AMP Annealer VS No annealing Vs Torch Head Annealer Vs 2nd/3rd Shot

[Pdvdh]

Here I thought I was doing a good thing using Hornady instead of the much cheaper winchester

Hah... Hard to run a test on brass that begins failing structurally on the first firing! No fault of yours of course.

Any future tests using Hornady brass will evidently have to be based on a single firing. How useful is THAT, to a reloader???

Hornady is making Winchester look very very good!

 

[WalksLikeADeer]

Your welcome to all, I think MOST guys that shoot competition don't want to share. I understand for obvious reasons, but I don't shoot competition so I am more than willing to share.

I want to thank everyone who supported my business. If it wasn't for people buying targets, I could never get these fancy tools.

This hornady brass isn't doing very well. I am five firings in and cases are about to separate above the case head. Picture included. This is the Amp annealed every firing group, 3 are about to come apart. I could probably fire one more time.

Thanks again.

Are the AMP annealed cases the only ones having the case failure problems?

 

[jdmecomber]

Are the AMP annealed cases the only ones having problems? Thanks.

Here is a real quick observation of all the data:

I used the last 20 fired rounds in each group and threw out one flyer. This data is based off of 19 rounds. I have the ES and SD of the 19 rounds and came up with the best performing methods. Lots of variables and many ways to look at this.

Number one AMP annealing after each firing SD 5.71 ES 21
Number two Torch annealing after each firing SD 7.5 ES 29
Number three Anneal after two firings SD 8 ES 36
Number four don't anneal SD 8.2 ES 31
Number five Anneal after three firings SD 10 ES 37

A couple things I noticed, Firing number 2 was very erratic for non annealed groups.

Annealing after 2 shots might be a great possiblity, if I threw two rounds out and went with an 18 round 5.7 SD and 17 ES, After 2 firings also had the number 1 and number 3 best 5 round SD and ES.

I will try and post all the numbers so you shooters can look at them. I am sure I made some errors and would like some other eyeballs on this.

 

[jdmecomber]

I think what I will do is take the SD and ES from the last 20-15 rounds fired in each group. I think that will give a good picture of what was going on.

 

[J E Custom]

Sorry buddy. So use to pressing a "like" button, but now I see it says "unlike". I don't LIKE that feature.

That is actually a way of deleting your like on a post if you change your mind and don't agree.

J E CUSTOM

 

[J E Custom]

Hah... Hard to run a test on brass that begins failing structurally on the first firing! No fault of yours of course.

Any future tests using Hornady brass will evidently have to be based on a single firing. How useful is THAT, to a reloader???

Hornady is making Winchester look very very good!

I have seen this type of case head separation before. When I first started annealing (And new very little about the correct way of annealing I had some cases do the same thing. I finally figured out that I was over annealing and softening the brass to far down. (the reason I said that annealing was good as long as it was done right). Lately I have bought brass that was not annealed after final sizing from the manufacture at all to save money, and the necks split after the second firing, this may be a case where Hornady is over annealing their brass and it is to soft in this area. (Stranger things have happened) I also have to say how good the Lapua brass is. the brass alloy on all cases are very similar with some on the soft side and some on the hard side. I used a brinell hardness tester on some different brands and it showed a wide range in hardness, the Lapua brass wasn't the hardest so they must have decided on a good alloy that gave both toughness and elasticity + a very good anneal hardness.

Winchester used to be some of the softest brass available but not anymore. softer brass is easier to form and this may have been the reason for doing it that way. Now most have very poor quality control and the problem has only gotten worse.

The uniform distance down the body makes me think it was over annealed and the annealing went to far down the case body like mine did before I started paying attention to time and heat during annealing.

Just a thought

J E CUSTOM

 

[Pdvdh]

I have seen this type of case head separation before.

The uniform distance down the body makes me think it was over annealed and the annealing went to far down the case body like mine did before I started paying attention to time and heat during annealing.

Just a thought...

J E CUSTOM

I found it very unusual - which is why I commented on it.

That could be the cause. Could very well explain the unusual stretch & incipient separation at that location. I've seen impending case head separations in real life, and in many photos, but never seen them occur at the location on these 'Horny' cases. "Normal" bottleneck rifle cases don't separate that far up from the case web. They don't normally separate at all, unless repeatedly having the shoulder set back excessively off the chamber shoulder.

Maybe jdmecomber can comment on his shoulder setback during case resizing, as a matter of curiousity. Because this seems unlikely shy of excess shoulder setback during resizing, even if the case sidewalls were improperly annealed. If the resized and chambered case shoulders are in near contact with the chamber shoulder, how much can the sidewalls stretch?

BUT... my comments include the disclaimer that I have no experience with case separation at this location, where the case wall thickness is much thinner than near the case web. So I suppose it could happen... even with little excess headspace between the resized case shoulder and the chamber shoulder. It's a puzzler for sure.

 

[buckfvr]

I found it very unusual - which is why I commented on it.

That could be the cause. Could very well explain the unusual stretch & incipient separation at that location. I've seen impending case head separations in real life, and in many photos, but never seen them occur at the location on these 'Horny' cases. "Normal" bottleneck rifle cases don't separate that far up from the case web. They don't normally separate at all, unless repeatedly having the shoulder set back excessively off the chamber shoulder.

Maybe jdmecomber can comment on his shoulder setback during case resizing, as a matter of curiousity. Because this seems unlikely shy of excess shoulder setback during resizing, even if the case sidewalls were improperly annealed. If the resized and chambered case shoulders are in near contact with the chamber shoulder, how much can the sidewalls stretch?

BUT... my comments include the disclaimer that I have no experience with case separation at this location, where the case wall thickness is much thinner than near the case web. So I suppose it could happen... even with little excess headspace between the resized case shoulder and the chamber shoulder. It's a puzzler for sure.

 

[buckfvr]

So, Joe and I having annealed many hundreds/thousands of cases, are not likely to be suffering from the learning curve. Also, since several of the affected cases are from the AMP group, it is even more unlikely it is something we over looked. We see failure with and with out annealing on this particular batch of Hornady brass, and have not experienced this with any other brass.

Neck sized and minimal shoulder bump between firings. and yes, brass recipies are similar in that it takes not much difference to make a great deal of difference in hard/soft. Because of that (plus all the different settings on the AMP) we tend not to think of them as being "very" similar.

 

[Pdvdh]

Neck sized and minimal shoulder bump between firings.

Thanks. Hornady has a QA/QC problem.

 

[jdmecomber]

I found it very unusual - which is why I commented on it.

That could be the cause. Could very well explain the unusual stretch & incipient separation at that location. I've seen impending case head separations in real life, and in many photos, but never seen them occur at the location on these 'Horny' cases. "Normal" bottleneck rifle cases don't separate that far up from the case web. They don't normally separate at all, unless repeatedly having the shoulder set back excessively off the chamber shoulder.

Maybe jdmecomber can comment on his shoulder setback during case resizing, as a matter of curiousity. Because this seems unlikely shy of excess shoulder setback during resizing, even if the case sidewalls were improperly annealed. If the resized and chambered case shoulders are in near contact with the chamber shoulder, how much can the sidewalls stretch?

BUT... my comments include the disclaimer that I have no experience with case separation at this location, where the case wall thickness is much thinner than near the case web. So I suppose it could happen... even with little excess headspace between the resized case shoulder and the chamber shoulder. It's a puzzler for sure.

Tomorrow I will get some numbers.

 

[jdmecomber]

Tomorrow I will get some numbers.

FINAL RESULTS ARE IN:

After the brass was fireformed with the first 5 shots, I took the average of each test group and found the extreme spread, standard deviation and average velocity for the next 20 rounds fired.

With all the issues with this brass, there still is a clear winner. I decided to throw out one shot that was furthest from the 20 shot average and get the SD, ES and average velocity. I continued to throw out the shot furthest from the original average for a total of 4 total rounds throw out of the 20 shot group. I will start with the worst method first.

5th place is annealing after 3 firings:
20 rounds ES 38
SD 11.2
2893

19 rounds ES 34
SD 10.5
2892

18 rounds ES 32
SD 9.9
2893

17 rounds ES 30
SD 9.2
2894

16 rounds ES 28
SD 8.7
2893

4th Place no Annealing:

20 rounds ES 41
SD 10.25
2897

19 rounds ES 31
SD 8.25
2898

18 rounds ES 27
SD 7.13
2899

17 rounds ES 24
SD 6.7
2898

16 rounds ES 24
SD 5.71
2899

 

[jdmecomber]

3rd place and 2nd place are really close.
Torch head vs after 2 firings, Torchhead wins by a very small margin. I think if I was going to do one more test I would anneal after the first fireformed group and then anneal after 2 firings. Annealing after 2 firings group had the number 1 and number 3 best 5 shot sds. I think its worth a look.

3rd Place anneal after 2 firings:

20 rounds ES 46
SD 10.92
2890

19 rounds ES 36
SD 8.07
2891

18 rounds ES 17
SD 5.77
2893

17 rounds ES 14
SD 5.27
2892

16 rounds ES 14
SD 4.97
2892

2nd place is Torch head annealer:

20 rounds ES 31
SD 8.4
2883

19 rounds ES 29
SD 7.5
2884

18 rounds ES 23
SD 6.5
2885

17 rounds ES 18
SD 6
2884

16 rounds ES 17
SD 5.95
2884

 

[jdmecomber]

The winner is

Amp anneal after each firing:

20 rounds ES 35
SD 8.02
2886

19 rounds ES 21
SD 5.71
2885

18 rounds ES 18
SD 5.09
2884

17 rounds ES 17
SD 4.7
2885

16 rounds ES 15
SD 4.4
2885

It's a very clear winner for the test we did.