lazyengineer Wrote:So you anneal after resizing? So far I've heard 3 schools of thoughts:
1)Anneal BEFORE resizing, for a beneficial work hardening effect that will give a more consistent neck tension/spring upon bullet seating thereafter, in relation to your next cycle (where you won't anneal). This is the most common claim.
2)Anneal AFTER resizing, which is one extra stretch event "erased" by having been more freshly annealed.
3)Before or after is by and large only relevant for a bolt action shooter at 1000 yards if even then, so it doesn't matter
4)Annealing is a waste of time.
Historically I'm at 4. But I have to say most of my Grendel brass I lose, I lose due to neck splits. It seems like my reloading process really works the heck out of my brass, though the splits only happen after firing it. A friend loaned me Anealeez for a few months, since he only uses every year or so. So, I figure heck, i'll play with it. In my case, my issues are pushing me to your sequence, of #2 - doing it after sizing. In particular, I mandrel my necks, so in theory, I'll get the beneficial work hardening effect from my sized brass, when I do that, anyway to at least some extent (maybe?).
Yeah, Im tracking! Multiple ways to get it done.
I anneal mostly for brass life. A second benefit with my method is that it also dries my brass at the same time and faster than any other method Ive tried. Killing two birds. I dont compete and I really dont see any difference in accuracy annealing before or after resizing. For those who do compete, I can definitely see wanting to run a mandrel through the neck after annealing, just for piece of mind. My goal is to get it done with the least amount of wasted time and labor!