reloading for rifle

Yep. If you're lazy like me and don't mind spending the money for convenience, consider shipping out your brass to be processed. I did this with my 223/556 brass and the time savings was worth it to me. Now I wouldn't do this every time I shoot/reload the brass. But it was helpful the first time to remove the primer pocket crimp, trim/chamfer etc. Next time I reload the brass hopefully I just need to resize only - some might need trimming but not sure as I haven't got that far yet...

No shit! That's cool, I never knew there was a business that did that.
All I did with my .308 brass was tumble it in dry media for ~6 hours (spent primers still in place), then blow each piece out with compressed air. During resizing I would clean out the primer pocket, seat a new primer, trim, chamfer, charge, seat, and crimp. You're saying this company will get the brass back to you fully cleaned/ no primer/ trimmed/ chamfered?
 
No shit! That's cool, I never knew there was a business that did that.
All I did with my .308 brass was tumble it in dry media for ~6 hours (spent primers still in place), then blow each piece out with compressed air. During resizing I would clean out the primer pocket, seat a new primer, trim, chamfer, charge, seat, and crimp. You're saying this company will get the brass back to you fully cleaned/ no primer/ trimmed/ chamfered?
Yup! Many times the brass has crimped primer pockets so they remove (swage) those as well. From the website:
"Price includes cleaning inside and out, polishing, depriming, swaging (crimp removed), full length sizing and trimming brass to correct length
 
I wonder how many more loads you can get out of annealed brass vs. non, if you’re doing nothing but mild recipes. My .308’s are pretty tame compared to factory or even NATO spec.
 
I wonder how many more loads you can get out of annealed brass vs. non, if you’re doing nothing but mild recipes. My .308’s are pretty tame compared to factory or even NATO spec.
On my garand and M1a “match” brass I run batches of 100 by load 5 I can feel a noticeable difference through the sizer and really feel it on the trimmer. Also at 5 loads the brass will sing on the trimmer vs the first few trims.
 
On my garand and M1a “match” brass I run batches of 100 by load 5 I can feel a noticeable difference through the sizer and really feel it on the trimmer. Also at 5 loads the brass will sing on the trimmer vs the first few trims.

Do you feel that your brass's life is considerably extended by annealing?
 
On my garand and M1a “match” brass I run batches of 100 by load 5 I can feel a noticeable difference through the sizer and really feel it on the trimmer. Also at 5 loads the brass will sing on the trimmer vs the first few trims.
Do you feel that your brass's life is considerably extended by annealing?
Only brass I,have been anealing is my 7.7 jap.
yes it has extended case life. Almost always neck splits 3-4 reloads. I now anneal every 3. Same 50 cases are now on 8th and no splits in sight.
 
With mild loads and annealing, I've never been able to get more than about 20 reloads out of any rifle caliber (and those were super mild loads and I used a bushing neck sizing die).

Annealing is helpful if the case's ultimate failure mode is the neck splitting, because annealing will eliminate splits.

If the failure mode is something else, annealing won't help with case life, but it's possible it will help with accuracy. Maybe.
 
I have watched some folks on youtube using a torch to anneal their brass. They hold the brass in their hands and when it starts to get hot to the touch, they stop the process. Seems very simple. Do you think it is an effective method?

Pete
Look up salt annealing.
it’s pretty simple and there’s a good company offering the kits to be used with a lee lead furnace.
 
You have to heat the neck up to just shy of 800 degrees for 6-8 seconds, and any part of the case you don't want annealed (which is most of it) you don't want to go over 475 degrees.
It takes Tempilaq and patience to set up the Giraud annealer. I don't think you could do it freehand with a torch with any kind of consistency.
 
No shit! That's cool, I never knew there was a business that did that.
All I did with my .308 brass was tumble it in dry media for ~6 hours (spent primers still in place), then blow each piece out with compressed air. During resizing I would clean out the primer pocket, seat a new primer, trim, chamfer, charge, seat, and crimp. You're saying this company will get the brass back to you fully cleaned/ no primer/ trimmed/ chamfered?
Is it necessary to trim .308 on every reload if I am shooting the brass in the same rifle and it is a single shot (no mag)?

Probably a pretty stupid question, but I only reload straight wall brass and I usually trim the first time, then I let it fire form. I want to start reloading .308
 
Is it necessary to trim .308 on every reload if I am shooting the brass in the same rifle and it is a single shot (no mag)?

Probably a pretty stupid question, but I only reload straight wall brass and I usually trim the first time, then I let it fire form. I want to start reloading .308

short answer is no. The brass will stretch after every firing/resizing though so you do want to check the length after a couple of times to see if it needs trimming. Especially considering it is not a semi-auto you shouldn't need to right away.
 
Is it necessary to trim .308 on every reload if I am shooting the brass in the same rifle and it is a single shot (no mag)?

Probably a pretty stupid question, but I only reload straight wall brass and I usually trim the first time, then I let it fire form. I want to start reloading .308

I am still new to loading bottlenecks so I’m learning as I go. My notes say trim to case length 2.015 to 2.05, and overall length 2.77 to 2.8. I think I’ve made about 400 rounds of 308 so far and they work nicely in the Garand and FAL. So yes, I do check trim length each time, though I am still working on my stash of once fired 308. I have no rounds that have cases reloaded twice by me. I have no plans to anneal anything, but that may change some day. For now, I don’t shoot rifle nearly enough to worry about it.

I just finished up a batch of .30 carbine and I’m tooling back to 308 for a few hundred rounds, then I’m setting up the Rock Chucker for .223 which will be my first attempt at loading that caliber.
 
You have to heat the neck up to just shy of 800 degrees for 6-8 seconds, and any part of the case you don't want annealed (which is most of it) you don't want to go over 475 degrees.
It takes Tempilaq and patience to set up the Giraud annealer. I don't think you could do it freehand with a torch with any kind of consistency.
B ack when i was a yute , dad and his friends stood cases up in water just up to below the shoulder and then in a shady/darker area of the base ment would heat the necks with a torch until just starting to glow....no idea if this worked well or not.

30 years later I bought that tem plaq paste and gave hand annealing a try. For my limitted use I think I,did ok but it took me a while to get the timing right. i did the batch I wanted to and it will be a long while if I ever need to anneal the brass again.
223/308/06 i have enough brass to go through before I will ever need to anneal.
i thought about sending all my brass to be processed ( yes I can do it but now 50 yrs old i dont really want to,) only thing is the few places I considered to do my brass do not anneal.
 
Is it necessary to trim .308 on every reload if I am shooting the brass in the same rifle and it is a single shot (no mag)?

Probably a pretty stupid question, but I only reload straight wall brass and I usually trim the first time, then I let it fire form. I want to start reloading .308
You dont have to , depending on the chamber and how far back you resize your brass plays a big roll in how often you need to trim.
My M1 garands and M1a with new barrels with "tighter" chambers than the GI/factory barrels dont need to be trimmed for 3-5 reloads. AR goes about 3 reloads. i have the lyman cas gauge and just check a few every reload seassion.
 
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