Hi I am new to the board and have not reloaded in 25 years.
So after reading the Lyman book says cases should be annealed.
Is this before shooting of after the first time or when they get hardned.

I am starting out with .223 which will go thru a mini-14 and are brand new Winchester cases never fired.

Thanks

I have no experience with annealing or reloading 223 - i'm sure someone will be albe to chime in.

However, most manuals suggest you anneal after the 3rd or 4th reloading.

No just de burr the neck and load and go have some fun with your mini-14. I do as the other poster said but on my 30-06 and 308 brass and anneal after five firings. But I think too much of my fingers to try to anneal any 223 brass, OUCH!

My wife picks up all the new 223 brass at the range and I sort them at home. Since buying my ranch mini-14 in 1995 I have not had to buy any more brass. Have fun.

I have started annealing brass after 4 shots but hornady tried to tell me I need to do this with all new brass. I don't think so. If sellers of all the reloading gadgets had thier way, it would take up 30 min for one piece of brass.

I toss all my brass after the 10th loading rguardless of cartridge or condition. I`ve never annealed a case in over 35 yrs of reloading. I don`t see it as being worth the effort unless one is forming a wildcats case from another cartridge or otherwise overly work hardening their brass.

At the cost of brass today, I have found it unnecessary to anneal anymore, I buy brass in bulk, resize, trim, chamfer the mouth and shoot it...I trim when needed and throw it away after it starts to stress on me at about 8 to 10 loading...I hunt with new brass...

Lapua is annealed from the factory as is INI Milsurp brass, thats good stuff...

Annealing should be a normal , last step in the making of a case so you shouldn't have to do it.Many reloaders don't anneal a batch of cases until they see one crack then they neck anneal the batch.

ALL brass is annealed in the course of manufacture, usually the second to the last step before shipping. New brass doesn't have to be annealed unless it is significantly worked either in forming or resizing. The advice you got was bad.

Thanks to all.

so I guess that it has to be sized then only even if new brass?

Well okay will get on it.

Yes, with new brass, no annealing is needed. First resize, then measure and trim, if necessary, then chamfer inside and outside the case mouth and you'll be ready to go.

I have only recently started delving into the mystery of annealing after 30 years of relaoding. I have tried it on some older cases & unless you are shooting very expensive brass, it's just not worth the effort. For your mini14, the rifle would never know the diff. You'll lose more & have more dented before you get to 7-8 firings anyway.

I used to shoot an AR-15 and now have a Mini-14. I never have annealed a case for either and have loaded some 20 times. True about the denting of cases from the Mini-14 and the AR-15 really smokes it on accrucy. A friend shoots a legal class 3 M-16 and even smoking clips at rock and roll he never anneals a case.

In normal reloading and in using new brass, I have found that annealing is not necessary. However, if you are forming brass from one caliber to another caliber, annealing can be useful. This would be for my own use, not for open consumption. Murphy is just waiting for a chance like that!

I added annealing to a long list of "no return" reloading items many years ago. Meaning I couldn't find a return on investment of my time to do it.
Others on the list include runout, primer pocket uniforming, flash hole deburring, neck turning, case weighing, 1/10th grain weighing of powder charge, and precision bullet seating depths.

vapodog, If your not going to strive to make better than you can buy why do you bother to reload at all? If you're not going to prep the brass to uniformity and improve it's performance then why bother at all?

Failure to anneal after four rounds or so causes a precipitous increase in chamber pressure, per the empirical testing published by Art Alphin in "Any Shot You Want." We're talking several thousand pounds per square inch in pressure. As brass hardens, pressures increase--that's a fact.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim White:
vapodog, If your not going to strive to make better than you can buy why do you bother to reload at all? If you're not going to prep the brass to uniformity and improve it's performance then why bother at all?

a person can do much better than factory without getting completely anal about it. most of the procedures listed by vapodog would definitely fall into "anal" territory, unless he was competing at camp perry.

tasunkawitko, How can you say your loading better than factory if you don't start with the most basic component which is the brass? If you are not improving the brass how do you improve on factory?
The boys that go to Perry load on progressive presses. I would'nt even call them obsessed much less anal. Benchrest? Now your talking anal. But seriously if you don't improve your brass, where is the improvement over factory?