I anneal my brass after every firing... Consistency is key. Articles below. www.rime.de/en.... www.ampanneali... Visit my website: erikcortina.com/ Support me on Patreon! / erikcortina Get my shirts here: erikcortina.co...
You all prolly dont care at all but does anyone know of a tool to log back into an Instagram account..? I was stupid lost my password. I would appreciate any tricks you can offer me
Your results did not lie. Truly appreciate your feedback. Anybody that can shoot .300 groups at a 1000yds is worth listening to. Thanks for sharing Sir😁👍🍻👊
Following all your advice from almost a year ago, my groups have tightened up so much, that my other buddies are wanting me to reload their ammo..... I tell them to watch your videos, and not second guess it. I've had more than a few one hole 5 shot groups at 125 yards, since following you. 200 is the furthest we can shoot at the current range. Looking forward to moving further out and learning more. We are recreational shooters, but I still thank you for all you do
Hey guys, get out there n find your own range. I live in E TN and finding a place to get out over a k is rough. I'm a logger for my day job so my rangefinder is always close. We find a place to extend the range a bit and get to it. Keep em in one hole😅🤣😂
I love this guy! Educated and not afraid to speak his mind even if the masses are clueless. Very informative! I'm just about getting into reloading so it's amazing to learn these things from him.
WOW So much has changed, but I get the same results. I'm very old school . Started annealing back in the early 70's. You have some very nice equipment. I stand my brass in a tray, full of water to about half way up the brass. I use a needle tip just like you. I point the flame vertically down the middle of the neck, heat till red orange, then tip it over in the water. It works really well for me, and I haven't spent a lot of money. When is started with 7TCU, I lost about 85% of my brass. After annealing, I only lost 4 or 5%. WELL DONE.
I started annealing for my 7 mag. I watched closely with new cases while fire forming. I then annealed the brass just like this. Did a fl resize at .002 and used a bushing die and had neck tension at .002. What happened next was lower es and sd. My groups were consistent. This stuff works and I really see the results at 700+ yards
This video is exactly what I needed for annealing; I've always been so worried that if I go like 1 second too long then my brass is ruined because "they" say the window for annealing vs overdoing brass is so small. Thank you! You're videos are excellent!
Annealing brass is a step that is super easy to do (and do adequately) and hard to perfect. I think way too many people put way too much thought into it. The purpose is to extend brass life and eliminate work hardening. Sure, the goal is for consistent neck tension thus higher accuracy, but time under heat per brass lot is more important than getting to an exact temperature within .5*. Without measuring the temperature perfectly in every case, all we're doing is eyeballing anyway.
Check out Elfster’s Rifles and Reloading channel on RU-vid, he has recently reviewed an Annealing machine he designed that won’t break the bank . It should be affordable for many reloaders .
This is an excellent video. I love how you simplify reloading and dispel some of the commonly held myths. So many others try to make it into “rocket science”. So much for the sales of Tempilaq
I have noticed, including in this video, that when the flame changes color, pull it from the heat. The flame bouncing off the brass will change to a orange flame. I have verified this with 750⁰ F templac.
Thanks! I went back and saw what you mean about the color change.......will apply that to my Giraud annealer and see if it helps. I have two diff templacs I should be using but I'm an old fart and get impatient and/or forgetful.
I learned about annealing a couple years ago, I don't shoot thousands so I use the salt bath method. I can see an extension in the life of my brass since i started to anneal. I too wondered about over doing the process. This helps a bunch. Thanks again for helping all of us out here.
Erik's solid plus. Hope you've been availing yourself of all his videos. I do, repeatedly and long term. And he can even build a Barndominium for you!!!
Weather someone thinks your doing it right or wrong that really don't matter, the point of this is to show how you do it and to share your knowledge on your video's. And if it works for you then thats all that matters. I learn alot from your video's thank you
Question i got a browning 28 nosler xbolt lr hunter. im reloading my own hunting ammo ELD-X 175gr. I prep my brass accordingly and im loading minimum powder load 77gr of h1000 and .007 of the lands 3127 fps using nosler brass and got my groups where i want. the bullets all touching each other on target, but i got a problem when i shoot my bolt sticks. Can you tell me what im doing wrong plz
@@josephhcondo7281 I'm not Eric. I would suggest checking how your stock is mating with your barrel. Sounds like maybe your barrel isn't free-floated. When you put the rifle on the sticks, you're getting uneven pressure on the stock causing it to make contact with the barrel. Put a dollar bill between your barrel and stock. Place it on your sticks and see if you can move the dollar freely. It's either the stock making contact, or the shooter being inconsistent. Not the same cheek weld, leaning too far in or too far back. Too much to one side.... etc.
Great discussion on annealing! For those of us that are not into PRS and load mostly for hunting; we still benefit from this good information. For us annealing is mostly done to extend brass life. The old rule was to anneal every 3 or 4th firing. However we quickly discovered that doing it more frequently often improved accuracy. Thanks for the info on over annealing as this always seems to be of concern.
I made an induction annealer. It anneals 308 in 2-4 seconds depending on manufacturer (winchester is the lowest time at 2.4 seconds). At 2.6 seconds, my annealer makes the 308 case a puddle. Nice to see the flame method isn't so quick to destroy. \
Excelent video. 1 thought. There is a theory that over annealing will burn some of the ingredients in the brass making it weaker & dangerous. I think this video may have dispelled that theory. Great experiment Erik. Rock on Bro.
@@rdsii64 The theory is when its red hot its burning zinc out of the brass, That theory is false as the only way to burn out the zinc is to basically turn the brass case into liquid form!
.. Erik Thank you so much for your Loading Videos . I now know what im doing , Save so much time loading after watching your videos and enjoy shooting my rifle because i now understand the direction to make it shoot small .. Going to a 1000 meter range soon .
I grabbed a Annealeez this spring and have been terrified to anneal my Lapua brass... of all the videos I have watch and all the shooters I talked to... this demo gives me comfort..... I was definitely was over thinking this👍👍
Me: watching all your videos, learning how to load the most accurate freedom seeds possible. Also Me: Dumping 25 grains of Varget into .556 range brass, topped with the cheapest bullets I can find...
We did a similar experiment. We were die forming .30-06 military brass into 7mm Mauser. We trimmed the fired 06' cases on a lathe, de-burred them, annealed, formed, full length sizd, trimmed and tumbled them.. We found that around 14 seconds gave us a good form with no negative effects. We did 200 for a customer and have reloaded each case 4 times since without issue (annealed each at 4 seconds each time since).
Thanks for clearing that up for me. I’ve always worried about over heating and weakening case head, Webb, and body. Now I know that I should add another second to my timer.
Good video. Glad to see you pull that Machinists Handbook out. That has all the info about metals that you will ever need. And nice to see you air cooling instead of water qwenching.
thanks for the information. I ended up getting an EP 2.0 annealer and i REALLY like it! ready to anneal out of the box & easy to switch from cartridge to cartridge without swapping out any parts and switches over in seconds.
I have learned a lot from watching your videos. And now add another to the list...the more you work it, the harder it gets. Hahaha. Great video and keep up the great information!
Hi Erik Just to let you know I just finished listening to you on the Australian hunting podcast , thank you for giving us your time and experience. Steve from Australia.
Erik with all due respect that is not work hardening. That is creating weakness from stressing the metal by consistently flexing and that thins the metal until it tears/breaks depending on the metal and the makes of it's chemical compounds. Work hardening happens from over heating the metal and it cools. So the shooting then cooling will make it a little harder every time you fire and cool it. Think of it like this... A bladesmith heats the metal to a temp that they can work it pretty easily and reheats it as it gets to cool to work until he is happy with his project. When he finishes that last few swings he cooks it rapidly in water. Then when it's completely cool to the touch say the next morning he goes to the shop and knocks it off his bench. When it hits the floor it shatters like glass. That is work hardening also called tempering. Say he doesn't drop it he cleans it then puts it into an oven for 2 cycles if 400 degrees for 2 hours each. That is annealing and what that actually does is align the grain in the metal so they make his blade stronger and more resistant to breaking as it gets a little bit softer so to speak. The longer it's in those cycles or with higher temps it'll be softer / easy to sharpen. Less heat &/or less time it'll be harder to sharpen & more brittle. If you combine the heat from the burning powder and the pressures of firing a round the brass gets stretched and thinned just a bit which will let it will work harden more and faster each time. Sorry for the length but as a machinist and amateur bladesmith that's how it was taught to me and yes I've shattered a few things here and there as well as broken things while machining because of work hardening. I hope this don't cause to much confusion.
Good info. I also figured why I "cooked" my brass when I was trying to anneal by eyeball...I was doing it under fairly bright light with sun shining in through the window. By the time I saw an orange glow it was hot, hot, hot, LOL. I didn't think I ruined the brass, but was a little worried I had shortened the life of those cases. To me it seemed like it had softened the neck and shoulder a lot. BTW, I'm still running some of those pieces for practice ammo.
How did that turn out? I did that same thing to about 50 x 22-250 cases of Rem No brass I’d neck turned. I hope I can recover them(!) after hand flame annealing too much so I can continue to shoot them.
@@daboogster7639 as I said, I used mine as practice ammo only and it seems they all held up. I have tried to keep those pieces segregated and have not had any fail yet.
@@Halfmilesniper thanks for your fast reply! I’d think with a couple shootings, they’d be hardened again. As long as you wear safety glasses should a case pop. Lots Of gas!
Erik...I liked that video...just investigation with good, clear info and shots of the results and no "preaching"....you showed the brass annealing setups and results that led you to your decisions. GREAT! I've been screwing around with a DIY (induction) annealer for several calibers and I'm gonna assume that the brass case color thing will hold pretty true across them all and I'll mostly have to adjust times and things like that (AND take a LOTS of notes so I can duplicate the desirable results). I was getting pretty tired of screwing with my flame annealer (also a DIY rig) Thanks for the very clear info and also the interesting and useful demonstration! PS...Maybe I was a tad bit hard on your for your teaching methods in another vid, but you did VERY well in this one! It made a lot of sense to me and I LOVED it!!
I really love it! A winning F Class shooter like Erik "doing it wrong". How arrogant and ignorant. If these guys would sit back and watch these reloding tips with an open mind and realize who is doing these, and give these processes a try, then they might just find out that they are the ones who have been "doing it wrong". Erik has never steered me wrong and thank you Erik for this blessing!
I have the same annealer, I use a 20lb bottle, and a hose splitter with two hoses connected to the same bottle. And then use zip ties to tie the two hoses together for my location. That way I don’t have to worry about two separate bottles, and how full each bottle is and if one will run out before the other.
Man thank you so much. I've been wasting so much supplies thinking the salt bath annealing was doing something. I couldn't actually find a good load until this video. I went ahead and did 50 cases with a drill and a torch and worked up a ladder. Dang man it was a huge difference. I now have a load that shoots sub moa out of my AR10. I've been struggling for 3 years
@JamesPettinato man I've actually started to see this myself. Federal Gold Medal Match isn't crimped and the neck tension isn't hardly anything. I need to get back to reloading now that everything is settling down
I can't wait to see what you learn about the AMP annealer. In the past I tried some flame annealing. About a year ago, I invested in an AMP annealer, and used it all summer. I was very happy with the results. I want to see what your tests show. It will be very interesting. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for that. The neck being more flexible and able to expand a fill the chamber helps to contain the gasses and flex faster to "seal" the chamber quicker and better.
I bought an Aneeleze machine for $275 and it works like a charm, extra wheel kit for magnum cartridges is an extra $25. It uses 1 flame and rotates the case in the horizontal position. I can load around 200 .223 and maybe 150 .308 at a time. Totally adjustable for time and flame position, very easy to use. I use the same method of beginning to see orange with the lights off. Doesn't take up much bench space.
Erik Cortina - Pro Shooter, Anneal is a heat treatment of the metal decrease the hardness, most likely your 6 sec on the machine. The 10 sec process you've done is call normalizing. Normalizing is to improve ductility (improve to reduce the chance to break when you bend it). Normalizing heat treatment needs the piece to cool down slowly (air cooling). The issues to over-anneal with propane or Bernzomatic torch is the temperature around 3600F and the melting point of brass is depending composition around 1700F so you gonna melt the brass or deformate it. At the end: Remove hardness - Annealing with slow cool down (in air) Improve ductility - Normalizing (Annealing + 150F) with slow air cool down Increase hardness - annealing with rapid cold down (in water)
Your process makes sense and obviously works. Tempilaq temp. sensitive paint (for setup) makes me happy. Maybe it’s a little contradictory that I cook steaks by feel, but there it is.
Your seating force is going to be affected by the oxidization layer created by heating the brass to red hot. You would likely get different results(might still be consistent in each separate batch) if you ran them through a wet tumbler with pins after the annealing process. Also, the problem with over annealing isn't necessarily about ruining neck tension. The danger is heating the brass to the point the base gets hot enough to soften which can result in case head separation.
Figured I'd reply to my own comment to say I appreciate the work you put into(especially when you're obviously a busy man) and the information relayed in your videos. I've already added some of your tips into my own precision reloading practices.
You realise you need to run it for SO LONG before the base gets touched? He ran it 10 seconds to demonstrate, even then I doubt the base is anywhere near the temperature it needs to be soft.. The neck would probably melt before the base gets hot enough, if you use gas. Sure, if you run it 30 sec with 1 torch you might get there, but if you are hot enoug to make it in 5-8, its quite low risk.
@@jmkhenka Well, first of all. I never said that Eric softened his bases. Just expanded on the fact that neck tension wasn't the only thing to worry about when over annealing brass. Second I just ran a test using tempilac 650f(a paint that melts when it reaches 650f) and some federal .308 brass(didn't want to cook my lapua) I placed a strip down the side of the case and after ten seconds on the exact same annealing machine with two propane torches(map burns hotter) I can verify that 3/4 of the way down the case reached 650f at 10 seconds into the test. On shorter brass this would happen much faster. In the instructions for the bench source annealer it states that you should put 400F tempilac(I don't have any) at that same location where my 650 melted at 10 seconds and remove the brass from the flame before it melts. They also state that in their testing it took 4-4.5 seconds to properly anneal a piece of .308 brass. Brass is an excellent conductor of heat which I also proved by burning my finger grabbing it at the base when I put it through the first time for 1 second to test the torch height/location....
Hey gentlemen, just to add to "the mix", the cartridge brass alloy seems to differ quite a bit among the manufacturers. Interesting discussions, I think...but, I'm just a simple 'lurker'. Stay well, you-all!
@@lohikarhu734 You're absolutely correct. You can only make generalizations when using different brands/types of brass. The fact that they are different weights alone means they are going to heat at different rates. I just weighed three diff empty .308 cases on my FX120 scientific scale and they came out to Lapua(173.62gn) Federal(176.40gn) and Hornady(185.86gn). Works out to a 6.5% difference between the highest/lowest and more mass means it takes more time to heat. Different alloy composition will react differently as well. I test each type/brand I use with the Tempilac to make sure and then record the results to be referenced later.
Great video as always. Thank you! I actually use a different annealing method - but I think it’s just a matter of taste. My annealing method is a salt bath at 550degC. I use a Lee Lead Melter, a cheap chinese PID controller, and 50/50 mixture by weight of potassium nitrate (Spectracide Stump Killer) and sodium nitrate (Hi-Yield Nitrate of Soda 16-0-0 fertilizer). For my 308, I typically do a 6-second dip (timed by iPhone metronome app) and then I throw them in soapy water to wash the salts away.
Like Eric said in his video.. My method works for me. When I anneal I can feel a huge reduction in force needed to resize my brass. So whichever annealing method you choose (flame, salt bath, or induction) I think everyone needs to do it.
Great video! I annealed some brass after watching this with my home made set up that's pretty crude. Used a stationary propane bottle and a variable speed drill with a 5" 3/8" drill bit. Slid the 45/70 cases over the drill bit and rotated the brass into the flame until a light orange color. About 9 seconds and allowed them to air cool. By the way the caseslid right off by tilting down a little and letting them fall into a wooden box. I was afraid to do this in faer of over heating until watching your video. I am anxious to get to the range and watch your next video! Thanks, Frank
I spin the brass in my fingers as I hold the neck in the flame.....when it gets too hot to hold at the rim I drop it in water. I only use one torch. 308 is really easy to do because of the size.....223 and 22-250 is a little harder because the brass gets hot to touch a bit quicker. The neck doesn't get very red....just a touch and I have to drop it. The case never gets very hot at the rim because I have to drop it in the water at about 120F or so....I can usually hold the brass for about 10 seconds before having to drop it with 22-250....but neck doesn't get very red. It's nice to know there's quite a bit of a window. I'm not annealing it as much as you are. When I do 270 win I have to spin it in my fingers about 15 seconds before it gets hot to hold at the rim. It's annealed about he same as your's. It's not rocket science.
I have a jig to hold 20 cases in a row, just use a torch by hand to anneal my brass. Simple and effective. I anneal after every 3 firings for my PRS rounds, every 5 or 6 for my practice and defensive ammo. When the primer pockets become too loose, I discard the brass for recycling.
when you're bending brass back and forth at 2:56 this is called successive over relaxation of the material. It's a mechanical engineering term. It relates to upset welding among other things
The problem with small gas bottles is that the pressure will fall during the annealing process. If you want better consistency, the best way is to use a larger tank instead of these small bottles.
Great demonstration, Erik. I think you can add immeasurably to this by showing seating force improvements thru annealing as compared to un annealed brass with up to 10 cycles on it. That would prove conclusively that annealing brass has value, and how often it should be done to maintain good consistent neck tension.
Great video again Erik. You've also eased a concern of mine. I made my own induction annealer (fun project) and have been very wary of how long to heat the brass for (edging more on the side of under rather than over) - looks like I really shouldn't worry as much.
Great info, I’m considering reloading my 5.56 ammo and noticed you use 1 lb propane bottles for your heat. I came across Flameking refillable bottles a couple of years ago and have never had to buy another green bottle. You can refill the Flameking bottles from your 20lb grill tank and fill it 20 times on a 20lb tank and there is no limit to how many times you can refill it. Plus they are DOT certified refillable and legal to transport. A big money saver on propane 1lb bottles. I keep 4 on hand to run all my products that need gas. I got mine on Amazon. Hope this may help cut some cost and it’s easy to refill, watch some videos on RU-vid if you have some questions. Again thanks for sharing the tips. Jim C
From e marksman who have loaded more than 1000000 put the flames 1/4" higher,the neck got week,i like your machine,i got a welding thing when i doing this,it take a time and some beer to fix 100 brass.
I use a cordless drill will a long socket the angle of the drill is perfect but I need to work on the distance to the flame I just turn the lights off and let it run until dull orange. Like the pressure gauge and dye 👍
