Hypothetical: 1x fired --> annealed

[Heretic]

Question for the smart folks:
Caveat - with reference to UR and his annealing tests with the AMP annealer

Say I buy a box of ammo (Berger uses Lapua brass) and I shoot it. I collect the brass, resize, anneal (let's posit that the annealing is done "right), clean (to remove any carbon from the neck), prime, powder, reload.

Can this brass, although fired, be considered the same as "new" brass now? Yes, it's been fired, but it has also been "returned to factory settings."

Does the 1x fired apply to brass that wasn't annealed and resized, etc? But does the annealing put it back to "new" condition?

UR got 76 firings out of one case.

Just a topic for discussion.

 

[OREGUN]

New is new. Nothing you do with home heat treating or a “re-sizing” die can make it new again. You can’t re-virgin a pussy and you can’t make brass new again.

 

[straightshooter1]

Question for the smart folks:
Caveat - with reference to UR and his annealing tests with the AMP annealer

Say I buy a box of ammo (Berger uses Lapua brass) and I shoot it. I collect the brass, resize, anneal (let's posit that the annealing is done "right), clean (to remove any carbon from the neck), prime, powder, reload.

Can this brass, although fired, be considered the same as "new" brass now? Yes, it's been fired, but it has also been "returned to factory settings."

Does the 1x fired apply to brass that wasn't annealed and resized, etc? But does the annealing put it back to "new" condition?

UR got 76 firings out of one case.

Just a topic for discussion.

Hmmm??? Yes and no.

Yes, the neck and even the shoulder can be returned to factory condition (new/spec hardness) when annealed " properly". When the neck is sized, work hardening happen most then. So, when annealing, one actually needs to get the neck softer than new condition so that after sizing, the hardness will increase to that "new condition".

As far as the body of the case goes, it's a no, as the body down to the web isn't being annealed and is getting harder than factory spec with each cycle of firing and sizing. The less movement the brass goes through upon firing and sizing, the slower the work hardening happens. Custom chamber with custom dies can minimize this movement to the point where annealing many not even be necessary over some period of time.

 

[Maurygold]

No - annealing doesn’t completely walk back the fee at of firing brass.

Annealing made perfect has a pretty good book out where they talk about the research that went into their machine and the grain structure of brass with their annealing.

https://shop.ampannealing.com/product/352/making-perfect-the-story-of-annealing-made-perfect/

 

[straightshooter1]

New is new. Nothing you do with home heat treating or a “re-sizing” die can make it new again. You can’t re-virgin a pussy and you can’t make brass new again.

After buying a hardness tester and testing the hardness of virgin brass and my annealed brass, I found I could get my case necks the same hardness that the virgin brass after annealing and sizing. Of course, I actually had to bring the softness of the brass lower that the target so that the work hardening from the sizing process brought them to the target hardness. And I flame anneal!

 

[OREGUN]

Dimensions change, that don’t get touched by a die (think primer pocket), textures change that don’t get touched by annealing (think case web), concentricity changes (every pass through the sizer takes a case farther from perfectly concentric), every resizing changes case length and case wall thickness, every ejection torques the case rim…the list goes on and on and on….way beyond hardness and “proper” home heat treatment. Which by the way, if you are flame heat treating, is a completely uncontrolled process that relies on feels and guesswork…and thus leaves brass different every time.

 

[straightshooter1]

Dimensions change, that don’t get touched by a die (think primer pocket), textures change that don’t get touched by annealing (think case web), concentricity changes (every pass through the sizer takes a case farther from perfectly concentric), every resizing changes case length and case wall thickness, every ejection torques the case rim…the list goes on and on and on….way beyond hardness and “proper” home heat treatment. Which by the way, if you are flame heat treating, is a completely uncontrolled process that relies on feels and guesswork…and thus leaves brass different every time.

Depending on feel and guesswork is exactly why I bought a hardness tester and tested various approaches stated in different forums for flame annealing. Like, taking the brass out of the flame when the flame turns color (yellow or orange) or dropping the case out of the flame just when it begins to glow. These two methods did not get my brass necks to my target hardness (that being the same as Lapua virgin brass). The flame color method resulted in hardness substantially harder than my target and that "begins to glow" method still didn't get me anywhere near enough. Though those two methods didn't bring the hardness down to my target, the hardness readings were consistent from case to case and from on lot to another. Note too, we're not having to deal with absolutes as any very small variations that can be measured with very high end equipment doesn't really have any measurable effect on shooting results.

What I found that works with my flame annealing is bringing the neck to a red glow for just a hair over 1 second (in a darkened room) and the consistent timing produce consistent results as measured by my hardness tool. Getting the necks that red glow suggested by color that the temperature was somewhere between 1,100 - 1,200°F (600 - 650°C). I had to find just the right amount of time at that temperature range to get the necks at the right amount below the target softness so that the sizing would hit the target hardness.

Consistency is what it really all about.

 

[OREGUN]

Depending on feel and guesswork is exactly why I bought a hardness tester and tested various approaches stated in different forums for flame annealing. Like, taking the brass out of the flame when the flame turns color (yellow or orange) or dropping the case out of the flame just when it begins to glow. These two methods did not get my brass necks to my target hardness (that being the same as Lapua virgin brass). The flame color method resulted in hardness substantially harder than my target and that "begins to glow" method still didn't get me anywhere near enough. Though those two methods didn't bring the hardness down to my target, the hardness readings were consistent from case to case and from on lot to another. Note too, we're not having to deal with absolutes as any very small variations that can be measured with very high end equipment doesn't really have any measurable effect on shooting results.

What I found that works with my flame annealing is bringing the neck to a red glow for just a hair over 1 second (in a darkened room) and the consistent timing produce consistent results as measured by my hardness tool. Getting the necks that red glow suggested by color that the temperature was somewhere between 1,100 - 1,200°F (600 - 650°C). I had to find just the right amount of time at that temperature range to get the necks at the right amount below the target softness so that the sizing would hit the target hardness.

Consistency is what it really all about.

I challenge you to create a repeatable process, that you can pass on to another home-heat-treater, that uses terms like “just a hair over 1 second (in a darkened room)”. This is the definition of process by feels and guesswork. How dark is darkened? How red is red? How much is a hair? Is it more or less than just a hair? What happens as your gas pressure changes? What happens if your ambient conditions change? When do I start my timer?

I don’t doubt that heat treating with a flame has some effect on brass hardness. Companies like Anal-ease have made an industry out of convincing shooters that flame treating is effective. YOU may be consistent with what you do but the PROCESS is not. What the AMP folks have done is create a repeatable and reproducible process that use measurable parameters to heat treat brass. Anyone with their dataset and some know-how could build an AMP annealer and get the same results. That’s process by standardization. Consistency really is what it’s all about.

But you didn’t ask about home heat treating, you asked about re-virginating brass. I stand by my first answer. You cannot.

 

[straightshooter1]

I challenge you to create a repeatable process, that you can pass on to another home-heat-treater, that uses terms like “just a hair over 1 second (in a darkened room)”. This is the definition of process by feels and guesswork. How dark is darkened? How red is red? How much is a hair? Is it more or less than just a hair? What happens as your gas pressure changes? What happens if your ambient conditions change? When do I start my timer?

I don’t doubt that heat treating with a flame has some effect on brass hardness. Companies like Anal-ease have made an industry out of convincing shooters that flame treating is effective. YOU may be consistent with what you do but the PROCESS is not. What the AMP folks have done is create a repeatable and reproducible process that use measurable parameters to heat treat brass. Anyone with their dataset and some know-how could build an AMP annealer and get the same results. That’s process by standardization. Consistency really is what it’s all about.

But you didn’t ask about home heat treating, you asked about re-virginating brass. I stand by my first answer. You cannot.

No doubt that the AMP machine is the easy button for very consistent results. Though the timing it uses is a function of the AZTEC Analyze mode to input the correct code. It's not really a good idea to use a particular code from someone else's test, huh?

I'd say similarly with flame annealing, testing and set up before starting the annealing process is needed to address the variables you mention. For me, the test comes down to making adjustments to where I get the reading I'm after from the hardness tool. I don't have to start a timer as the wheels that drop the cases into and out of the flame is consistent. As far as gas pressure changes, a regulator takes care of that nicely.

 

[Heretic]

Hmmm??? Yes and no.

Yes, the neck and even the shoulder can be returned to factory condition (new/spec hardness) when annealed " properly". When the neck is sized, work hardening happen most then. So, when annealing, one actually needs to get the neck softer than new condition so that after sizing, the hardness will increase to that "new condition".

As far as the body of the case goes, it's a no, as the body down to the web isn't being annealed and is getting harder than factory spec with each cycle of firing and sizing. The less movement the brass goes through upon firing and sizing, the slower the work hardening happens. Custom chamber with custom dies can minimize this movement to the point where annealing many not even be necessary over some period of time.

Your response highlights the problem with my question - I didn't think about the rest of the case! Thank you! 1x is 1x.

 

[JR1200W3]

The very simple answer to the OP's question is a clear, undeniable, observable fact.

There is always a muzzle velocity difference between virgin brass and 1 x fired, annealed, resized brass. The latter is slightly slower.

Your brass is never going to behave the way it did when virgin. And pretty much for the better.

You can parse the question out to only in the context of grain structure in the neck of annealed brass, but it has no practical application. You're just theorizing about something that by and large doesn't change your ability to hit targets or make brass last longer.