Annealing Brass With Different Numbers of Firings

[IDHUNTER]

I have mixture of brass that has a different number of firings on them. If I anneal all of them will they all be consistent or will there still be some variation between the ones with different firings?

And just to clarify, it's all the same kind of brass (Norma)

 

[Vern400]

Annealing, if your process is consistent, will set the hardness of your brass to about the same value. The number of firings being different isn't good but bullet insertion Force should be more uniform after annealing. I once noticed a big difference in bullet pressing force within a batch of once fired RP brass. Before I loaded a larger batch I annealed them all and the variation in force went down.

 

[HandgunHTR]

As Vern said, if your annealing process is consistent, then your brass hardness at the neck/shoulder should be consistent. This will ensure that your shoulder set-back and bullet seating force is consistent. Where you may still have issues is at the web. Since you are not annealing the case body, the amount of spring-back at the case web area may be different. It shouldn't have a huge affect on anything unless you have some brass that has expanded in that area to the point it makes chambering hard.

 

[waspocrew]

What’s the firing count on the brass? Annealing will help, but I’d still prefer to have them be the same number of firings.

 

[sdupontjr]

Correct as above. I had reloaded my 308 brass several times before I got smart and started using a different method. I would use the same 20 over and over again until they got bad them would throw away. None of them did. My thought was that I would always have plenty in reserve if they did get screwed up. Then I adopted another was after I built my annealer. I would shoot all 200+ or so of the brass, then prep all 200+ ready for loading. So mine got mixed up in the bunch of once fired. I did not mark them and probably should have for a just see situation. Now I FL size and anneal after every firing because I have several 308's (2 Tikkas, 2 Rem 700's) Probably overkill, but it doesn't take long to do. I haven't noticed any loose primer pockets, accuracy difference, nothing when comparing the original 20 in comparison to the rest. If that means anything to your situation.