Annealing Cases

Horse Plains Drifter

As I slowly get back into reloading after a 30+ year hiatus, I am going through many used cases. Right now I am working on some 30-06 cases. All have been loaded at least once but could be more than once, by me, eons ago. There are about 100-120 in this batch. About half Remington/UMC, and half military of various dates/headstamps. I'm thinking I should maybe anneal them as a matter of fact. Good plan, or don't worry about it? TIA for any input.

nononsense

It's a good plan as long as you have a quality method of assuring consistent annealing. Without this you're just wasting time and brass.

The brass should be cleaned then the case capacity checked since those two brands often have different capacities. Segregate the obvious differences.

Be sure to clean up the military crimp as well.

Enjoy!

Okie

I would not bother with annealing.

I've shot lots of 30;06 brass and never bothered about annealing and never had any major problems with the brass necks splitting.

What I would do now. and in the future.

Clean the brass really good, tumble or polish.

Check the length of the brass and if any are over the trim to OAL carefully inspect them for cracks or check mark at the web.

Next get your powder scale, a digital type is faster vs a beam type and start weighing the cases. For 06 Brass I separate them into about 5 grain increments. You can do this for each Brand of brass at first.

Any odd ball weighted cases needs to be set to the side. Military brass is usually very heavy compared to regular brass and I do not use military brass when working up a accuracy load.

I've found that during the final the main thing for reloading and accuracy testing is using MATCHED WEIGHTED BRASS. The name brand is not important, just match the weight within 5 grs for a 06 if you want max accuracy for a hunting rifle. I've seen very accurate rifle really look bad using mismatch weight brass and reloading. (all same except the weight of the brass)

Now trim the brass. I trim brass The trim to length is 2.484 and I trim all to 2.480. It's not sized yet. Now you need to decide if you are going to reload some for a favorite 06 bolt action hunting rifle. If so take a propane cigarette lighter and neck size a hull, see if it chambers ok, if not go to sizing further, might even have to go to full sizing if the brass was fired in a max chamber gun before.

Now with all brass trimmed to 2.480 next time it's fired check each brass case for stretch and compare their length. If all are at max of 2.494 or so the gun may have headspace issues.

If you see most at nominal length and then one or two at close to max throw the longer ones away. Their brass is soft and might be about to separate at the web.

On a tight chambered 30;06 I've reloaded brass as many as 15 times by neck sizing.

I separate brass into matched weights, keep log count of how many times it's been neck sized, full sized and i always disgard (reject) brass if it's been trimmed 3 times because it's stretched to the limit usually and about to separate at the web.

BUT I never buy what is called once fired brass. Not a safe thing to do. Buy new and keep a good log record of the brass reloadings.

Now about reject brass or even the brass in your case.

I use 5744 powder and reload low recoil, low velocity loads (30;30 velocity area) for practice and for grandkids to use deer hunting with a 06 and other larger calibers. The 5744 when used in most bolt action 30;06's is usually very accurate and useable out to 125 to maybe 150 yards on Whitetail deer. In reloading the low velocity loads I use my old disgarded 06 HV brass that required trimming more than 3 times, etc and never had any issues with such when reloading at the LV 30;30 velocities.

I still keep the LV brass reloads using matched weigh hulls. Heavy weight hulls have less volume and if same amt of powder is used the velocity will usually be higher and a picky rifle groups may suffer. (for accuracy consistency is a good thing when reloading) and keeping a good reliable log, especially of the brass being used.

Summary: In your case: New 30;06 brass is not that expensive YET.

Your brass will probably work really well for LV reloads or practice reloads for people that are 30:06 recoil sensitive.

Also you will find that the felt recoil of a 06 is quite a bit less using a 150 bullet vs a 180 gr bullet and most 06 rifles will group the lighter 150gr bullet ok with proper reload, but less than 150 gr weight and the accuracy may suffer, but depends on the rifle and the twist rate of the barrel.