Appetite for annealing service in South Western Alberta?
 

Would this be of interest to anyone? It would likely be a $20-$25 per hundred type of deal. Shipping would likely make it more cost prohibitive for someone unless they had a bunch of brass to do. So mostly local stuff. Not looking at it as a business venture in any way. Just a way to offset costs.

I hear of people trying this but shipping doesn't make it work. Doing it for local people makes sense, but then charging your friends is petty.

Could just make one pretty cheap. The plans have been floating around for years.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...X0/mobilebasic

Lots of people just use a propane torch and their fingers. The expensive annealing machine companies are turning heating up an old case into rocket science.

I think it’s reasonable. There are enough expensive cases or difficult to find that brass is precious. It may just be a bit of a hobbie business that you will enjoy.

This would be done with an AMP annealer.

New Lapua 308 brass costs $100 per Hundred, Rem or Win about 70-80. Annealing at 25/100 plus 2 way shipping at even 10 bucks each way means it is easier and not a lot more expensive to just buy new brass, unless you are talking 338 Lapua, 378 Bee type brass. I have been loading for over 50 years, and have never annealed brass, except for case forming with a big neck down.

I predominantly neck size everything. When it gets hard enough to start cracking the necks I toss it out but I have lots of cases that went 20 firings before that became a problem. Two hundred brass even at just 10 firings per, will pretty much wear out many of the hotter cartridges' barrels and I always start with new brass for every new barrel.

If a guy could get it done without having to ship two ways it might be pretty popular.

Looked at this also to offset the cost of the AMP,had the owner of the LGS even run it by a few of the regular's to try to keep it local,as shipping took the process out of reasonable cost.It didn't seem like it would get much traction as far as regular run of the mill cases/cartridges are concerned.
Probably 20 % when asked about annealing went HUH? a WHAT?lol
Not enough serious target shooters in my area to make the initial cost/setup feasible,also figured the cost of a wet tumbling system into the setup,which in my opinion is also necessary.
I saw your previous post on the wet/pin system Chuck.
Decided I'll just stick to my 2 flame/torch set up,but that AMP is awfully tempting,just can't justify the cost for personal use.

I spoke with the owner of AMP regarding wet tumbling. He highly recommended against it. So that saves a few bucks. :-)

If looking at an annealing service, I would check out the cost of insurance.

I was looking at those amp annealers too
I like 'em!
But they are just too much to spend money to just do your own
and I dont think you could charge enough money to pay for your time and costs to do it for others

For what?

For when someone does something stupid, like too much powder and has a wreck and then blames the annealing service.....

X2

Does it make you better hunter when you anneal the brass?

It seems to lower the es when I’m shooting

^^^
this!
Here is brass annealing done in the cheap way.

Many of us are not 20 round a year shooters. Many of us shoot hundreds or thousands of rounds a year. So yes, it does.

Or you can get an annealeez which are cheap
The AMP machine does it perfect everytime and is superior to the annealeez

That's interesting,I'm not a particular fan of that system either,peens the case mouth and inside neck surface too much IMO.
Annealing may not make you a better hunter but it may help make your ammo a little more consistent as far as neck tension is concerned,which is one of the keys to accuracy.If you shoot 20- 50 rounds a year and use range pick up brass,then no it's probably not of much benefit.
Also extends brass life by keeping the necks from work hardening over repeated usage of the cases.
I've been using the same 30 Lapua 6BR. cases that have 14 firings on them,soon to be 15 firings.I expect to use them for the season with out issue.
So ,for me annealing is worth the time.

That's laughable. In all my time hand loading, I've only ever wet tumbled with SS pins. I have never, ever seen any "peening" on any part of a brass case. And I tumble my brass for 2 hours. The only reason the guys at AMP don't like wet tumbling with pins, is that sometimes (read: a lot) those pins end up inside the AMP machine. If you've ever seen an induction coil short over, it's a scary thing considering the voltages involved. It has happened a lot with the first Gen machine because of the "catch" pan under the induction coil. The major redesign in the Gen 2 machine solved this issue. But it still doesn't mean people somehow drop those pins into the machine.

The rest of your post is bang on. Annealing will most likely extend the usable life of a brass case. The most important thing IMHO, is the consistent neck tension. I see that after 4 or so firings, my brass starts to show inconsistent neck tensions. This is the main reason why I anneal.

I also fire about 12k rounds in a year. Most (95% or more) are for precision and accuracy. Consistency is my main goal. Annealing helps me in this regard. I get up to 20 cycles with my .338LM cases (and my load is stout and almost maximum). My .308win cases have seen as many as 24 cycles before failing. And if they don't reach 20, it's usually the primer pockets getting too loose. Other factors go into brass life, but I think you see my point of how it helps.

A hunter who fires 20 or 30 rounds a year....I don't think annealing would help anything. That is unless the guy has been using the same brass for a decade or so.

For me, the cost of the AMP didn't bother me. And I've owned both the Gen 1 and 2 AMP machines. I also anneal for 5 friends (all locals). I charge $25/100. If the cases need to be wet tumbled, I add $5. I'm not in it to make money. Or even try to pay for my machine. I do it because before the AMP, I had to rely on someone else "judging" the colour of the tempilaq to anneal my brass. The AMP takes away the subjective part of a flame annealer's process.

So, a no-brainer for a not so smart guy. A problem solved for me. Your mileage may differ. Annealing sure gets people emotional. I tend to listen until I see something that's just plain wrong.

Rant over.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I suspect you are resizing after you clean your cases. I tried resizing and then cleaning but the steel pins peen my mouths so bad that I had trouble getting the bullets into the neck even collapsing the odd case shoulder (.223 Rem.). I now de-prime desperately and clean the cases before I resize, problem solved.

Yeah, I do size after cleaning. If I anneal, here's my order of steps....
De-cap
Wet tumble
Anneal
F.L. Size
Trim
Prime
Charge
Seat
I don't anneal every firing. When I don't, that step is skipped.

Exactly,maybe a matte finish effect is a better to describe than peen.If you size,trim ,chamfer inside necks then tumble to clean the lube the effect is even more pronounced.
I'll stay with dry media tumbling either way.I don't shoot 12,000 rounds a year,that's 250 rounds a week on average over a year,take that to an 6-8 month season,that's a lot of wet tumbling needed.

A friend now has a rifle with a 6.5prc case neck stuck in the chamber, after it broke off during the fourth firing. I noticed the difference in seating bullets on the third firing, with my own Hornady cases, so I will be annealing those cases every two firings.

I like your idea Chuck but when you charge people they get stupid. I bought an Anneal EEz machine this winter a lot cheaper than the AMP. Nice to hear others are annealing too supposed to really extend case life.

How many uses between annealing?
 

I’ve never annealed before. I shoot about 300-500 rounds a year of centre fire. So I go through some brass. And that’s not getting any cheaper either.

So when you anneal, how many times do you shoot the annealed brass before it gets annealed again?

I believe it's every 3rd to 5th reload of the brass that you anneal. With annealing, you can make a brass last up to 20 reloads. That is if the case is still thick enough.

that's from what I read anyway

Several shooter anneal after every firing....FS