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In a perfect world........
When it comes to reloading, it's a bunch of little steps that add up to about as close as we can get to the perfect load. Each step has a cost in time and money and adds different degree's to the total. You can sort bullets, brass and if really anal, primers by weight. We can cut, trim, polish and true the brass, the bullets and balance in our checking accounts. But what about the powder factor? That's not often addressed, we just assume I suppose. Truth is, that's one thing we can't do a lot about. It can and will vary from batch to batch, age, and temperature of the day. Bench rest guys will test batches, have different supplies for different temps and other guarded secrets. For us regular folks, we just go with what we get.
The point is, we control what we can where we can and at the level we can afford it. If one has enough money, you could buy new brass, use it once and throw it away. Will the guy that has a lee loader and a hammer outshoot a guy with a cleaning system, top dies, an induction annealer and all the precision gages etc? Could, you bet, all the time and consistently? No way. Consistency is the goal and that which translates to small groups all the time and why it's important to achieve that at every step you can.
The internet is ripe with rat holes and far too many probably dive down those in search of simple answers when there are none. That has been well covered here so suffice to say be careful.
That said, back to the annealing subject. Jeephammer covers the methods rather well. Today there are two basic ways, torch in various flavors and numbers, induction units the same. If you were to go through the plants currently making rifle brass, you would find both methods being used. The trend is toward induction but it hasn't replaced the torch quite yet. My guess is that, and I'll mention that word again, "consistency", will be the driving force going forward. You can control temperature much more precisely with induction than you can with a torch. You also gain the ability to deal with various brass lots and tie it into your induction stage automatically. Not all brass is created equal and reacts the same in heating duration. In addition you get open flame and gas out of the plant.
Back to our setups. I wrote about cleaning with wet media in another thread on the forums and found that it was a far superior result than dry tumbling. I found that cleaning the inside of the case to shiny new made a significant difference in annealing time per setting with dirty inside than clean. I extended the duration by about .5 seconds for the later. I intentionally leave out the number I use so as not to have someone blindly grab onto it when there are other variables to deal with. To refresh the other posting, I cut two 30-06 cases in half, one wet media cleaned..ie ss pins, and the other dry tumbled. Being somewhat anal, I took a dirty half shell and put it in the annealer, it glowed red hot. I did the same with a half of the clean and shiny one...perfect anneal and at the same exact setting. To take it a step further, I did it again with the two remaining examples...same result. So, when I say I intentionally leave out the number you can see why. If I were to say, xxx seconds without specifying clean vs dirty inside, someone would have over cooked brass. Then, there's different makes of brass and they too take different times. AMP Annealing makes an $1100 machine that has programs for all the different brass makes for the same cal. It makes a diff!
I'm not suggesting that one uses the wet ss method, only that you make sure you adj your torch or induction unit for your brass. Take the time to mark the brass with templat run some samples, write it down. Double check your induction unit as well from time to time, I've read that it's been found that an induction unit in 40 deg takes a different time than 75 deg ambient room temp. If your working on brass in the winter in the garage and later in the summer, it can make a difference.
Lots to think about and details to keep track of. Or hell, just go by new brass...lol
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