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AMP Annealer - Aztec Upgrade


Big Al

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3 hours ago, No i deer said:

I emailed our club Secretary who sent out emails to all our club members too chip together to buy an AMP annealer and i only had 1 reply :wacko:.

At nearly £1200.00 is a big outlay for an individual.

Yes, it is certainly a big outlay but there a people now offering AMP annealing as a service for around £15-20/100 which will make it more easily accessible.

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Vince,

be interesting to see what the other features are? The batch function sounds interesting. They also talked about and auto feed system at one point.

Not too sure on the ‘shafting’ though, let’s see what it is before comment. Companies are in business to make money so all costs need to be covered,ROCI, net free cash etc.etc. Caveat - value pricing and gouging excluded ?

T

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Single-load?  You mean having to sit at the machine putting in the cases one at a time?

To be honest, most of the disciplines I shoot (Benchrest, F Class, McQueen, Tactical) don't require more than 30 cases so, at the end of a shoot it's a 10 minute job to run 'em through the annealer - every three or four firings.

On average, the case is in the AMP for about 3 seconds. 

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5 hours ago, terryh said:

Not too sure on the ‘shafting’ though, let’s see what it is before comment. Companies are in business to make money so all costs need to be covered,ROCI, net free cash etc.etc. Caveat - value pricing and gouging excluded ?

When I buy a DSLR from Canon or Nikon they give me upgrades for free for the whole life of the camera Terry, Apple also does this on all my IT devices just to name a couple of examples, there are many more. As something new or improved appears I can download it to improve my user experience as part of my initial investment. 

Without sending 3 cases to AMP to have an exact annealing setting for my neck thickness and batch the machine is a bit hit and miss, its hard to know just exactly how well they are annealed without doing this and the makers acknowledge this. At present everyone can send 3 cases and receive a free analysis and customised setting for that brass, this is the only way to guarantee the machine is annealing them properly.

With this upgrade the makers no longer have to sit and do this, thousands upon thousands of times, just think how much time money they will save, and then they want to charge me to save them some work?

Call me cynical but this functionally was embedded in the machine when they were first designed/built but apparently only now they have discovered what extra it can do, yeh, right! At £1200 it is a very highly priced item to begin with, hitting users for extra money for a software upgrade that I get free on my cameras, my computers and many other devices just leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. Im a business man myself for over 25yrs and its not a crime to make a profit but equally wringing the last few quid you can get out of every customer is just plain greedy in my opinion.

As you said though, lets wait and see what happens :)

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I would imagine there isn't that a big market for these annealers as it has got to be the most expensive annealer bar none so there probably looking for a bit more back from this venture with upgrade.they would probably have to sell a lot before they start seeing any money back Al.

I would have one if I had £1200.00 spare.

Not likely but if I did I would be prepared to do annealing for others to see some money back.if I knew someone nearby that had one so that I didn't have to pay carraige either way would suit me better.

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2 hours ago, Big Al said:

When I buy a DSLR from Canon or Nikon they give me upgrades for free for the whole life of the camera Terry, Apple also does this on all my IT devices just to name a couple of examples, there are many more. As something new or improved appears I can download it to improve my user experience as part of my initial investment. 

Without sending 3 cases to AMP to have an exact annealing setting for my neck thickness and batch the machine is a bit hit and miss, its hard to know just exactly how well they are annealed without doing this and the makers acknowledge this. At present everyone can send 3 cases and receive a free analysis and customised setting for that brass, this is the only way to guarantee the machine is annealing them properly.

With this upgrade the makers no longer have to sit and do this, thousands upon thousands of times, just think how much time money they will save, and then they want to charge me to save them some work?

Call me cynical but this functionally was embedded in the machine when they were first designed/built but apparently only now they have discovered what extra it can do, yeh, right! At £1200 it is a very highly priced item to begin with, hitting users for extra money for a software upgrade that I get free on my cameras, my computers and many other devices just leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. Im a business man myself for over 25yrs and its not a crime to make a profit but equally wringing the last few quid you can get out of every customer is just plain greedy in my opinion.

As you said though, lets wait and see what happens :)

There's just a slight difference between two Japanese giants and a two man band from New Zealand.

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Al,

Cannon etc. do not do it for free, they just charge you more for the item in the first place to cover their future costs - come on, don’t be naive.

T

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Wow that auto feed looks like a triumph of complexity over design.

Ive never understood the idea behind having to send brass off to the manufacturer to determine the correct annealing time? Can tempilac not be used?

 

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1 hour ago, terryh said:

Al,

Cannon etc. do not do it for free, they just charge you more for the item in the first place to cover their future costs - come on, don’t be naive.

T

You pay nothing for the downloads I mention Terry so they are indeed free, what I pay up front could be just the same with the AMP.

For all you know AMP could have a great wedge in their product already and just fancy a bit more because they have a captive audience who have already shelled out top dollar for the machine. Because they charge extra for a download are you equally naive enough to think they aren't making good money from the machine itself and really need it? 

It works both ways you know ;)

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1 hour ago, MJR said:

Wow that auto feed looks like a triumph of complexity over design.

Ive never understood the idea behind having to send brass off to the manufacturer to determine the correct annealing time? Can tempilac not be used?

 

If you look at the list of annealing programs, there are 13 for the 308 case alone - treble that if you neck-turn.  All cases are different it seems when it comes to annealing.

The service offered by AMP for giving you a specific program for your one-off wildcat is very quick - post off the 4 cases and a week or so later and e-mail arrives with your new prog.

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24 minutes ago, Big Al said:

You pay nothing for the downloads I mention Terry so they are indeed free, what I pay up front could be just the same with the AMP.

For all you know AMP could have a great wedge in their product already and just fancy a bit more because they have a captive audience who have already shelled out top dollar for the machine. Because they charge extra for a download are you equally naive enough to think they aren't making good money from the machine itself and really need it? 

It works both ways you know ;)

Having messed about with blow torches, stop watches and buckets of water over the years, I think the AMP is superb.  It's accurate, quick and easy to use.  OK - it's expensive but could you buy a decent scope for the cost of an AMP? 

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Yes I can appreciate the AMP is a very accurate machine and I understand that neck turning on any case would alter the amount of time required to anneal the neck properly. But 13 settings for 308 cases alone? That would imply manufactures are using many different types of brass alloy with varying neck thickness. I know neck thickness varies a few thou between manufacturers but 13 settings? 

Are your test cases returned or does finding the specific setting render them useless?

Has anyone done back to back testing on annealing with non annealed cases and the influence on accuracy and case life, sounds like an ideal project for Laurie?

Also anyone using the AMP, what is your expected case life? I would have thought most people looking for any possible gains in performance would be the long range shooters where every little bit helps and as such cases are usually run in the upper reaches of chamber pressures. How many times can the cases be annealed before the primer pockets render the cases useless anyway?

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13 settings?  Well, you can't really complain just because AMP want to give you the best possible result for your annealing.

No - you don't get your cases back - well, to be honest I didn't ask - results (program) were quickly e-mailed to me.

Yep - annealing won't stop primer pockets getting slack.

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I use an AMP, Ive had it about 9 months now so I bought into the concept. As Vince says, its certainly easy to use and will allow anyone to bring some level of consistency to their brass annealing so to a degree Im a convert. I anneal every firing, its mainly my benchrest cases.

Scratching around in the dark with a blow torch, electric drill and Tempilac is highly inconsistent and questionable as to whether it even works, even the more sophisticated automated blow torch set-ups are vague at best as the user can measure the affect on the brass without a hardness tested and the understanding to use it. The science of annealing any metal is quite clear, you need to reach a specific temperature and then hold it there for a given period of time before allowing it to cool. The temps and timings vary from metal to metal.

Using an AMP without sending cases to be analysed in New Zealand is a bit of pot luck at best because as can be seen minute variances in neck thickness matter as far as the correct setting goes not to mention brass batch within the same maker and then again between makers. I read some email correspondence between a friend and the makers regarding the effectiveness of just using a setting from the settings list without having your specific cases analysed and even the maker admitted it was a little vague in the sense that cases would/could be over or under annealed and the only true way to guaranteed the correct Rockwell hardness was to buy a batch of the same brass, send the samples turned to your spec (or not as the case may be) then run the setting they give you all the time, thats the ideal.

As for its effectiveness in terms of extending brass life or improving accuracy in competition thats always going to be a hard one to quantify. I can't say Ive done any better in competition with the annealed brass than I was doing before, I think I have made far easier to measure gains in other areas. I think its just one of those things that some shooters feel will help but they can't quantify how much or if at all but when your spending lots of money in other areas then a little more can often be justified to yourself in the pursuit of accuracy.

The cynical side of me wonders exactly how this upgrade will work and I await with interest the technical aspects. They say the upgrade will cost less than the autofeed which again we dont have a price for just now. Looking at the complexity of the autofeed I can see that running well into the hundreds of pounds so Im expecting to be stung with the software upgrade.

Whether or not I buy it remains to be seen. I would also be interested to see how well they encode the download to stop it being used multiple times in different machines - maybe we can go halfers Vince? :D

 

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Vince,

I'll wait and see what Mr Costello has to say, I tend to live in the wake of his experience :)

A follow up at the IWA - might be an offer on, you never know?

T

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