3. Recheck Pressure for An Established Load After Annealing Brass 1st Time?

Recheck Pressure for An Established Load After Annealing Brass 1st Time?

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    Hi All,

    First wanted to say hello, as I was impressed with the forum and just registered an account.

    I've been researching a lot on annealing, and haven't seen this discussed, so wanted to ask a couple questions regarding annealing brass for the first time from an already established accurate load.

    I have an established accurate load which began with new Nosler Custom brass which has now been fired 3 times. My load is 0.1 grain under book max. I just annealed this brass for the first time (I plan to anneal after every third firing). Do I need to load a few rounds with lesser charge weights and test back up to my established load to check pressure since I just annealed my brass, or would the annealing not change anything regarding pressure of the previously established load? Nothing else about the load will have changed, just the fact that I annealed my brass for the first time.

    Would you expect to see a change in MV or POI after annealing?

    Thanks for your help!

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  • The biggest thing to avoid after annealing is to ensure you tumble it first. After my rounds are fired, annealing is the first process, then sizing, then into the rice. The reason for this is the flame causes a significant amount of oxidization on the inside of the case neck, and it is quite tacky. This is SEVERE if the brass is sparkly clean, and still cause for concern if the brass has carbon from a previous firing. Tumbling roughs up the glaze tacky surface to allow a nice smooth bullet seating and release.

    If the oxidization is left on clean brass and not tumbled off , the bullet seating will require far greater force and be quite inconsistent. So it follows the bullet release will also be that way.

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    Thanks Orkan.

    So, if I understand correctly, my basic order should be:

    1. Deprime cases
    2. Tumble in Rice
    3. Anneal
    4. Size Brass
    5. Tumble in Rice again to remove oxidation inside case neck
    6. Trim, chamfer, debur case mouths
    7. Prime, charge, seat bullets
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  • Thats not what my order looks like.

    fire
    anneal
    size/decap
    tumble
    trim/chamfer/debur
    prime/charge/seat

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    @orkan

    I deprime before annealing, I always have problems with the cases tipping over as they go into the flame when I leave primers in. This happens with every rifle I load for. It’s not every case but probably 10-15 out of a batch. Once I started depriming first the problem went away.

    I run a benchsoure annealer which I think is what you use too, do you not have any problem with cases tipping at the flame?

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  • @bull81 said in Recheck Pressure for An Established Load After Annealing Brass 1st Time?:

    I run a benchsoure annealer which I think is what you use too, do you not have any problem with cases tipping at the flame?

    Yes I use a bench source. I've not had that issue but a couple times. Definitely not a problem. I'd venture a guess there's some sharp bur sticking up on the rotating station to cause that. You could probably disassemble it and put a bit of a chamfer on it to help.

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    @orkan
    Thanks I’ll give that a try then

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    @orkan said in Recheck Pressure for An Established Load After Annealing Brass 1st Time?:

    Thats not what my order looks like.

    fire
    anneal
    size/decap
    tumble
    trim/chamfer/debur
    prime/charge/seat

    Thanks for your help and clarifying that Orkan.

    Up until now, I've been firing, then tumbling in corn cob media to clean the brass before running it in the sizing die to size/decap. My reasoning for this was to make sure the brass was clean and not going to have any debris or grit that might scratch the inside of the sizing die. After sizing, I would just wipe off the Imperial Sizing Die Wax with a towel, and then trim/chamfer/debur, etc., so I was only tumbling once. I am switching to using rice for tumbling now, as I just found your article about using rice this past weekend.

    Now that I am adding annealing to the process (and need to tumble after annealing), I guess I'll have to switch things around. I was under the impression that brass should be clean before annealing, but I am new to the annealing aspect of this, so thanks for the clarification that you don't need to tumble clean the brass before annealing but DO need to after annealing.

    I had picked up a Lee Universal Decaping Die because I had read somewhere that it might help minimize runout by decaping before sizing so I thought I would give it a try. Maybe its not worth adding that extra step.

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  • Brass does need to be fairly clean before annealing in order for it to be consistent. However one firing out of a bolt gun is not enough to cause problems. If a round is fired out of a suppressed gas gun and then lays in the dirt for a week then it should be cleaned before annealing.

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    Thanks dddoo7.

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    @orkan Do you find that three hours tumbling in rice is enough time to remove the oxidation after annealing, or should it be longer?

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  • That's plenty, even if the brass was shiny at first. If there's carbon in there from previous firing, most often 1-2hrs is enough. Depends on your specific tumbler and how heavy you have it loaded down though.

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  • @orkan said in Recheck Pressure for An Established Load After Annealing Brass 1st Time?:

    That's plenty, even if the brass was shiny at first. If there's carbon in there from previous firing, most often 1-2hrs is enough. Depends on your specific tumbler and how heavy you have it loaded down though.

    +1

    I run 90 minutes to 2 hrs for somewhat heavy loads and the rice does a good job.

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    @straightshooter1
    @orkan

    Thanks y'all.

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