When To Aneal

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personal_aviator

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I have a .338 Lapua and am using some once fired lapua brass I got off the EE. I body sized the brass and have since reloaded it four times, neck sizing only in between. I noticed that when I was de priming the other day that it was much harder to pull the expander ball back through the neck. Could this be because the cases are becoming work hardened? I decided to aneal the cases anyway and tonight when I loaded them, it was noticably easier to pull the expander ball up through the neck.

Also I wonder how many reloads people are getting before they need to bump the shoulder back again. From what I have read you know when it's time when the cases are hard to chamber, but I just wonder if there is an "average" or not.

Thanks,

PA
 
I'm shooting casts and my cases get anneled every 5-6 loading.Maybe it's an overkill but some of those cases are very hard to find.
 
personal_aviator said:
I noticed that when I was de priming the other day that it was much harder to pull the expander ball back through the neck. Could this be because the cases are becoming work hardened?
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Clean and lube the inside neck will help a lot.

I set up an inside lube deal by mixing dry graphite with small lead shot in a small container, enough to go up to the shoulder of the case. Run in the case a few times to inside lube and wipe off the outside and lube the outside as usual.

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I tried lubing the inside of the neck with Lee lube but it didn't really help. I'm using the Redding type S busing die and I have the titanium carbide bushing (or whatever it's called) which they say does not need lube and honnestly the outside case neck slips easily though the bushing, it's just the expander ball that was tough to pull through.

These cases are expensive and I want them to last as long as possible. How many reloads are people getting from their cases by aneling?
 
As a rule of thumb, every other firing might be too often to anneal, but every 5th loading might not be enough. The point is to keep the bullet pull weight consistent, so I'll say that after the 3rd firing its time.

You can conduct an experiment at the range. You'll need a chronograph, two pieces of virgin brass, some pre-measured powder charges, a priming tool, a means of seating the bullet, and a heat source to anneal with. Fire each round, then anneal one piece of brass after each subsequent firing but not the other, I'll bet by the 5th firing, the non-annealed brass produces significantly higher velocities than the annealed brass, while the annealed brass produces velocities within your normal extreme spread.

The downside is that if you are loading to high pressure, by the 5th time you reloaded a piece of brass your primer pockets might expand to the extent that the brass has to be culled; therefore annealing will not actually extend brass life, but is will make the bullet pull weight more consistent and potentially improve your group size.
 
Since this is an annealing thread I'll throw in a question. Do you guys notice easier bullet seating after annealing? I did up some 243 today. I went with 9 seconds under the blue flame, slow rotation on the drill. When seating the bullets seated to go in like butter, or maybe it's just my imagination?
 
Ducimus said:
Since this is an annealing thread I'll throw in a question. Do you guys notice easier bullet seating after annealing? I did up some 243 today. I went with 9 seconds under the blue flame, slow rotation on the drill. When seating the bullets seated to go in like butter, or maybe it's just my imagination?
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I tried some annealing for the first time this weekend rotating the casings with my fingers until they got too hot to hold. The cases are noticeably softer when resizing, as the expander pulls back through. Seating bullets seemed easier as well.
 
I load match ammo for F-class and I anneal after every firing. IMO it's the only way to keep everything consistent, everytime. Bullet seating and sizing will be easier as you have just softened the brass from all of the cold-working that has been done going through it's firing and sizing cycles.

Bumping the brass back will be dealer's call, really. Most of the point of just neck sizing is to get the brass to as close of a perfect fit to the chamber as possible, but you don't want to have to hammer the bolt down, either.
 
Budweiser360 said:
I load match ammo for F-class and I anneal after every firing. IMO it's the only way to keep everything consistent, everytime. Bullet seating and sizing will be easier as you have just softened the brass from all of the cold-working that has been done going through it's firing and sizing cycles.

Bumping the brass back will be dealer's call, really. Most of the point of just neck sizing is to get the brass to as close of a perfect fit to the chamber as possible, but you don't want to have to hammer the bolt down, either.
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I just got back from the range. I was wrong in my earlier post when I said I haven't loaded any of my cases that I had anealed. I have another thread going in the precision rifle forum about my load development.

I could not chamber any of the loaded cases that I anealed. I tried to chamber 5 cases and all of them were dificult if not impossible to close the bolt. I obviously have to bump the shoulder back. When the cases ejected there's a shiny ring around near the shoulder. My question is (I have a Redding body sizing die) can I size these loaded rounds or do I have to pull all the bullets and then size them and reload them all again? Ugh, live and learn.

Thanks,

PA
 
If the body sizing die does not touch the neck, then you are OK. (it shouldn't, but you should check - try to drop in the neck of the loaded round into the top of the body die - it should freely slide in).

Lube the case, body-size the loaded round, then wipe off the lube.

Puzzling why your brass became too big to easily chamber. While heating a piece of brass will make it expand, cooling back down to room temp will make it shrink back to the orignal size.
 
I annealed then FL sized. My brass already had 3 firings through it so I figured it could use it sooner than later. Seemed to work out well. I'm shooting some loads tomorrow morning...it will be interesting.
 
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