While we're on the topic of annealing...

[daschnoz]

I have a bunch of fired cases, both brass and nickel. I have no idea how many times they have been fired, so I thought it may be a good idea to anneal all of them.

The brass cases will benefit, but is there anything gained by annealing the nickel cases?

[owlcreekok]

I ain't convinced that annealing is a great big help unless you're wildcatting. I have done it. Both on wildcats and common cases. Never on nickeled cases. They seem to die off (crack) before I think about it too much.

I have a lot of 4 sets of 20 .270 Win cases that are into their 3rd and 4th loading. I ain't even neck sizing. One of the 20 round boxes is Win nickel. Maybe I will anneal half of them and see what takes place.

[ftierson]

Except for the time when I 'converted' several hundred US GI .30-06 (LC53 and SL53) cases into 7.62x51mm cases (requiring annealing of the new necks, of course), almost all of my case neck annealing experience has been with the 6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser, and with Norma cases to boot...

I find that, after about eight reloads with full length sizing, the case necks become somewhat brittle and it becomes very hard to pull the expander button through the neck after sizing...

So, after about 7-8 firings, I routinely anneal the case necks, which makes them much more ductile again...

I use a square cake pan with just enough water to reach about 5/8 inch below the shoulder when the cases are standing upright in the pan. I place the pan on a totating stool so that I can rotate the case as I'm heating it. Heat the case neck/shoulder evenly until you begin to see colors flow, and then tip the case over into the water. Do not heat the case until it glows red...

I have some 6.5x55mm Norma cases that have been reloaded 20 times. I'm not recommending that anyone try for 20, but just mentioning that, if everything else is right, it's possible... Everything else being right includes starting with a rifle that has a tight chamber so that your FL sizing die is minimally sizing the case each time...

Back in the days when 6.5x55mm cases were much more difficult to find and much more expensive than is the case (:)) today, it was more important to prolong the life of each case. Today, 6.5x55mm cases are everywhere. My recommendation is to buy a lot of them while they're available...:)

My guess is that most cases you find laying around haven't been shot much, so it's probably unnecessary to anneal them. I'd move on to annealing only if you have great difficulty pulling the expander button through the neck and then only with cases that are extremely difficult to find. Repeated firing of cases stresses more than just the neck...

I've never tried annealing nickel plated cases before. Since I've seen problems with the pealing/flaking of nickel off of the underlying brass on brand new factory cases before, I'm guessing that annealing will only exacerbate such problems since nickel and brass react to heat quite differently...

For what it's worth...

Forrest