A Definitive study of Annealing

[hounddawg]

I was over at the Savage Shooters website and came across a blog article written on the 7th of this month referencing a in depth study of annealing. AMP contracted METLAB to conduct a number of studies on the effects of case annealing and it's affect on neck tension and hardness. They then asked a couple of reloading experts Bill Gravit of Sinclair International and author Mic McPhereson to help them figure out what the results meant. The results can be found along with some interesting analysis by a couple of top experts here

https://www.ampannealing.com/article...he-microscope/

It is of course a big sales pitch for the AMP annealer however it does scientifically demonstrate that annealing done properly will keep your cases in almost new condition. It also has lots of pretty pics, charts, and graphs along with links to the actual lab tests.

A couple of the more interesting points I saw not related to annealing were that ball neck expanders work harden the brass more than a standard neck sizer does and that it is better to leave a little bit of carbon inside the neck cases to act as a lubricant.

It's a worthwhile read for anyone whose goal is precision reloading

[Slamfire]

Thanks for posting, some very interesting numbers, will refer to this in the future.

[hounddawg]

I figure it should stop any debate whatsoever on whether annealing is worthwhile. Now it is up to each individual reloader to decide how much time and money he/she wants to drop on it.

I am using a modded out Anealeez which I upgraded to a digital readout PWM (speed control) and doing some SD tests over the chrony. I am getting mixed results and will do a thread in a week or two if I can get the range time and can come to any worthwhile opinions on the effectiveness or not.

What I would have liked to have seen in those tests would have been some numbers ran on older brass that had been shot multiple times with no annealing. That seems to be the the big issue with my efforts so far although I am only on my third round and still experimenting with the time factor.

[hdwhit]

Hounddawg, for my part there's never been a question as to whether or not annealing was beneficial; for me the question has always been whether or not it was necessary.

Where I do most of my shooting, between 20% and 40% of the cases fired out of semiautomatic guns are "lost in the weeds". Only 38 Special and 223 from my bolt gun are fully recovered. Given my "loss rate", statistically speaking there are few cases in my reloading stream with 5 loadings on them and none with 7, so my brass is lost before it would need to be trimmed or annealed after it is initially processed.

People working with cases that work harden after only a few firings should consider adding the step to their processing, but it is a facts and circumstances determination.

[T. O'Heir]

"...stop any debate whatsoever..." HAHAHAHAHA. That's funny.
Annealing has one purpose and only one purpose. It extends case life. It does nothing for accuracy. Isn't necessary for any case except bottle necked cases or every time a case is loaded. And is very much not rocket science or magic.
It's trying to mechanize the process that causes most issues. That and heating the case too hot. As in red hot is too hot.
"..."lost in the weeds"..." Range tax and/or a sacrifice to the hunting/shooting deities. Works the same with arrows.

[scatterbrain]

Hey TO, speak for yourself. I have shot my bottle necks so much that some of the head stamps are getting pounded out, I went to annealing to extend the life, and improve my group sizes. I have been shooting the same group of cases from about 5 different calibers over and over this year, with every round going over my chrono. Interesting, my SD's haven't went to zero but are always below 15 (with only old abused brass), but, my targets have one sub MOA groups now with all 5 calibers. My 6MM cases were bought in the early 80's and were were getting to the point that 1/2 of them would have a split neck after firing. I have found one split neck in the last 3 loadings. The annealer upped my game, just like my chronograph.

[hounddawg]

As I said in my first post all this does is show through testing that annealing done properly will keep your cases in almost new condition. If that is important to you for whatever reason then anneal, it it is not then no worries.

I am annealing all my match grade cases after every firing now and I have noticed a lot less vertical spread on my groups at 300 and above. Not sure if that is entirely due to the annealing though since I am becoming more and more diligent at every aspect of my case prep

[RC20]

Its some very interesting additional information.

I didn't find it negative in sales pitch terms. While it is aimed at the AMP and its programing it certainly has the open data that benefits everyone.

As there was no question as to it being effective in saving brass, I am not into that part.

It does indeed lead to some interesting insight into the carbon and what its affects are and raises some questions as well.


As for me and carbon, as noted by AMP it often emits as it cooks out and my results have been that the emission also removes any lubrication factor and I need to lube the bullets on the first round after anneal.

It does not seem like that would be exclusive to the Annie, they do make clear its just AMP related.

So I am scratching my head as to two meticulous researchers have found time is changed with clean vs non clean brass.

[hounddawg]

@RC 20 my routine now is tumble in walnut with before depriming then anneal etc etc etc with no neck lube and I have been getting excellent results with my .260's as far as grouping and vertical dispersion. Looking into my cases I see a dark brown coating, nothing like the wet tumbled new brass look

Neck soot is going to cook off at xxx temp whether the heat was generated by a chemical torch or by magnetic waves. No biggie there.

If I understand your last question correctly when AMP sent the brass to METLAB they sent all of the batches uncleaned and new unfired brass. When they did the tensile test they noticed that the new unfired cases took more force than the dirty annealed cases even with the same neck tension and hardness.

According to the article AMP is planning on running a second round tests including more tensile tests using various neck lubes and cleaning methods.

[Unclenick]

I have to say I found it curious that they did so many 0.003-.0035" interference fits, when most dies tend to give shooters about 0.001" to 0.002" interference. But I suspect they are on the right general track.

When RSI was still making their Load Force instrument, they had customers who claimed as little as one pound difference in seating force could be seen on target, and thus measured seating force became a sorting factor for them.

When Mr. O'Heir can show he has conducted experiments with properly controlled annealing and proven that such annealing has no effect on accuracy, then we will be happy to see his work. Until then, I can only assume his statement that it is "not rocket science" means he employs a simple and imprecisely controlled method. In that case it would be no surprise that he can't see any accuracy improvement as the resulting hardness levels would exhibit variation and their mean value is offset from the ideal value and differing from one annealing session to the next. So his statement that accuracy is unaffected by neck annealing may only be an indication that his particular method of neck annealing should be avoided.

Mr. O'Heir is, however, correct that the debate won't be ended by this study nor even by 100% scientific proof. The scuttlebutt to the contrary will persist. A friend of mine who is an attorney said his trial law professor told him that if you go to court 100% in the right and with all the physical evidence and proof on your side, your chances of winning a jury trial were about 60%. I think that provides some insight into the inability of some persons to understand what constitutes proof and what doesn't. It also tells you one reason attorneys like to settle out of court.

[RC20]

I am going to have to remember that 60%

I did send an email to AMP and this is what I got back.


"Further to my last email, I can confirm that if cases are annealed wet, straight out of the tumbler, it will affect the annealing result. The cases will be slightly under-annealed, and also the hardness will be more erratic. Cases should always be dried before annealing."

That then means they need a separate data set for brass cleaned with steel pins and solution.

As was noted previously, that is a lot of programing to keep up with.

As for the Carbon, that's my results. Its not an issue but its also a stray factor for the first round after annealing.

[hounddawg]

As for the Carbon, that's my results. Its not an issue but its also a stray factor for the first round after annealing.

I agree that consistent neck tension and release is desirable and although I am getting acceptable SD's and groups there is always room for improvement. Neck lubing no matter what annealing process used might be a good idea, even if not annealing and using a wet/pin method and not annealing you should probably be using a neck lube. A Qtip with some mica/talc before seating will do the trick

[RC20]

What bothers me is that they clearly said it was different, but then did not say they had program settings or offering settings that did account for that.

Yea, I know not to anneal a wet case. Not that I mind, but that was not the questions.

I will do some follow up of course.

[BobCat45]

hounddawg, Thanks! That's a marvelous study. I need to re-read and digest (old-brain syndrome here) but the micros and lab work are superb. Thanks.

[hounddawg]

@RC 20 - what bothers me is that with any other method than the AMP we are just guessing. Neither with the Annie nor my Anealeeze do we have any clue as to what we are actually doing to the brass hardness wise. Yes I can control the flame intensity and placement and the adjust the time but the reality is other than putting a bit of Tempilaq and waiting for it to melt is the best we can do. I would bet that even on the worst setting the AMP is doing a more precise anneal than we can ever do.

Now if I were using a AMP I could just pop the cases into the #11 shell holder and dial in program 91 for a .260 Rem with a .016 neck thickness and be reasonably comfortable that I was getting the proper anneal. As it is I think I am getting a good anneal and know it is a safe anneal and a reasonably consistent anneal but what is actually happening to the neck hardness I have not a clue.

[Unclenick]

I thought AMP was dialing in not only the chambering but the make of brass. May be remembering wrong, though.

Tempilaq should work if you know what value to use and for what length of time. That would require testing as well, though.

[hounddawg]

@Unclenick

over at their settings page they list over 40 brands and lot numbers of .223 all with different settings for each along with settings for each with .001, .002, and .003 neck turned versions. That is just the .223, they have settings for just about everything and if they don't have it send them a sample piece of brass and they will test it, recommend a setting and list it on the page giving you credit as a contributor


bah, I am not a wordsmith - https://www.ampannealing.com/settings/ check it out

For all of it's expense it sure seems that if the goal is a perfectly annealed case this thing is the best bet. Now all I have to do is convince myself that I need a perfectly annealed case

[hdwhit]

T O'Heir wrote:
"'...lost in the weeds...' Range tax and/or a sacrifice to the hunting/shooting deities. Works the same with arrows."

Early in my career, I worked as an agent for the Treasury Department, so I'll take "Range Tax" as its less likely to cause me to catch a lightning bolt than "shooting deities".

[F. Guffey]

"Further to my last email, I can confirm that if cases are annealed wet, straight out of the tumbler, it will affect the annealing result.

I would expect that response from a reloader. If I anneal a case that is wet I expect the wet to disappear long before the case sets hot enough to anneal. I said many years ago I decided to get into annealing, I decided there were rules and I decided there were factors. I talked to a reloader that claimed he used candles, it did not take me long to track that one down because the candle violated one of my rules.

Definitive? and then there is talking it to death.

F. Guffey

[RC20]

@RC 20 - what bothers me is that with any other method than the AMP we are just guessing. Neither with the Annie nor my Anealeeze do we have any clue as to what we are actually doing to the brass hardness wise. Yes I can control the flame intensity and placement and the adjust the time but the reality is other than putting a bit of Tempilaq and waiting for it to melt is the best we can do. I would bet that even on the worst setting the AMP is doing a more precise anneal than we can ever do.

Now if I were using a AMP I could just pop the cases into the #11 shell holder and dial in program 91 for a .260 Rem with a .016 neck thickness and be reasonably comfortable that I was getting the proper anneal. As it is I think I am getting a good anneal and know it is a safe anneal and a reasonably consistent anneal but what is actually happening to the neck hardness I have not a clue.
__________________

Valid points.

As the grain exam and testing process they use are foreign to me, I don't know how to asses them (JH has not weighted in!).

If I am tracking it right, they cross compared grain structure r with hardness and then used hardness as the test to confirm most settings.

I do have some itchiness to my feelings on AMP when two piece of data are not matching what I have found (carbon burned in inductive is very sticky) and the detail that they acknowledge the fully clean brass need more anneal but they don't have a program selection for that.

More than agreed I would rather under anneal than over, so its a good factor but crosses with the perfect end result.

And if you read the Tempilaq Write-up, I did indeed have conflicting information and the mfg is sending me both 750 and 800 to test to resolve it.

AMP may well turn out the perfect brass.

For my ROI, I think the Annie does what I need (conservative anneal) at a price I can afford.

[Unclenick]

It's not shooting the range gods, it's sacrificing brass to them at their grass alter that seems to occur without the consent of the donator. I've been in a couple of situations where the word "tithe" applied, as a good 10% of ejected brass vanished. In one instance it neared 30% as the uncut grass in front of the firing points was known to harbor chiggers and nobody wanted to trade their bites for brass. Someone thought to include a string on the next outing to that location, but that could just throw them around, so socks pulled up over the trouser cuffs and sprayed with bug repellent was still the SOP of the day.


Hounddawg,

That's what I was recalling. I hadn't looked at the current page, but had seen the original YouTube video from a year and a half ago and recalled they were committing to analyzing individual cases. Glad they've kept that up. Of course, this is part of what you are paying for with the machine.

The cost is prohibitive for the person not seeking match or benchrest perfection, but only to cut the cost of shooting down. It is also too slow for the volume shooter. Persons participating in tactical matches that emphasize speed shooting and volume of fire are not going to want to wait for it. Something like the Giraud machine will be more appealing for them, even if they can't get absolute perfection from it.

There is room for more work in the area. Something fast, economical and precise is the goal. If the makers of AMP work out an automatic feed system, they will have addressed a big limitation of their equipment for volume shooters.

[hounddawg]

@ RC 20

I am still debating on whether the purchase of a AMP would be worth it myself. If I do it won't be until the end of the year so I can do some more of my own informal testing and might decide to build/buy a new gun instead

Sorry if I am boring some or most here, I realize that this is a subject that is only of interest to a few. For 99% of the shooters/reloaders here any annealing machine would be about as worthless as teats on a boar hog as we say down here. Spending that money on powder, bullets etc would do them a whole lot more good in my opinion. Bench rest, and long range people are the only one who really need to care about neck tensions. Well not to forget the exotic cartridge guys who pay $$$$ for their cases. Other than those groups no one needs to spend money on this or any other annealing machine.

[Unclenick]

It depends. If you spend money on Lapua brass, you may well find it pays for itself by tripling the no-split life of your first 500 cases. That assumes you're not hotrodding it to head expanding pressures. Mind you, that's probably enough rounds to shoot out 3 or 4 barrels, so you do have to be shooting pretty regularly.

[JeepHammer]

Definitive always scares me to death. Someone that *Thinks* they are 100% right are dangerous since there is no room in their heads for any problems that might arise...

As for Amp being the 'Only' annealer that can do things 'Definitively', just plain BS of the highest order, you need hip waders for that pile of steaming statement...

That was what the microstructure thread was about, figuring out EXACTLY what the case was doing, being able to see for yourself what was working, and what wasn't working.

Doesn't matter what induction unit you are using as long as it's powerful enough to anneal the neck/shoulder before the case head gets too hot.
Over powered units NOT run 'Flat Out' so it's consistent.

The ONLY question after you have the power applied to the case IS TIMING...

------

I don't use metal polish on the cases before annealing, I wet wash cases because it's fast,and I dry cases, either air time (evaporation) or by throwing them in dry media to dry them and polish them up a little.

Guys going stright to reloading might want to wait on the dry polish until after annealing & sizing simply to get the case lube off to avoid dry tumble twice.
A clean case is pretty important to annealing times, as stated before by several...

Now, no one that doesn't volume clean and QUALIFY (case necks) probably won't know this...
Damp cases make proximity sensors freak completely out, using proximity sensors sensitive enough to detect Non-ferrous cases are SERIOUSLY freaked out by moisture.
And it's not just one brand of sensor, I have four or five brands that freaked out using proximity sensor & PLC controls on automated equipment...
No moisture is fine, if it doesn't freak out the neck qualifier, then it anneals just fine, really consistently.

What I can't seem to get across is these electrical-magnetic induction units all work on the same basic electrical principals, they all work the same way, no matter who puts them together, you at home!even from surplus parts, or the larger companies selling them.
They are pretty simple, work the same way, and once you have the power output, applied to the case, it's just a matter of time, how long to cook...

Hardness testing is an INDICATOR of what the brass is doing, micrographs can show you what the brass is doing, but it's up to you to decide what what you want and how far to go...

[hounddawg]

someone mentioned annealing with a candle earlier in this thread, well they tried it and tested it. Conclusion was you would not change the brass but you would burn the heck out of fingers


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