Annealing test

[hounddawg]

Already I find his test concerning. Why 223? Why Lapua? Why 10 times? He took the best brass and tested it.

As far as the #of tests, that should be enough to see start some pattern. If a trend starts to develop it could be extended. I am starting to use a similar approach in my load testing. Start off with smaller samples then refine to get statistical significance by extended testing and refining of the more promising nodes.

why .223 and why Lapua ? probably because .223 is one of the most popular calibers and people who buy cheap brass don't won't be as likely to put a lot of effort into. He had just obtained the AMP and is planning on doing a lot more testing before his next book comes out. He did some Win .308's but invalidated the test because he used the wrong settings on the AMP for that brass. As you know the AMP will use different programs for variances in lot #s of for the same brand and cartridge. That was one of the reasons I really thought I wanted an AMP, if annealing does work the AMP is the machine to test it on. Don't despair on the .243. With most of the other concepts he covers and tests in his books .243's are a common test platform

I will not be spending time and resources testing annealed vs non annealed from here on out. The money I save from powder and bullets can buy me Litz's next book and I will read about his testing.

On bullet convergence in this latest book he performed over 60 tests using various calibers and bullets from .223 to .50 cal. My head is still spinning from reading that chapter and it will require a couple of re reads to grasp. That being said I am sure he will be at least that thorough on annealing tests.

 

[T. O'Heir]

"...varying opinions on when to anneal..." It's not an opinion based thing. You only need to anneal when one case neck cracks. You pitch that case and anneal the rest.
It has nothing whatever to do with sizing or seating. Nor is it something that needs doing every time. Neither is trimming. Nor does annealing have anything at all to do with accuracy.
You cannot anneal the brass twice either. Once it's annealed, it's annealed. Over heating the alloy will soften it excessively.
And you don't need to body size and neck size.

 

[hounddawg]

You need to make a thread T'OHeir and show us all the testing you have done to arrive at your conclusions. I am sure there are many on here who would love to see procedure you used. I am sure it was quite scientific and detailed not some divine knowledge pulled from the nether regions of your anatomy

 

[hdwhit]

RC20 wrote:
I don't believe that sizing hardens the brass, that is done under the firing end. It does work the brass. I get split necks from firing not sizing.

Any cold working of brass hardens it. The extent of the hardening may vary based on the conditions under which the cold working is done, but it is not accurate to conclude that some cold working does not harden brass while other cold working does.

 

[jugornot]

T. O'Heir said
"...varying opinions on when to anneal..." It's not an opinion based thing. You only need to anneal when one case neck cracks. You pitch that case and anneal the rest.

And thank you for your opinion. But why would you wait until you lost one case? Why not anneal before you lost any? If this is as you state a fact and not an opinion, what is your source of this fact? As far as my dies go the body die does not touch the neck. The body die is used in conjunction with the neck bushing die. So in my case the body die does not size the neck and the neck die does not size the body, making both dies necessary to fully resize the brass. I could forgo the body sizing until I had difficulty chambering the round, but then I would be firing a round that varied dimensions. And I do not want that. Once again thanks for your opinion, but our opinions differ dramatically on almost every aspect of reloading.

 

[hounddawg]

Way I look at it is like this.If the skill of the shooter and the quality of the rifle are not sufficient to see any benefit from it then making and shooting quality ammo is like putting lipstick on a pig. So some people might be right, they won't see any benefit from precision loading techniques

 

[RC20]

T. O'Heir said
"...varying opinions on when to anneal..." It's not an opinion based thing. You only need to anneal when one case neck cracks. You pitch that case and anneal the rest.

I think that is an opinion of 1.

Competition shooters tend to anneal after each round.

I would go no more than 5.

As you want to stay a bit shy if you are not setup for perfect as AMP suggest they are, you are going to have more cases ready to fail.

I tend to 3 as I like how much easier the bullets seat.