Annealing?

[Nocturnal Stumblebutt]

I reload a fair amount of .223 and I have seen the incredible homemade annealing machines on this forum. From my reading I have found vastly different opinions as to the value of annealing. So my question is targeted at the people that have taken the time to build a separate machine for annealing - why do you do it? Is it really that beneficial? This is a sincere question, because, like I said, I have read a lot of conflicting info about whether to anneal.

[I'll Make Mine]

Annealing undoes work hardening (in the case neck; you don't want to anneal below the shoulder, ever), which prolongs case life by avoiding brittleness. Works the same for machine reloaders and for those who reload the same twenty cartridges before every hunting season.

[.30/30 Guy]

After about 10 firings I was getting about 10% split necks with my 30/30. The 11th firing would get another 10% failures and so the trend would continue.

I annealed the necks and have not had a single split neck since. I am now limiting the number of firings between annealings.

[jmorris]

Also gives more consistant neck tension.

[cajun shooter]

The largest benifit from case annealing is down range accuracy. If you are one of the spray and pray shooters then you will never seen the true reason for case neck annealing.
Kenny Wasserburger who holds many national records at Raton, New Mexico does annealing after every firing.
You may find some of his video's on You tube.
He advised me to try this regime of doing it every time and it works. My targets changed by inches in my 45-70 BP shooting.
It will save brass also but that is not the real reason to do it.

[o6Patient]

I built my annealing tray I guess you would call it to prolong the life of my o6 AI Winchester cases.
They have to be fire formed so you want them to last as long as possible. The Winchesters had thinner
walls for capacity but were a bit brittle compared to the rems at the time.

[kweidner]

Depends on the purpose of the ammo. For 500yd plus stuff or very hard to get cases yes i do.

[baer19d]

I've done it in the past but I didn't bother with any annealing machine. I just do them by hand one at a time. Since I do it so infrequently it's not a bother this way.

[1Shirt]

I anneal about every 5-7 load, one at a time, in a dim room, with a prop torch, and drop them into water.
1Shirt!

[hemiallen]

How many times have you reloaded the same 223 cases, and is it a bolt or AR type gun... makes a lot of difference.


I say anneal at 5x reloads and your brass should last a lot longer


Allen