time to anneal and fl size?groups are verticle?

[30-06 boy]

hi there fellas,was shooting at 550yds this morning(no wind). trying some 185 berger vld's and 208 amaxes in my 300wm.loaded the 185's in winchester cases that have been fired at most 4 times.l loaded the 208's into winchester cases that have been fired at lest 6 or 7 times.i neck size with a lee collet die.the 185's didnt shhot great(moa) but shot much better than the 208's (12" 3 shot groups, 3 different loads).i have shot the 208's before at 625 yards and groups have been well under moa.i have a feeling my brass needs some tlc.a full length treatment and annealing.what is your opinion?no chrony data.i did however "feel" the bolt closing harder on some cases than others they were not "tight" but i could tell the difference,and also some bullets seated with more force on press handle than others. jason

[Derek M.]

Well, b/c I have time and prefer it, I anneal after every firing on my 6.5x284, 270 AM, 7mm Rem Mag, 300 RUM. Takes me about 4-6 minutes for the whole batch of all of them. On my regular long action and short actions, 270, 30.06, 308, I anneal about every 4-6 firings if not more.

This is just a guess, but the more your brass is worked, with hotter loads, overbore, resizing, etc., the more important it is to anneal to get consistent neck tension.

[JeffVN]

I too have an annealer, but am not as enthusiastic about doing it as Derek.

I anneal my 7WSM cases every 3 firingis, and my .308 and .260 every 4 firings. It seems to give me the correct balance of time consumed and consistent neck tension.

I have a 338LM Improved inbound as we speak, and intend to anneal those case every two firings. From my perspective, the bigger the case and larger the lot of powder, the more I'd be annealing.

JeffVN

[kraky2]

I haven't had good luck with ammo where the bolt closes a tad snugger on some and not on others. For me neck sized with bolt tension go to a different point of impact than no closing tension. I would think this would really show itself at longer ranges.