Cleaning the carbon ring out of your chamber’s neck?

buster said:
Great post,I just learned something I had no idea about.As a side question, Jerry,how do you aneal your brass? More correctly what steps do you use and what indicator of temp do you use?
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I have tried manual and turntable type annealers with mixed results.

I now use the Bench Source annealer which is superb but pricey... a solid investment

Temp stick on the case to help with temp indication.

For outside neck turning, I power the Forster unit attached to the trimmer. Makes for very fast processing of brass and has shown to be very consistent. I process way too much to use a hand unit. Very simple to change to other cals and cases.

Jerry
 
K0na_stinky said:
So I have a pretty big update. I didn't get a chance to try out my gun but I did find some brass that I shot in my rifle from shot 1 - 10.

Its factory Federal Premium ammo that I used for brake in before I got dies. When I measured the brass it has a taper on the neck and the bullets don't fall easily into the fired cases.

I also more carefully measured the neck wall thickness. The Lapua stuff is 0.0145 per side and the Federal is 0.0125 per side.


What do you guys figure? Is there something wrong with my chamber?

I didn't have problems until I was on my 6th loading. Do I need to anneal?

Edit: I will be buying the stuff I need to neck turn and hopefully anneal as well.
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Lets keep this thread on track please.
 
Annealing is really important to keep your necks consistent. ideally, you would anneal every firing or two BUT do it properly and well. Otherwise, you will create more problems then it solves.

For tooling, as I said, Bench Source annealer - I have seen and tried others and this one is simply worth the investment. Given how much brass I shoot and process, this investment has already paid for itself

For outside neck turning, again, as posted above, Forster set up. I process thousands of cases per season and the settings stay consistent. In fact, I now have dedicated set ups for my 308 FTR brass as this is my largest volume. Saves me a ton of time and sore hands.

Let me know if interested in stuff.

Jerry
 
dizzy said:
Kona, great Original post. This has been an informative thread.
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Yep I have learnt a lot.

Big thanks goes out to guys like Jerry who take the time to help out.


Tomorrow I should be able to test my velocitys with a clean chamber. But now I don't think it will help.

Jerry do you think I could anneal using the dark room and heat until I see a glow trick?
 
K0na_stinky said:
Yep I have learnt a lot.

Big thanks goes out to guys like Jerry who take the time to help out.


Tomorrow I should be able to test my velocitys with a clean chamber. But now I don't think it will help.

Jerry do you think I could anneal using the dark room and heat until I see a glow trick?
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Colour is not a good indicator of annealing. You will need to use a temp indicator AND adjust the heat cycle to suit that lot of brass.... it can vary from manf and lot.

Why I invested in the Bench Source.... you have to be able to control a few parameters very precisely and carefully or you risk ending up with junk brass. However, once set up, the job goes very quickly. Better tools... better results.

Jerry
 
Jerry, how do you test to see if your annealing is working as far as accuracy is concerned? Having been through the "going on color" process and ending up with flyer mania. I built an annealer and just finished my first batch of 223 cases. I was really surprised to see that a 750 F temp stick would just melt on a case without really changing the color of the brass. Do you have to adjust temp to tune accuracy?
 
As basic as this may sound... I anneal for "feel".

I neck size with the Lee collet neck die. On a properly sized neck, the fired brass has opened up a few thou. When you size, you can "feel" the brass squish down.

When I can get the cases to size with a consistent feel and the temp indicators were right, good enough. I am not trying to replicate factory or anything in particular. What I am trying to produce is "same"!!!

I want the brass ductility to be consistent over all the cases I am using and from firing to firing. Then I can load tune for that neck. What it actually is, really doesn't matter.... as long as not overly soft or overly hard. Get to the Goldilocks zone.

Same, same, same... that is the key to LR precision shooting.

Jerry

PS as for patina on the case... it varies wildly from nothing to bright purple hues. Manf, lots of brass, thickness, and how many times it has been fired will influence the annealing schedule. Different types of brass polish and how clean you make your brass will also influence the end colour. Why I NEVER just go by appearance. I am playing with my PRVI case and I think if I tumble before annealing, I can get a really nice looking patina which will look precision.... that will also highlight nicely with the turned necks.

Hey, you may as well make the ammo look good :)
 
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Forester power neck turner set up in a drill press... it works very well once set up
You can trim to length at the same time you turn the neck
powertrimmer-0.jpg
 
cdn shooter said:
Jerry, how do you test to see if your annealing is working as far as accuracy is concerned? Having been through the "going on color" process and ending up with flyer mania. I built an annealer and just finished my first batch of 223 cases. I was really surprised to see that a 750 F temp stick would just melt on a case without really changing the color of the brass. Do you have to adjust temp to tune accuracy?
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I'm not Jerry, but...
I use the Benchsource annealing machine. Trial, error, and notes will help you discover what works best. The Benchsource annealer works on a timer. When annealing record the timer setting for future reference. I use Markall temp crayons. Test for temp on the first station/position out of flame. At that station brass will melt a 450F stick, but not a 475F. I have no idea how hot brass is while in the flame, but it must be close to 700F. Best test for perfect annealing temp is neck sizing to a smaller caliber and moving shoulder back. Brass color change cannot be relied on. The 70's/80's myth, "standing cartridges in a pan of water and heating until cases necks glowed dull red in a darkened room" is BS. If cleaning cartridges before loading, annealing before sizing isn't terribly time consuming with the Benchsource.
 
Temp sticks are hard to get a read on. My .223 cases are in a single flame for about 2.1 seconds and they melt a 700F temp stick outside the flame. Like I said before...no color. Anyone have any idea what kind of time I should be going after.
 
wapitiwhacker said:
Kona_stinky, did you ever make it to the range? Curious to hear if your cleaning job did the trick or not. Is neck turning in the cards now?
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I've been out shooting a few times. The chamber cleaning job opened up the neck about 0.001" total or about 0.0005" per side.

My velocity's did settle down but I didn't do much testing over the chrono. My SD was 14.4 and my ES was 38 for 6 shots. Its not down to where I would like it to be but its far more acceptable then an ES of 100fps that I was getting before. Where I go long range shooting there isn't a nice spot to chrono so that's why I didn't chrono very many rounds. It looks like the vertical issue at long range has also settled down. I was holding about 3/4 - 1/2 moa of vertical out to 660 yards when I was shooting.

I ordered a 6.5mm expander and mandrel for my neck turner and I'm going to try neck turning to see what happens. I'm sure it can't hurt anything. I'd also like to try annealing but buying a machine isn't going to happen for awhile.

An interesting thing I found was when I measured the necks of some brass that I fired through this rifle when it was new, even the brass that was fired in the first 10 shots have a similar taper. My chamber's neck must be tapered.
 
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