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Range Report Annealing and Velocity Change

dmgreene

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Full Member
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Sep 30, 2007
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Old Salem, AL
I tried my hand at annealing yesterday and I think it turned out pretty good. I had some 6.5-284 brass that had been reloaded 7 times and I had started getting a few split necks so I figured what the heck, the cases weren't going to be any good anyway. Went to range today and I picked up 30 fps with no changes other than annealing the cases. I had 3 cases that were considerably easier to seat the bullets in so I separated them. When I checked those 3 they chronoed around 30 fps faster than the rest (for a total of 60 fps faster than the brass that had nothing done to it).
Has anyone else seen this kind of velocity change after annealing?

David
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

The resulting velocity increase is not because of the lesser neck tension it is actualy because the cases are softer and form to the chamber easier and seal the gasses of better alowing more of the powder energy to push the projectile down the barrel without seeping back towards the boltface.

Cheers Bill
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

annealing extends case life and gives consistent neck tension. Can you show me where anyone has found that case sealing due to annealing is the reason for that much increase in velocity? I won't say B.S. but I have studied annealing a bit especially on 6mmbr.com and they know their crap over there. So can you show me where you found this info?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wild_Bill</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The resulting velocity increase is not because of the lesser neck tension it is actualy because the cases are softer and form to the chamber easier and seal the gasses of better alowing more of the powder energy to push the projectile down the barrel without seeping back towards the boltface.

Cheers Bill</div></div>
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

+1 mechanic. I havn't done any chronographing to test for higher MV from annealing, but havn't noticed any change from it. If it does increase MV I would like to know also. May have to test for it sometime if I think of it.
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

Bill is right. I have tested loads with less neck tension and it has very little to do with the tension and more to do with the chamber seal. When you reduce the neck tension it actually makes the bullet drop out of the group because of the lack of seal.
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

If you resize, as usual, and anneal you may have to re-size.
you just learned where the stresses were in your cases.

Just find proper neck tension.
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

That seems to conflict with what Bill said? He said less tension = more sealing. More tension less sealing. Some would say that more tension will allow more pressure to build inside the case for that millisecond increasing overall pressure raising velocity. Hmmm. Still would like to see some evidence.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: NotAGuru</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Bill is right. I have tested loads with less neck tension and it has very little to do with the tension and more to do with the chamber seal. When you reduce the neck tension it actually makes the bullet drop out of the group because of the lack of seal.</div></div>
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: The Mechanic</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That seems to conflict with what Bill said? He said less tension = more sealing.
</div></div>

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wild_Bill</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The resulting velocity increase is not because of the lesser neck tension it is actualy because the cases are softer and form to the chamber easier and seal the gasses of better alowing more of the powder energy to push the projectile down the barrel without seeping back towards the boltface.

Cheers Bill </div></div>
He said nothing about more or less tension = more seal.

After i resize my brass i use inside neck reamers to control bullet tension. When i take the inside of the necks out more i loose more seal because the brass is not as thick and using old brass. I was loosing FPS and didnt know why untill i thought about that.
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

essentialy what happens say with factory 6mm BR Lapua cases as they are fired a few times the brass work hardens and they do not seel the chamber as weell some people then use a smaler bushing to get the same neck tension because of spring back, But the problem is that the brass also does not seal to the chamber wall like ti did when it was new so ytou can loose some small amount of velocity. if you anneal the cases you should then regain the same velocity and seal as the factory brass they will not go faster.

The thing with neck tension if you have some that have less tension than others all sized the same and all measuring the same loaded diameter the only diference is the maluability of the brass this is the ability for the brass to form. The harder the brass the less likly it will seel to the chamber and will allow some gasses to flow back towards the boltface.

You can see this also with underloaded cases their is not enough pressure to seel the necks so they are black and sometimes they can actualy colapse the shoulders of the cases inwards. if tyhe cases afre old this cazn occour with starting loads that are not unsafe. I have then annealed cases for some of these tests and geus what the cases sealed and the velocities increased dramaticaly and the extreme spreads and standard deviations shrunk dramaticaly.

Having said that i dont think you have to anneal every 2 or 3 shots but some shooters swear by it and have shot world reccords doing this. i have 6mm dasher cases that have neen fired 30 times and never annealed they only have a total of 1.5 thou clearence so their is less case working and i just shoot them until the primer pockets are to loose then they get ditched. then i have short mag cases i anneal them when forming them as i push the shoulders back and fireform them to my own case dimensions and then will anneal every 5 shots because of the neck thicknesses.

I also have a factory spec chamber reamer for a 7mm rem SAUM i use for F Class after shooting near max loads the case necks are black and i dont want to load them hotter actualy i would have to go to a faster powder because it is already compresed. Now i have fired them twice the first and second times the 1000 yard elevation was 2", I fired the same cases, primers, powder and packet of projectiles on saturday and had 6" elevation so i went home annealed the cases and reloaded them again shot on sunday back to 2" elevation.

I also had chronographed both the annealed and twice fired cases and the annealed cases had an es of 5 the others on the 3rd firing had an es of 38 and were on average 54fps slower.

Neck tension had nothing to do with it as in all cases the projectiles are hard jammed into the lands.

Just in case people think i just hear about these things and have no qualifications i am one of very few people in Australia that has a private firarms licence indorsed for Ballistic testing. I wortk for a gunsmith here and conduct most new calibre development and testing as well as designing my own calibres andhave 4 registered calibres with the police on the Australian firarms and ammunition template. I also write technical articles for Australian target and hunting magazines. And was involved with all of the ballistic testing in a family buisness that was a custom loading company that hand loaded millions of rounds of ammo from 17 hornet to 50BMG including target ammo for commonwelth games gold medalist full bore shooters and big game ammunition for use in Africa where any problems can end in the shooters death and hundreds of thousands of rounds of 308 and 223 for freal pest destruction, the 308 ammo was required to function in semi auto's shooting straight down without any malfunctions from a helicopter.

On top of this i am one of the top Open F Class shooters here in Australia.

So i think i have a bit more knowlidge than most in this department.

Hope this helps but the bottom line if you think your loads are good and your velocities are eratic try to anneal the cases it can help especialy if you have a factory chamber with a larg amount of neck clearence.
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

To give a straight answer to this thread
Anneal if your cases are getting hard and not holding the projectile like they did when new, A good indicator is also if you are getting higher ES and SD's and the velocity may or may not have droped the diference could be the diference in the day you do the testing. Also if you are shooting larger groups with the older brass that is trimed and preped well compared to new Lapua brass.

these are the things to look for.

If your groups are still tight and the ES and SD are the same just keep banging away but after 10 shots with a 308 i would look at it if you use your cases past that.
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

NotAGuru gave me a call and splained' it also. Seems reasonable so I will give it a thumbs up.
smile.gif
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

I not going to say that the sealing doesn't have an effect on velocity but I do know that neck tension can have an effect. I'm always experimenting and checking things and I shoot over a chrono a lot. I had some cases that I had pulled the bullets from and I decided so see what effect it would have on velocities using the brass as it was compared to brass that had not had the bullets pulled. Without resizing the brass I loaded them back up and the neck tension was noticeably lighter than the brass that had not had the bullets pulled from them. All things being the same other than the neck tension the cartridges with the lighter neck tension averaged 25 fps faster.

One thing that I have learned in the years that I have been reloading is that it about 50% science and 50% BLACK MAGIC. If it was all science we would all find the best load the first trip to the range and all our guns would be shooting 1/4 MOA. But ain't it fun
crazy.gif


David
 
Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wild_Bill</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Anneal if your cases are getting hard and not holding the projectile like they did when new, A good indicator is also if you are getting higher ES and SD's and the velocity may or may not have dropped the difference could be the difference in the day you do the testing. Also if you are shooting larger groups with the older brass that is trimmed and prepared well compared to new Lapua brass.
these are the things to look for.

If your groups are still tight and the ES and SD are the same just keep banging away but after 10 shots with a 308 i would look at it if you use your cases past that.
</div></div>
Awesome info, that explains what I have seen. Should you add to the list (of when to anneal) - a black neck (from neck not sealing)?
 
I don’t know if annealing increases velocity but I am seeing a loss in velocity each time I resize. I found a good node at 77.3 grains of H-1000 using .245 Berger EOL in my 300NM. Started with 2800 FPS and currently at 2500’s. I haven’t changed anything. Same seating depth, I use a mandrel die at .307 before seating. On my 5th reload now. Trimming also consistently including neck turning. (Lapua brass) either my cheap Cabelas chronograph is out to lunch or there’s more to this annealing. Perhaps not as noticeable with smaller cartridges?
 
Simple answer, your cheap chronograph is out to lunch. Your brass is not making 300FPS difference because it gets a little harder.
 
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Re: Annealing and Velocity Change

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: The Mechanic</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That seems to conflict with what Bill said? He said less tension = more sealing.
</div></div>

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wild_Bill</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The resulting velocity increase is not because of the lesser neck tension it is actualy because the cases are softer and form to the chamber easier and seal the gasses of better alowing more of the powder energy to push the projectile down the barrel without seeping back towards the boltface.

Cheers Bill </div></div>
He said nothing about more or less tension = more seal.

After i resize my brass i use inside neck reamers to control bullet tension. When i take the inside of the necks out more i loose more seal because the brass is not as thick and using old brass. I was loosing FPS and didnt know why untill i thought about that.
would the same hold true for neck turning? I use a mandrel die to set neck tension and then neck turn. I notice a lot of carbon on outside of neck. I don't even know if I really have to neck turn with Lapua brass to be honest
 
You are quoting a post from 2009, from a member who has not logged in in so long there is no "last seen" date on his account. I don't think you are going to get conversation.
 
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