about the use of a diesel glow plug for annealing the necks? I have one laying here from a GM that is .200" in diameter...a little small, but maybe if a appropriate sized collar was used to fit in the neck it could work. a 12v starter relay could be used to supply the power and switched on and off with a standard 30amp toggle switch....timing would be everything though....on to long would either over heat the brass or burn out the glow plug.

I wonder what size the bigger diesel engine glow plugs are....like from a semi or tractor.

like this Hawcer?

yep...like that

Except the glow plug would heat from inside the neck.

The .200" GM glow plug fits like the cats azz in a fired 22lr case and heats it cherry red in no time.

Either way...it would be a heck of alot faster and more precise than using a torch....cleaner too.

Thanks guys. Definatly alot better answer than been getting in the past thats for sure and it helps a person decide where to go from here..

Anyone else that does any brass annealing, go ahead and share your thoughts..

Hawcer, this thread is about annealing, so you weren't off topic in any way

I would like to see a glow plug method. I think you just gave yourself a little project LOL...

Anyone that just neck size ever anneal their cases?

yes you still need to anneal neck sizing only but you should be able to get more firings between annealing. it still depends on a lot of factors such as load, rifle, brass quality, etc etc.

I haven't done a lot of annealing but seems to me that if you notice the brass starts getting a little harder to work when sizing or seating a bullet, it would be a good time to anneal IMO. xbonesx, if you would be willing to share the schematic for your setup I may be more inclined to anneal more often -

not mine eagle, wish it was. just something I found on youtube onetime that I favorited.

i actually anneal new brass, and every 3-4 firings. but like everyone is saying its really up to you. just my .02......bill

Roger that bones:). Always on the lookout for useful tidbits LOL

Tommy, there's not much of a chance that you will have to worry whether you annealed a case or not because you will be able to see the heat marks around the neck. It's only after repeated tumbling that the heat marks begin to disappear, then it's about time to anneal again.

Yes Hawcer, 22 caliber rifles are itching brass especially the 22-250. I had some new brass and it only took about 3 loadings for the splits to beging to appear around the case mouth. Luckily I caught it in time and annealed them, then trimmed off the split portion. Now I anneal all of my 22-250 brass before I even start loading them, whether they are new or used.

If you get the neck too hot you will know it when you seat your bullets because you won't be able to put enough neck tension on the bullet. Too much is a bad deal, and not enough serves no purpose so there is a fine line between just right, too much, and not enough. You get a "Feel" for it after you've done several batches of brass and went throught the loading process. If you begin to experience neck splits right away after annealing, then you probably didn't give it enough heat. If your bullets won't stay put in the neck are easily moved then you over did it.

Brass characteristics will vary from manufacturer and from one caliber to another, so each one is different. That's another reason why I mainly stick to one brand (Winchester) because I've annealed enough of it that I kinda just know how much it needs.
Same with different calibers, I know just how much to anneal each one based on how bad the caliber is about over working the necks. On a scale of 1-5 my list goes as follows.
22-250 would be a definite 5 on being itching necks, but neck sizing only will definitely help most any caliber and I've gotten more life out of my 22-250 brass by utilizing a neck sizing only die.

.243 is around a 3 on the harshness scale.

.270 is a 1 or a 2 and it's not too bad depending on the brass. Winchester is definitely the best I've used with RP being a close runner up.

Basically the smaller diameter of the case mouth and steepness of the neck angle the harder it is going to work the brass and be more prone to split.

Hope that helps some.

i havent loaded alot of the small dia calibers iv loaded a couple batches of 222 and some 243s but most of my loading exprience is with 30-06 and 35 rem iv reloaded some 30-06 cases up to 6 times and have never annelled or had a cracked case with the 35s iv loaded the same 20 rounds of brass 4 times with no anneling or cracked cases im sure eventually il have to but havent so far i have a couple different batches of 35s i have 20 brass for hunting loads (200 gr softys) 20 for my xtp loads ( 158 gr hp) and 20 or so for test loads then i have about 75 rounds of back up brass so if and when i can recycle them out!

I shoot a lot of wildcats so I anneal a lot more than probably the average reloader.

One of the problematic cases I have is the .22 Cheetah Mk 1 which is the .444 knecked down to .224 with a 40 degree shoulder.

The Cheeetah is hell on brass and you have to anneal before forming and knecking down to .224. If you do not anneal the brass will almost always crush or split down the side.

I still do the old propane torch and tip them into a pan of water. There are a few automatic annealing rigs out there that I have been considering. I use a heat sensing paste that I got the suggestion from Ammosmith to use.

I have been forming .300 Whisper-R from .357 Rem Max and you have to anneal the brass or it will split when you kneck it to .308 from .357.

While I do not shoot the caliber, the .22 Jet which is another caliber made from .357 Rem Max brass, you really have to carefully anneal the brass or it will split every one.

Mo, I am using a similar set up but am using a temp sensing paste that Ammosmith recommended so that I get better consistant heat on my brass.