annealing?

I was wondering if any of you who reload anneal your casings. If so how many times do you reload them before you do? Is there any tell tail signs that let you know when it needs to be done or is it a waist of time?

:p Ableshooter I try to anneal all my brass about every second or third time I reload it. It depends a lot ton the brass and how heavy uou are reloading the cases. By the time you get the tell tale sign you will have split brass, I don't really know of anyway to see it sooner. Reading in I believe it was the Lyman loading for cast bullets said that about every seven times to anneal.
I do have some 308 brass here that I know for a fact that have been reloaded ten times before I started annealung but I really threw out abunch of them last go then annealed them want to see how they do this next go around that will really tell me if it works.
Ken:-D

By rule of thumb I anneal every 5 loads & have 45-70 brass that I know by name & can identify by touch blind folded on a moonless night :)

Dave

I do it when I see a neck split, which is not very often. (If it's a common case, I have a great source of free once-fired range brass, so with many I will just toss them.) I generally shoot loads in the middle of the cartridges working pressures - I load for accuracy, not velocity, and I neck size whenever I can - and this makes a big difference to how quickly the brass work hardens. As mentioned, every batch of brass is different, too. The formulations of the alloys might be different, and also the degree of anneal performed upon the case after forming (and prior to loading if they started life as factory rounds). I have some .30-30 and some .308 cases that have passed their second trimming (pushing 20 loadings) without neck splits and not needing to be annealed yet (I will soon, though, as I want to see how many times I can actually load them before either the primer pockets become too loose or the webs too thin). On the other hand, I had one batch that was splitting after the SECOND loading and the problem was cured by annealing them. I have also had a batch of Asian -06 cases that was so soft no amount of care could make workable beyond one or two reloadings - they needed major trimming after each loading and I worried about the weakness of the case webs, so into the recycling bucket they went (all 450 of them :mad: ). If I were FL or especially Small Base sizing them each time, I would likely do it as a regular part of the routine as Dave and Kodiak do.