You develop a new code if you upgradet to Aztec and for those who haven't you can send 6 cases I believe and they will develop a code for you. This service is here in the states I believe. Another choice is to measure your neck thickness and look on the website for your caliber with your neck thickness and use that. Whenever they develop a code for someone, they post the brand of brass, the neck thickness of the tested brass, and the code. They share all of those they test for people so that everyone with same combination can use it.
I communicated with the owner of AMP Annealing, who makes himself completely available any time, day or night. He said that it isn't advisable to anneal after sizing which defeats the intent of the process. The equipment is calibrated to give the correct annealing number with the neck at fired size. They didn't pull the time and temperature out of thin air. They test annealed thousands of cases at fired neck diameter then programmed the annealer using the data acquired using fired neck diameter results. He told me that even a dented neck such as what commonly occurs on M1 Garands, affects the annealing accuracy. Either the founder or his son, who was the primary, hands on developer, will personally answer your technical questions. Thanks for your effort to determine if there is a difference in sized or unsized annealing performance and the Amp guys can explain why it happens if you ask. Regards, JG
Hi Jerry, I have had nothing but good experiences with the AMP guys. I am not sure Alex sleeps sometimes when I look at the times he responds to email. I have never had a reason to doubt them or question any of their data. Some folks however want to accuse them of simply trying to sell equipment so I feel that independent testing is important. BAR
@@BoltActionReloading i admire your willingness to put in the work to prove or disprove published sfatements. I have a scientific background and had most of the equipment either available to me or through a friend at the institute. Certainly the process they used at Amp is familiar as Vickers hardness is a fairly common industrial measure and the equipment is pretty standard and the calibration process is a standardized, etched in stone procedure that ASTM and other governing bodies mandate so it is uniform worldwide in many instances. I believe their process is almost foolproof in that a given amount of energy induced into an exact amount of mass will produce very repeatable, quantifiable results. Alex told me that an acceptably annealed cas doesn't have to be exactly 100 Vickers but 90 to 108 are close enough to pass muster when they field tested ammo in actual firearms with known capabilities. He said that meaningful accuracy degradation wasn't apparent until the hardness started outside that 90-108 range and when above the highside limit, neck splitting as well as excessive neck tension were observed. You are testing another aspect of reloading related to annealing but not necessarily a direct result of annealing. That is a good thing because all the processes don't always add up to the sum of their parts. Your x number of steps may or may not play well with mine but that just proves that the ultimate consistancy can be achieved in different but usually similar ways if the precision is there. Keep up the good work and I'll anticipate seeing more good and interesting info from you. Jerry
I think if anything, this demonstrates that annealing before sizing should yield better consistency than annealing after sizing, with the work hardening from the sizing process being negligible at best.
Nice info. There are those of us who cannot afford or justify an induction annealer. Spent 40 + years just using a torch and pan of water and only recently got an Ugly Annealer.
Hi Tom, I hope you enjoyed the video. I don't understand how (or why) some folks thought it had to do with what annealer you use, it is really just when you perform the operation. If I don't show the method I use to anneal, everyone will ask. (people love to tell you how you are doing everything wrong) If I do show it everyone that can't afford one gets offended. I understand that everyone has to do the best with what they have. I just try and keep things as controlled as I can. (trying to give people accurate information, not trying to make others upset)
@@BoltActionReloading Not upset at all. Great video. Just meant that at 64 and shooting for fun I am happy with what I have. Of course, when I win the lottery......LOL.
When I had my flame annealer I found that annealing after sizing and then loading, bullet seating was extremely hard to the point of damaging the ogive(don’t have an amp press but didn’t need to to know something was not good). I found that brushing the necks after annealing allowed much more normal seating force. I hypothesized that the annealing process left a scale or residue that significantly increased friction (like heating steel with a torch). I now deprime fired cases with universal deprime die anneal on my amp, size, expand with dry lube and mandrel and load. Great loads now.
Did you brush or lubricate the necks in any way for either treatment? It isn't easy to draw hard conclusions on the results. The average speeds may not be statistically significant, and even the group analysis may be borderline with only 12 shots, but I suspect the 2xanneal of being slightly worse due to the theory that the seating force stats look worse in both magnitude and dispersion. The higher the average friction and the more variable it is, usually tends to poor performance. In rough terms, Seating Force is the product of the integration of normal force from the hoop stress of the neck tension multiplied by the Coefficient of Friction. If the hoop stress is changed, or if the CoF is changed, we should expect the change in initial combustion. In general, the average and dispersion of the seating force affects the tune and the precision, but no theory beats testing. Hard to say what the effect on HV or material properties like CoF were due to the second annealing. The change in seating forces speak for themselves and those results stand alone. Folks debate the effects of seating force on precision all the time, so I won't take a side either way other than to say in my opinion it would be best to keep it under control. When we do find the best tune, in general anything that helps with precision will likely help and vise versa. However, just because something is sorted down narrowly or more precise, doesn't guarantee being in tune so it may become wasted effort. Nice test. YMMV
Love my AMP. Best investment I've ever made. And I'm really glad I watched the whole video. I thought twice annealed would have been better, for what seemed obvious reasons. I'll stick to annealing once, before sizing. Thank you for taking the time to get this info out there.
Maybe I missed it and I apologize if I did, but here are a couple of questions that came to mind. Do you clean your brass before you size? Also, I would assume you lube your case necks before you size? If so, and you don't clean again before bullet seating, there would be residual lube that would assist the projectile being seated. If you lube, size, and then anneal, the anneal would burn off any lube, changing the friction of the seating. Just a thought as to why the change in seating force when annealing after sizing, which is totally counterintuitive.
The owner of the Amp Annealing company told me it's not necessary unless for some reason it is really nasty but for normal residue it doesn't matter. I believe this may be on the instructions included but for sure it's mentioned on their website.
@@jerrygolden832 when you say it’s not necessary do you mean not necessary to clean before annealing? If so I think that means dirty cases have the same code as clean cases so cleaning doesn’t affect anneal times. My point was that lube or no lube inside the case neck does affect the coefficient of friction when seating a projectile which would affect the seating force. I posit that this would also affect the case pressure at firing. Not saying one or the other is better…just saying it makes a difference.
@@sohendo2211 we are getting two different issues together to which there isn't a single answer. Separate annealing-clean or not cleaned brass, from case neck lubricity when seating a bullet. The correct hardness desired when annealing a non- spotless(clean) case is achieved equally with a case that has been wet tumbled with stainless pins, a method which produces a virgin inside neck surface which is less lubricious than one that is tumbled in crushed walnut/corncob media. We have a properly annealed case now so we we forget about annealing and consider the desired lubricity of the inside of the neck we are going to seat a bullet in. A virgin brass surface is not conducive to smooth seating of a bullet. Let's use 5.56 gas gun in this instance. A relatively good amount of neck tension is required to keep bullet from moving in the case neck. Seating a bullet with .0025-.003 neck tension in a virgin brass inside neck surface will often result in deformity in the nose of bullet due to excessive force required to overcome the fricton of the virgin brass. My version of creating the optimum surface is to clean cases with crushed walnut and/or crushed corncob. It cleans the inside of the case and leaves a microscopic layer of carbon which serves as a lubricant. This is the only way you can guarantee that an even amount of lubricant is on the inner case neck. Case lube, graphite or whatever you use as lubricant is extremely difficult to evenly distribute so you have an instant variable. It doesn't matter if your requirement is 1 or more moa but for 1/4 moa you must have everything right every time. Others have methods that work for them so my methods are by no means the "only right way" but they are surely one right way as I have the results to verify it. It didn't happen right away when I first started competing more than a decade ago but having a scientific background I took an analytical approach in an effort to eliminate as many variables as possible. I've never seen this approach produce worse results but just like any process, some things work and others don't but using the positive incremental improvements will eventually pay off if properly applied. BTW, we never stop learning and I'm always open to things that will help me improve whatever I am trying to do.
The seating force is higher on the 2x annealed because you are burning off more residual lube and powder build up in the neck. Isn’t Factory ammo is annealed after it is sized/stamped?
Hi Dylan this type of test gets complicated very quickly. I did a life test annealing and firing for 20 rounds here: ua-cam.com/video/bZopCBUzruY/v-deo.html and it would have still been going strong. It really depends on your why, are you doing it for extra life or consistency? If consistency is your answer I don't know how you don't answer the question every time. If its for extra life span, then it gets complicated. (IMO) BAR
@@BoltActionReloading thanks I was thinking about mostly lifespan since I don’t have a justification to drop major cash on an annealing machine. But maybe I could use a torch once every five firings if it would still get me about the same life as doing it every firing. Or maybe it hardly makes any difference at all?
@Haast's Eagle wow good info thanks. With the non annealed, if accuracy is gone at 12, would annealing at 8-10 reset the clock? This way you wouldn’t have to toss them? I’d like to be able to anneal as infrequently as possible while getting respectable case life, since I’d probably only use a torch which takes a while. Also I assume you’re doing only as much shoulder bump as necessary or the separation would come much earlier I’d think
Hi Peter, I do have pin gauges, however they have residual oils on them and I did not want to have to clean that off cleaned at that point primed cases. I truly did not expect these results so hind sight being 20/20 I would have dome some more measurements prior to priming.
This was excellent. I was thinking of trying this test as well. The only thing that would have made it better is if you checked for any dimensional changes after the second anneal. Running an expander mandrel after the second anneal would be another interesting test. Thank you for all the work you put into your channel and sharing with us.
how about lubing the inside of the neck on both prior to seating. I know that isn't part of your normal process, but it could help to understand if the second anneal difference is due to carbon differences.
I use an ultrasonic cleaner and my case necks are "squeaky clean". I am going to try a really fine emery cloth polish of the case neck to see if seating force and depth variation will be reduced. An absolute b@ll ache in the case prep process, and trust me, if it makes no difference I won't be doing it going forward.
THINK brass stresses = anneal release stresses that is logical why seating pressure is less for 1 anneal and more for 2nd anneal , It change the big pic of the total load developed .
I watched this video late but a couple of times. My guess would be the second annealing acts as if you fired the bras just with out the stretching. My biggest question to you is how the brass that was annealed twice anneals out after being fired? Does it take more or the same for just one annealing to reach the softer brass level?
What I would like to know is how much difference does it make if you anneal your brass a little bit longer than what is recommended than with Aztec mode. Erik Cortina's video where annealing for 10 or 15 or 20 seconds (at least 2-4x more than he usually does), didn't seem to make any difference at all for neck tension made me question the precision of the annealing process as suggested by AMP. Nothing I see on the AMP site convinces me that Aztec mode is so precise that as much as a 50 percent increase in annealing time beyond what is recommended would make any real difference to the group size and performance. One of their own papers seems to show that annealing can be done to higher temperatures (up to a few hundred degrees more) than deemed optimal with minimal effects until you get to temps far above what is recommended. I'd love to see data to be proven wrong.
Nice video, you have good info. Here's a thought. I have annealed brass in the past with marginal results. But I used a completely different process. I also have fired brass until the neck would split from being work hardened. However for the last number of years I have been using the stainless steal media pins to clean my brass. I will tumble them for 8 hours in the Thumbler's Tumbler. Since then I have used the same brass many times without a single neck splitting. Question: Is it possible that the peening of the brass in the tumbling process is accomplishing the same result as annealing?
@@BoltActionReloading you do know what peening is, yes? So you got hardened stainless steel media pins impacting soft brass millions and millions of times ..... pretty obvious how. however, 4 word reply .............. your literary skills are impressive..................... a regular Hemingway (-;
Hello lencac, 1. I know what peening is, if I didn't, I know how to use google. 2. Peening makes the brass harder if anything, but according to the amp guys (they have talked about this and I think that they may have even covered it in a video but I won't swear to that) but it really only affects are so small that the don't think that it matters. 3. IMO making the brass harder should not increase case life, but I am not going to pretend to know everything either. 4. You asked a very specific question, I tried to give a very specific answer that I do not see how it would accomplish anything similar to annealing. One makes it harder one makes it softer. Often pointing these things out to folks, people take it the wrong way that I am trying to be a jerk (which is never my intention.) 5. I am not a English major so not going to pretend to be a Hemingway, just going to be me. 6. I get a lot of questions / comments and I try to address as many as I can realistically. Sometimes I can't spend 5 minutes on 100 comments per day cause I just don't have a spare 8 hours everyday. BAR
@@BoltActionReloading Attaboy that's more like it. I'm likewise am not metallurgist so I'm not sure what it does. Nevertheless, speaking from experience I literally since I've been using the SS media I have not had a single neck split. We are talking about 30.06, 308 and 7.5x55. Many times after many uses I've had the primer pocket fail to hold the primer tight so I would pitch the case due to that. But as far as neck split, not a single one. And I'll say I have cases that I have used maybe as much as 10 times. When in the past using the walnut media the necks would have split. So that's my experience. Dig your vids. Love ya brother (-:
I experienced an increase of friction after annealing! To avoid, I clean after annealing with a magnetic tumbler and steel pins - after the cleaning the friction is again within normal range! I confirm Marcus Fox remark.
What if you only annealed once after the resizing process? In theory all stress from firing and resizing should be corrected if annealing after sizing. I see no reason to anneal twice in the same process.
Annealing before sizing helps ensure consistent results from sizing. A little work hardening from sizing helps keep the neck tension consistent. A little carbon in the neck helps prevent the brass from getting "sticky" after annealing.
What's odd is you say the initially that the 2x annealed bras produced higher velocities, but in the target groupings it shows the 2x brass 6fps slower @ 2578fps... 🤔
Far too many totally overheat the brass. You are only stress relieving, not softening. Even the act of pressing the bullet in will somewhat work harden and stiffen the brass. We did lots of Rockwell Hardness Testing on brass a few years back.
You need to brush after annealing, I had the same. It looks of annealing leaves a kind of scale. Also always anneal before sizing. Otherwise your dimensions are off.
Hi R Load, These were brushed after the cases were trimmed. I know the advice has always been to size after anneal, but I have never heard anyone say why. I like to understand why. Clearly something changed.
I thought it was best to anneal after sizing. The reason for annealing is to return the metal back to a natural state after work hardening. The sizing of the brass work hardens it, annealing after sizing, should allow the neck tension of all the cases in that batch to be similar. Thus more consistent bullet release. I was also taught to quench brass and copper in water as part of the annealing process. Most people in reloading skip this step saying that air cooled is good enough. I am not so sure about this, maybe it would be a good test. Quenched vs air cooled for the next video.
You want the brass to return to it's original state before you full length size to get a more consistent size. Quenching brass is not a thing. Steel, etc. changes it's properties when quenched, brass does not. Air cool, liquid cool, no effect on brass.
So if you didn’t clean the inside of the neck after anneal that could cause that increased force to seat a bullet. Dry lube in this test would be better.
@@BoltActionReloading so maybe the heat of the second anneal increased neck tension. Even though it softened the brass. So running through expander mandrel would be better.
Honestly, with twice annealed giving a gain of only 9fps, why bother with the 2nd anneal. And your testing proves it. As to annealing before sizing, that’s a no brainer.
Why on earth would you anneal your sized brass? That makes no seance to me. By the way, unless im mistaken, the AMP video you reference, twice annealed brass. NOT anneal brass, then resize, then re anneal. Keep apples and oranges together.
Hi Mark, Why? to understand. I don't believe I recommended it, I just wanted to know what happened. In the AMP video Alex took a hardness measurement on a unfired case, annealed it, took another measurement, annealed it again, took another measurement to see that it did not change, sized it, took another measurement to see that it had changed because of the sizing process, annealed it at a lower setting to see that it did not relieve all the stress(with another measurement), and annealed it again and then did another measurement to see it was back to the annealed state before the size. So there were a lot of tests and a lot going on. His more focused on stored energy, but he also states that the majority of the stored energy (hardness in the case) comes from sizing not firing. Not sure how this related exactly to fruit but figured some folks would find it interesting.
I guess I don't see how the process used affects the test. If you want to understand how where you anneal in your reloading process affects your results.
You can make your own induction annealer with 0.01 second accuracy for about $200. Only downside is you have to manually determine the correct annealing time for your brass, which isn't bad, just sacrifice a case or 2 and record the time so you'll have it the next time you anneal. And there are cheaper but less precise methods for annealing such as just a torch and pliers to hold the brass. The AMP is just the best to use when running this specific experiment because it is the most precise and repeatable. You can extrapolate his conclusions to any method. If you can't or don't want to anneal, then don't. If you do want to anneal, then you have many options and resources to educate yourself about it and the various methods.
What happens when you neck turn brass? - ua-cam.com/video/yA5GfxBCB8k/v-deo.html
You develop a new code if you upgradet to Aztec and for those who haven't you can send 6 cases I believe and they will develop a code for you. This service is here in the states I believe. Another choice is to measure your neck thickness and look on the website for your caliber with your neck thickness and use that. Whenever they develop a code for someone, they post the brand of brass, the neck thickness of the tested brass, and the code. They share all of those they test for people so that everyone with same combination can use it.
I communicated with the owner of AMP Annealing, who makes himself completely available any time, day or night. He said that it isn't advisable to anneal after sizing which defeats the intent of the process. The equipment is calibrated to give the correct annealing number with the neck at fired size. They didn't pull the time and temperature out of thin air. They test annealed thousands of cases at fired neck diameter then programmed the annealer using the data acquired using fired neck diameter results. He told me that even a dented neck such as what commonly occurs on M1 Garands, affects the annealing accuracy. Either the founder or his son, who was the primary, hands on developer, will personally answer your technical questions. Thanks for your effort to determine if there is a difference in sized or unsized annealing performance and the Amp guys can explain why it happens if you ask.
Regards,
JG
Hi Jerry, I have had nothing but good experiences with the AMP guys. I am not sure Alex sleeps sometimes when I look at the times he responds to email. I have never had a reason to doubt them or question any of their data. Some folks however want to accuse them of simply trying to sell equipment so I feel that independent testing is important.
BAR
@@BoltActionReloading i admire your willingness to put in the work to prove or disprove published sfatements. I have a scientific background and had most of the equipment either available to me or through a friend at the institute. Certainly the process they used at Amp is familiar as Vickers hardness is a fairly common industrial measure and the equipment is pretty standard and the calibration process is a standardized, etched in stone procedure that ASTM and other governing bodies mandate so it is uniform worldwide in many instances. I believe their process is almost foolproof in that a given amount of energy induced into an exact amount of mass will produce very repeatable, quantifiable results. Alex told me that an acceptably annealed cas doesn't have to be exactly 100 Vickers but 90 to 108 are close enough to pass muster when they field tested ammo in actual firearms with known capabilities. He said that meaningful accuracy degradation wasn't apparent until the hardness started outside that 90-108 range and when above the highside limit, neck splitting as well as excessive neck tension were observed. You are testing another aspect of reloading related to annealing but not necessarily a direct result of annealing. That is a good thing because all the processes don't always add up to the sum of their parts. Your x number of steps may or may not play well with mine but that just proves that the ultimate consistancy can be achieved in different but usually similar ways if the precision is there. Keep up the good work and I'll anticipate seeing more good and interesting info from you.
Jerry
1 word lubricity
I think if anything, this demonstrates that annealing before sizing should yield better consistency than annealing after sizing, with the work hardening from the sizing process being negligible at best.
you always ask the questions. you are willing to use your supplies to test. test to the best you can. thanks
Nice info. There are those of us who cannot afford or justify an induction annealer. Spent 40 + years just using a torch and pan of water and only recently got an Ugly Annealer.
Hi Tom, I hope you enjoyed the video. I don't understand how (or why) some folks thought it had to do with what annealer you use, it is really just when you perform the operation. If I don't show the method I use to anneal, everyone will ask. (people love to tell you how you are doing everything wrong) If I do show it everyone that can't afford one gets offended. I understand that everyone has to do the best with what they have. I just try and keep things as controlled as I can. (trying to give people accurate information, not trying to make others upset)
@@BoltActionReloading Not upset at all. Great video. Just meant that at 64 and shooting for fun I am happy with what I have. Of course, when I win the lottery......LOL.
When I had my flame annealer I found that annealing after sizing and then loading, bullet seating was extremely hard to the point of damaging the ogive(don’t have an amp press but didn’t need to to know something was not good). I found that brushing the necks after annealing allowed much more normal seating force. I hypothesized that the annealing process left a scale or residue that significantly increased friction (like heating steel with a torch). I now deprime fired cases with universal deprime die anneal on my amp, size, expand with dry lube and mandrel and load. Great loads now.
More precise than I’ve ever tried to get but nut really what I’d have guessed. Thanks for the info
Did you brush or lubricate the necks in any way for either treatment?
It isn't easy to draw hard conclusions on the results. The average speeds may not be statistically significant, and even the group analysis may be borderline with only 12 shots, but I suspect the 2xanneal of being slightly worse due to the theory that the seating force stats look worse in both magnitude and dispersion. The higher the average friction and the more variable it is, usually tends to poor performance.
In rough terms, Seating Force is the product of the integration of normal force from the hoop stress of the neck tension multiplied by the Coefficient of Friction. If the hoop stress is changed, or if the CoF is changed, we should expect the change in initial combustion. In general, the average and dispersion of the seating force affects the tune and the precision, but no theory beats testing.
Hard to say what the effect on HV or material properties like CoF were due to the second annealing. The change in seating forces speak for themselves and those results stand alone. Folks debate the effects of seating force on precision all the time, so I won't take a side either way other than to say in my opinion it would be best to keep it under control.
When we do find the best tune, in general anything that helps with precision will likely help and vise versa. However, just because something is sorted down narrowly or more precise, doesn't guarantee being in tune so it may become wasted effort. Nice test. YMMV
Love my AMP. Best investment I've ever made. And I'm really glad I watched the whole video. I thought twice annealed would have been better, for what seemed obvious reasons. I'll stick to annealing once, before sizing. Thank you for taking the time to get this info out there.
Hey Rob, thanks for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent information brother,I don't have a anealer but can't help to see the facts,thanks again for the sharing 👍❤️🙏
Maybe I missed it and I apologize if I did, but here are a couple of questions that came to mind. Do you clean your brass before you size? Also, I would assume you lube your case necks before you size? If so, and you don't clean again before bullet seating, there would be residual lube that would assist the projectile being seated. If you lube, size, and then anneal, the anneal would burn off any lube, changing the friction of the seating. Just a thought as to why the change in seating force when annealing after sizing, which is totally counterintuitive.
The owner of the Amp Annealing company told me it's not necessary unless for some reason it is really nasty but for normal residue it doesn't matter. I believe this may be on the instructions included but for sure it's mentioned on their website.
@@jerrygolden832 when you say it’s not necessary do you mean not necessary to clean before annealing? If so I think that means dirty cases have the same code as clean cases so cleaning doesn’t affect anneal times. My point was that lube or no lube inside the case neck does affect the coefficient of friction when seating a projectile which would affect the seating force. I posit that this would also affect the case pressure at firing. Not saying one or the other is better…just saying it makes a difference.
@@sohendo2211 we are getting two different issues together to which there isn't a single answer. Separate annealing-clean or not cleaned brass, from case neck lubricity when seating a bullet. The correct hardness desired when annealing a non- spotless(clean) case is achieved equally with a case that has been wet tumbled with stainless pins, a method which produces a virgin inside neck surface which is less lubricious than one that is tumbled in crushed walnut/corncob media. We have a properly annealed case now so we we forget about annealing and consider the desired lubricity of the inside of the neck we are going to seat a bullet in. A virgin brass surface is not conducive to smooth seating of a bullet. Let's use 5.56 gas gun in this instance. A relatively good amount of neck tension is required to keep bullet from moving in the case neck. Seating a bullet with .0025-.003 neck tension in a virgin brass inside neck surface will often result in deformity in the nose of bullet due to excessive force required to overcome the fricton of the virgin brass. My version of creating the optimum surface is to clean cases with crushed walnut and/or crushed corncob. It cleans the inside of the case and leaves a microscopic layer of carbon which serves as a lubricant. This is the only way you can guarantee that an even amount of lubricant is on the inner case neck. Case lube, graphite or whatever you use as lubricant is extremely difficult to evenly distribute so you have an instant variable. It doesn't matter if your requirement is 1 or more moa but for 1/4 moa you must have everything right every time. Others have methods that work for them so my methods are by no means the "only right way" but they are surely one right way as I have the results to verify it. It didn't happen right away when I first started competing more than a decade ago but having a scientific background I took an analytical approach in an effort to eliminate as many variables as possible. I've never seen this approach produce worse results but just like any process, some things work and others don't but using the positive incremental improvements will eventually pay off if properly applied. BTW, we never stop learning and I'm always open to things that will help me improve whatever I am trying to do.
The seating force is higher on the 2x annealed because you are burning off more residual lube and powder build up in the neck.
Isn’t Factory ammo is annealed after it is sized/stamped?
Can you do a test on brass life with annealing vs not annealing and how often is sufficient for annealing?
Hi Dylan this type of test gets complicated very quickly. I did a life test annealing and firing for 20 rounds here: ua-cam.com/video/bZopCBUzruY/v-deo.html and it would have still been going strong. It really depends on your why, are you doing it for extra life or consistency? If consistency is your answer I don't know how you don't answer the question every time. If its for extra life span, then it gets complicated. (IMO)
BAR
@@BoltActionReloading thanks I was thinking about mostly lifespan since I don’t have a justification to drop major cash on an annealing machine. But maybe I could use a torch once every five firings if it would still get me about the same life as doing it every firing. Or maybe it hardly makes any difference at all?
@Haast's Eagle wow good info thanks. With the non annealed, if accuracy is gone at 12, would annealing at 8-10 reset the clock? This way you wouldn’t have to toss them? I’d like to be able to anneal as infrequently as possible while getting respectable case life, since I’d probably only use a torch which takes a while. Also I assume you’re doing only as much shoulder bump as necessary or the separation would come much earlier I’d think
Do you have pin gauges? If so, please would you look to see what happened to the diameter and royndness of the neck when annealing after sizing?
Hi Peter, I do have pin gauges, however they have residual oils on them and I did not want to have to clean that off cleaned at that point primed cases. I truly did not expect these results so hind sight being 20/20 I would have dome some more measurements prior to priming.
This was excellent. I was thinking of trying this test as well.
The only thing that would have made it better is if you checked for any dimensional changes after the second anneal.
Running an expander mandrel after the second anneal would be another interesting test.
Thank you for all the work you put into your channel and sharing with us.
Glad you found it useful.
how about lubing the inside of the neck on both prior to seating. I know that isn't part of your normal process, but it could help to understand if the second anneal difference is due to carbon differences.
I brush necks no lube. Best results for me. One pass no more, no less
I use an ultrasonic cleaner and my case necks are "squeaky clean". I am going to try a really fine emery cloth polish of the case neck to see if seating force and depth variation will be reduced. An absolute b@ll ache in the case prep process, and trust me, if it makes no difference I won't be doing it going forward.
THINK brass stresses = anneal release stresses that is logical why seating pressure is less for 1 anneal and more for 2nd anneal , It change the big pic of the total load developed .
I watched this video late but a couple of times. My guess would be the second annealing acts as if you fired the bras just with out the stretching.
My biggest question to you is how the brass that was annealed twice anneals out after being fired? Does it take more or the same for just one annealing to reach the softer brass level?
What I would like to know is how much difference does it make if you anneal your brass a little bit longer than what is recommended than with Aztec mode. Erik Cortina's video where annealing for 10 or 15 or 20 seconds (at least 2-4x more than he usually does), didn't seem to make any difference at all for neck tension made me question the precision of the annealing process as suggested by AMP. Nothing I see on the AMP site convinces me that Aztec mode is so precise that as much as a 50 percent increase in annealing time beyond what is recommended would make any real difference to the group size and performance. One of their own papers seems to show that annealing can be done to higher temperatures (up to a few hundred degrees more) than deemed optimal with minimal effects until you get to temps far above what is recommended. I'd love to see data to be proven wrong.
Is your conclusion necessarily true? Would the additional neck tension and velocity not require a new load development?
Interesting thoughts & discovery. Thanks
Glad you enjoyed it
Nice video, you have good info. Here's a thought. I have annealed brass in the past with marginal results. But I used a completely different process. I also have fired brass until the neck would split from being work hardened. However for the last number of years I have been using the stainless steal media pins to clean my brass. I will tumble them for 8 hours in the Thumbler's Tumbler. Since then I have used the same brass many times without a single neck splitting. Question: Is it possible that the peening of the brass in the tumbling process is accomplishing the same result as annealing?
I don't see how.
@@BoltActionReloading you do know what peening is, yes? So you got hardened stainless steel media pins impacting soft brass millions and millions of times ..... pretty obvious how. however, 4 word reply .............. your literary skills are impressive..................... a regular Hemingway (-;
Hello lencac,
1. I know what peening is, if I didn't, I know how to use google.
2. Peening makes the brass harder if anything, but according to the amp guys (they have talked about this and I think that they may have even covered it in a video but I won't swear to that) but it really only affects are so small that the don't think that it matters.
3. IMO making the brass harder should not increase case life, but I am not going to pretend to know everything either.
4. You asked a very specific question, I tried to give a very specific answer that I do not see how it would accomplish anything similar to annealing. One makes it harder one makes it softer. Often pointing these things out to folks, people take it the wrong way that I am trying to be a jerk (which is never my intention.)
5. I am not a English major so not going to pretend to be a Hemingway, just going to be me.
6. I get a lot of questions / comments and I try to address as many as I can realistically. Sometimes I can't spend 5 minutes on 100 comments per day cause I just don't have a spare 8 hours everyday.
BAR
@@BoltActionReloading Attaboy that's more like it. I'm likewise am not metallurgist so I'm not sure what it does. Nevertheless, speaking from experience I literally since I've been using the SS media I have not had a single neck split. We are talking about 30.06, 308 and 7.5x55. Many times after many uses I've had the primer pocket fail to hold the primer tight so I would pitch the case due to that. But as far as neck split, not a single one. And I'll say I have cases that I have used maybe as much as 10 times. When in the past using the walnut media the necks would have split. So that's my experience.
Dig your vids. Love ya brother (-:
I experienced an increase of friction after annealing!
To avoid, I clean after annealing with a magnetic tumbler and steel pins - after the cleaning the friction is again within normal range!
I confirm Marcus Fox remark.
I didn't hear if you rechecked neck dia after 2nd , and I wonder what a hardness test on each session would have told you?
What gun and barrel are you using pls
Its a RPR with a WOA 26" bartlein barrel in 6.5CM
Do you anneal before or after resizing?
What if you only annealed once after the resizing process? In theory all stress from firing and resizing should be corrected if annealing after sizing. I see no reason to anneal twice in the same process.
Annealing before sizing helps ensure consistent results from sizing. A little work hardening from sizing helps keep the neck tension consistent. A little carbon in the neck helps prevent the brass from getting "sticky" after annealing.
What's odd is you say the initially that the 2x annealed bras produced higher velocities, but in the target groupings it shows the 2x brass 6fps slower @ 2578fps... 🤔
Far too many totally overheat the brass. You are only stress relieving, not softening.
Even the act of pressing the bullet in will somewhat work harden and stiffen the brass.
We did lots of Rockwell Hardness Testing on brass a few years back.
You need to brush after annealing, I had the same. It looks of annealing leaves a kind of scale. Also always anneal before sizing. Otherwise your dimensions are off.
Hi R Load, These were brushed after the cases were trimmed. I know the advice has always been to size after anneal, but I have never heard anyone say why. I like to understand why. Clearly something changed.
I thought it was best to anneal after sizing. The reason for annealing is to return the metal back to a natural state after work hardening. The sizing of the brass work hardens it, annealing after sizing, should allow the neck tension of all the cases in that batch to be similar. Thus more consistent bullet release. I was also taught to quench brass and copper in water as part of the annealing process. Most people in reloading skip this step saying that air cooled is good enough. I am not so sure about this, maybe it would be a good test. Quenched vs air cooled for the next video.
You want the brass to return to it's original state before you full length size to get a more consistent size. Quenching brass is not a thing. Steel, etc. changes it's properties when quenched, brass does not. Air cool, liquid cool, no effect on brass.
Thank you
So are you suppose to size before or after annealing
I would size after annealing.
BAR
Awesome t-shirt.
Thanks!
Great shirt.
Dig the shirt 😂
So if you didn’t clean the inside of the neck after anneal that could cause that increased force to seat a bullet. Dry lube in this test would be better.
The necks were brushed after both options were trimmed.
@@BoltActionReloading so maybe the heat of the second anneal increased neck tension. Even though it softened the brass. So running through expander mandrel would be better.
But does it work when the rolling blackout hits?
Honestly, with twice annealed giving a gain of only 9fps, why bother with the 2nd anneal. And your testing proves it. As to annealing before sizing, that’s a no brainer.
120psi seating?! Shouldn't it more like 50?
Why on earth would you anneal your sized brass? That makes no seance to me. By the way, unless im mistaken, the AMP video you reference, twice annealed brass. NOT anneal brass, then resize, then re anneal. Keep apples and oranges together.
Hi Mark, Why? to understand. I don't believe I recommended it, I just wanted to know what happened. In the AMP video Alex took a hardness measurement on a unfired case, annealed it, took another measurement, annealed it again, took another measurement to see that it did not change, sized it, took another measurement to see that it had changed because of the sizing process, annealed it at a lower setting to see that it did not relieve all the stress(with another measurement), and annealed it again and then did another measurement to see it was back to the annealed state before the size. So there were a lot of tests and a lot going on. His more focused on stored energy, but he also states that the majority of the stored energy (hardness in the case) comes from sizing not firing. Not sure how this related exactly to fruit but figured some folks would find it interesting.
Why should I bother to watch a video that will use an annealing process that only the top 5% of shooters can afford to think about.
I guess I don't see how the process used affects the test. If you want to understand how where you anneal in your reloading process affects your results.
It's a much of a muchness. The sample sizes are too small to draw any conclusions.
Everyone doesn’t have 1600 bucks for an annealer 😂
Yes because everyone can afford an overly expensive computer controlled inductive annealing machine. So relevant tot he masses!
Do or don’t it’s completely up to you man. He’s got videos on testing the results of annealing.
You can make your own induction annealer with 0.01 second accuracy for about $200. Only downside is you have to manually determine the correct annealing time for your brass, which isn't bad, just sacrifice a case or 2 and record the time so you'll have it the next time you anneal. And there are cheaper but less precise methods for annealing such as just a torch and pliers to hold the brass. The AMP is just the best to use when running this specific experiment because it is the most precise and repeatable. You can extrapolate his conclusions to any method. If you can't or don't want to anneal, then don't. If you do want to anneal, then you have many options and resources to educate yourself about it and the various methods.
🙄