AMP Annealer - Aztec Upgrade

[The Gun Pimp]

Mark - 'the blind Pepsi challange' would be interesting but we'd need perfect conditions - like the 400 yd railway tunnel that used to exist at Bangor Range. That was a great facility and I always used to go there before a benchrest World Championships to set up the rifle. Any minor tweaks would show up on the target.

In the UK - we just never get perfect conditions outdoors that would hold for an hour or two of testing.  I only wish we could.

That's maybe why we get obsessed with neck-turning, annealing, neck-tension, primer-pocket uniforming, meplat pointing and trimming etc - we just don't know - so we do 'em because we know our competitors are doing 'em!

 

[gbal]

  So,is there anyplace where there are shooters and 'perfect conditions'-or at least 'good enough' for progress.

If so,have any of  these 'obsessions' been tested,and the results accepted by informed shooters? Would such results not be fairly accessible in UK (as published findings,of one sort or another-or just by what such shooters say at eg international competitions)?

Or does 'we do it because our competitors do  it" prove too hard to give up? (Not even those competition shooters who did the tests???

  Of course if it all reduced to just skill,and gizmos didn't give an edge,not winning might be harder for some to bear,deprived of excuses (atmospheric flatulence apart). :-)

gbal

[The Gun Pimp]

I tend to anneal after three or four firings - but then again - I ain't won much lately! 

[baldie]

I did my own "blind pepsi challenge" a good few years back now.

I had a 6.5 x 47 with a dirty great Border parallel blank on it. The gun was an absolute blinder, and would turn in 1/4" groups, every group. Damn thing never even got warm.

Anyway, it was during a mcQueens at Bisley, I wasn't getting my normal groups, and decided to dig a bit on returning home.

Checked everything, and nothing was amiss, but the gun was only holding 3/4" now.

Eventually I started to wonder about neck tension, so I stuck a socket on the drill, and annealed 10 cases.

Loaded them and shot them.

Bingo !

Back to a 1/4" gun again.

That sold me on annealing and I built a heath robinson machine.

I anneal every case, every firing now, just as part of my reloading procedure.

I also remember a yank testing two 30-06 cases. One annealed every shot, the other, just reloaded.

The un annealed case lasted 5 firings and the neck split.

He gave over with the annealed case....at 50 firings.

 

[No i deer]

In the past I use to keep shooting until the necks split.approx 5 or 6 firings.since I've been using the more expensive brass that I as Vince said invested a lot of hours on them i want a few more firings from them before there scrap.over the last 5 or 6 years ive had 3 carrier bags full of split necks brass.to me 10p a case is worth a punt.I don't believe its snake oil Mark.I will know if my brass lasts as i do number the firing.if I get 10 firings from a case I will be happy.I would anneal after every firing too.my primer pockets will probably give up first as I like to run them at full potential.

[Big Al]

10 hours ago, bradders said:

Al, you state you anneal every time, I was always led to believe the BR community do indeed meticulously sort and prep their brass until they find their Holy Grail "Flatliners" then shoot and reload them on the range between relays

So if they're doing this and work hardening the brass without detrimental performance drop-offs between relays, then where does the annealing after each shot fit in?

 

There is no reloading on the firing point of long range benchrest, its all done at home, I was referring to 600yd & 1000yd in my earlier post.

What you describe might happen at 100yd benchrest but this is much less susceptible to small variations than 1000yd benchrest simply because any effect has much less time to matter, Im not even sure it happens on 100yd comps in the UK?

Long range benchrest is the ultimate testing ground for consistency in every aspect of the shooting cycle and bullet flight, this is very much reflected in the reloading and wanting everything to perform the same all the time. Annealing brass now and again doesn't make any sense to me based on what I said earlier when the biggest percentage of work hardening happens on the first firing and I have the means to do it every time very easily.

As for the Pepsi Challenge, Im more of an Irn Bru man myself

 

 

[onehole]

All this may well dry up the fire and brimstone annealers,,,,,,,,?

[hunter686]

I personally anneal every time. With the testing I have done i found i started to get velocity/and POI flyers the further into the work hardening i got.

I segregate my rounds by seating force and found it progressively more difficult to tell the more the brass work hardened. It's not a real issue for me to anneal; It takes 20 minutes to do my batch from set up and finish so it's not a real ball ache in the grand scheme of things.

I do shoot 1000 BR on occasion and have had consistent enough results on paper to keep doing what I'm doing. 

[Chris-NZ]

Had a read through of the current SF thread on AMP and here's what the makers have said:

 

"...Our recent reveal of the AZTEC mode has caused quite a stir and now that we have a moment we would like to clear up some of the misconceptions and assumptions we have noticed.

1. AZTEC mode is NOT a firmware upgrade nor a patch to the existing software.

(We are aware that we called it such when we made our original Facebook post and that we referred to it as an "update" in the video but this is simply not the case. We have amended the original Facebook post to reflect this. "

[VarmLR]

I've been left scratching my head by this thread.  I can appreciate why anyone who has invested time and effort on truing up and sorting cases for consistency would want to anneal, if purely to extend case life.  I do it myself, every firing and have been running the same .308 cases for ages now with no split necks and pretty consistent ES/SD which I Iose if I FL size without annealing for more than a few firings. 

However...am I right in thinking that those who have invested in the AMP have not, as yet, been able to quantify any performance gains over their old methods of annealing, the black art that is the gas torch method?  If so, I am struggling to understand just where the benefit is other than peace of mind knowing that each case is more consistently annealed (or should the correct terminology be "stress relieved "since full annealing would remove most of the "spring" from a case neck?) .  As an engineer, I can appreciate the virtues of the closely controlled induction method over gas torch stress relieving but £1200 where no firm performance gains can be demonstrated over any other method of stress relieving brass?  That's the bit I struggle with.

Surely, if there is no tangible, demonstrable benefit to competition users, then is the main benefit seen as 1) ease of use and less time to sort brass and 2) peace of mind?

In observation to an earlier comment on CE markings...it is one of the most mis-understood markings some years after it's requirement was released!   Whilst not in itself a certificate of safety, or guarantee of such, it is required to sell within the EU (specifically It is a requirement for trade within the EEA), in this case, to confirm that the appliance meets the  Low Voltage Directive.  It means that the design must meet the requirements of the technical annexes within the LVD but can be self certified providing that a certificate of conformity is prepared.  These, however, are rarely checked unless of course something goes wrong.  My own industry is littered with examples of kit stamped with CE markings in the Far East, which later are proved to be non-compliant (NOT that this is the case here at all).  It exists to ensure compliance with technical standards to remove barriers to free trade, nothing more, so should not be viewed as any guarantee of safety.

[Big Al]

58 minutes ago, VarmLR said:

However...am I right in thinking that those who have invested in the AMP have not, as yet, been able to quantify any performance gains over their old methods of annealing, the black art that is the gas torch method?  If so, I am struggling to understand just where the benefit is other than peace of mind knowing that each case is more consistently annealed (or should the correct terminology be "stress relieved "since full annealing would remove most of the "spring" from a case neck?) .  As an engineer, I can appreciate the virtues of the closely controlled induction method over gas torch stress relieving but £1200 where no firm performance gains can be demonstrated over any other method of stress relieving brass?  That's the bit I struggle with.

 

In the past I dabbled with annealing using the blow torch method but its such a crude attempt at doing it that I generally felt it was very much hit and miss, pardon the pun.

To anneal (whatever you prefer to call it) you need to hit a target temperature very closely and hold that temperature for a required period of time before stopping - who can do that with any level of accuracy and consistency in the home environment using a gas flame? I concluded that many cases are just heated up to pacify the reloader, some will be annealed, some wont and some will be ruined. If your serious about annealing the AMP lets you get far closer to achieving what is needed and most likely it does it right every time very conveniently if you follow a prescribed method of sending your actual brass away for analysis first, or possibly buy the new Aztec upgrade? I agree that £1200 is a lot of money and its arguable as to who can justify this or exactly what performance gains you get, how much they matter to the average shooter etc.

Vince alluded to the point earlier which is we can't test easily for proper long range accuracy, and is particularly important for long range competition shooters. Either a lack of range, suitable shooting platform, the weather or a combination of the three stops us. As such conducting real world accuracy comparisons is hard so we resort to science and or engineering as much as possible as some things are known and can be measured. 

Consistent seating depth pressure, neck tension and bullet release force can all be measured using methods that are common to industry and so its a reliable way to ensure consistency, we can also measure the brass hardness with a Vickers test, all simple and reliable aspects of engineering. We also know from fairly basic science that for long range bullet flight we need consistency in all of the areas mentioned so I feel the AMP helps to achieve this far better than some random plumbers torch and a couple of burnt fingers.

Im certainly not an AMP zealot, not by a long way but I do believe that if you buy into the concept of annealing then the induction method is the only reliable way to do it.

[VarmLR]

I can certainly buy into the engineering and science side of it Al, and to making everything as consistent as possible;  it just surprises me a little that no empirical evidence can be had.  For example, have you recorded more consistent and tighter SD/ES as surely that will be directly related to better neck tension consistency?

It's the ONLY way that I have found to convince myself that using the more basic Raptor case annealer is more beneficial than harmful. If for no other reason, it's worth it over not annealing for the extended case life.  My ES was mostly floating around the 15 to mid 20's on fresh brass which then used to drift to mid 30's or more on subsequent firings.  Since I started annealing using the gas torch, I am achieving at least the same as I did on fresh brass with careful prep and correspondingly slightly smaller vertical dispersion at longer range  than when I just used to shoot and size and bin after 5 or 6 firings.  I don't shoot competition so those figures are about as good as I can manage without investing more in neck turning and regularising of brass, plus using better dies to get into single figure ES/SD.  I would have expected perhaps to have seen evidence supporting greater consistency on neck tension perhaps through ES/SD but admit that as I've never got down to those sort of figures with any regularity, that as with all things ballistic, there's maybe more to it than that.  Still, if I could have justified the expense for an induction annealer, it's the way I'd probably have gone too.

[hunter686]

Tell you what. If someone wants to do 20 cases for me on an Amp I'll do a comparrison between all 3 states; Work hardened, flame annealed and amp annealed and get some quantative evidence including velocity (SDs and ES) and grouping at a 1000 yards... 

[pengo]

11 hours ago, Big Al said:

In the past I dabbled with annealing using the blow torch method but its such a crude attempt at doing it that I generally felt it was very much hit and miss, pardon the pun.

To anneal (whatever you prefer to call it) you need to hit a target temperature very closely and hold that temperature for a required period of time before stopping - who can do that with any level of accuracy and consistency in the home environment using a gas flame? I concluded that many cases are just heated up to pacify the reloader, some will be annealed, some wont and some will be ruined. If your serious about annealing the AMP lets you get far closer to achieving what is needed and most likely it does it right every time very conveniently if you follow a prescribed method of sending your actual brass away for analysis first, or possibly buy the new Aztec upgrade? I agree that £1200 is a lot of money and its arguable as to who can justify this or exactly what performance gains you get, how much they matter to the average shooter etc.

Vince alluded to the point earlier which is we can't test easily for proper long range accuracy, and is particularly important for long range competition shooters. Either a lack of range, suitable shooting platform, the weather or a combination of the three stops us. As such conducting real world accuracy comparisons is hard so we resort to science and or engineering as much as possible as some things are known and can be measured. 

Consistent seating depth pressure, neck tension and bullet release force can all be measured using methods that are common to industry and so its a reliable way to ensure consistency, we can also measure the brass hardness with a Vickers test, all simple and reliable aspects of engineering. We also know from fairly basic science that for long range bullet flight we need consistency in all of the areas mentioned so I feel the AMP helps to achieve this far better than some random plumbers torch and a couple of burnt fingers.

Im certainly not an AMP zealot, not by a long way but I do believe that if you buy into the concept of annealing then the induction method is the only reliable way to do it.

You would say that, now I've invested in a "plumbers torch" and a pair of thick gloves......

[Big Al]

3 hours ago, hunter686 said:

Tell you what. If someone wants to do 20 cases for me on an Amp I'll do a comparrison between all 3 states; Work hardened, flame annealed and amp annealed and get some quantative evidence including velocity (SDs and ES) and grouping at a 1000 yards... 

I would be happy to anneal some cases for you.

[Big Al]

11 hours ago, VarmLR said:

I can certainly buy into the engineering and science side of it Al, and to making everything as consistent as possible;  it just surprises me a little that no empirical evidence can be had.  For example, have you recorded more consistent and tighter SD/ES as surely that will be directly related to better neck tension consistency?

It's the ONLY way that I have found to convince myself that using the more basic Raptor case annealer is more beneficial than harmful. If for no other reason, it's worth it over not annealing for the extended case life.  My ES was mostly floating around the 15 to mid 20's on fresh brass which then used to drift to mid 30's or more on subsequent firings.  Since I started annealing using the gas torch, I am achieving at least the same as I did on fresh brass with careful prep and correspondingly slightly smaller vertical dispersion at longer range  than when I just used to shoot and size and bin after 5 or 6 firings.  I don't shoot competition so those figures are about as good as I can manage without investing more in neck turning and regularising of brass, plus using better dies to get into single figure ES/SD.  I would have expected perhaps to have seen evidence supporting greater consistency on neck tension perhaps through ES/SD but admit that as I've never got down to those sort of figures with any regularity, that as with all things ballistic, there's maybe more to it than that.  Still, if I could have justified the expense for an induction annealer, it's the way I'd probably have gone too.

I loaded 20 rounds tonight for a comp on Sunday using a Wilson inline seater and arbor press. The cases have been fired 5 times and AMP annealed after each firing, the bullets seated as consistently as my feel could detect, they slid into the necks as smooth as butter with 0.003" neck tension and the extreme speed on base to give measurement was 0.0005" over the whole 20. Prior to seating they went through a full length sizer and the shoulders were bumped, again ES on the bump length was 0.0005" on the digital calipers.

Prior to annealing they never felt this good and the ES on sizing wasn't as close. I know every piece of brass has been subject to the same level of heat for the same time and the accurate results and smooth seating feel gives me confidence.

 

[bradders]

20rds for your comp, is that it?

[The Gun Pimp]

On Saturday, it's F Class - that's 25 rounds,  600 yd Benchrest on Sunday - 30 rounds, following Sunday McQueen - 25 rounds.........

Keeps me busy.

An Austrian friend of mine told me about a comp they used to have every year in Austria.  One of the rifle companies - Voere I think - ran it and put up a rifle as a prize.  ONE shot at 100 yds - no sighters - nearest the bull took home the rifle!

Bit like our Egg Shoot - one shot -500 yds - win £100.

 

[VarmLR]

11 hours ago, hunter686 said:

Tell you what. If someone wants to do 20 cases for me on an Amp I'll do a comparrison between all 3 states; Work hardened, flame annealed and amp annealed and get some quantative evidence including velocity (SDs and ES) and grouping at a 1000 yards... 

That would be very interesting but I wonder if the sample size needs to be statistically more significant (perhaps a statistician out there can comment?!)

 

7 hours ago, Big Al said:

I loaded 20 rounds tonight for a comp on Sunday using a Wilson inline seater and arbor press. The cases have been fired 5 times and AMP annealed after each firing, the bullets seated as consistently as my feel could detect, they slid into the necks as smooth as butter with 0.003" neck tension and the extreme speed on base to give measurement was 0.0005" over the whole 20. Prior to seating they went through a full length sizer and the shoulders were bumped, again ES on the bump length was 0.0005" on the digital calipers.

Prior to annealing they never felt this good and the ES on sizing wasn't as close. I know every piece of brass has been subject to the same level of heat for the same time and the accurate results and smooth seating feel gives me confidence.

 

That's pretty decent consistency Al.  The one thing I noticed about some un-annealed cases that I loaded last week was the lack of consistency on seating feel compared with a batch that heat been flame annealed.  They still shot well but that was at close range.  I'll try them out at LR next week.

[bradders]

6 hours ago, The Gun Pimp said:

On Saturday, it's F Class - that's 25 rounds,  600 yd Benchrest on Sunday - 30 rounds, following Sunday McQueen - 25 rounds.........

Keeps me busy.

An Austrian friend of mine told me about a comp they used to have every year in Austria.  One of the rifle companies - Voere I think - ran it and put up a rifle as a prize.  ONE shot at 100 yds - no sighters - nearest the bull took home the rifle!

Bit like our Egg Shoot - one shot -500 yds - win £100.

 

Understand, just trying to get a handle about what goes on at other matches

[hunter686]

1 hour ago, VarmLR said:

That would be very interesting but I wonder if the sample size needs to be statistically more significant (perhaps a statistician out there can comment?!)

For the test i have in mind I think 20 should be fine. 10 shots over the chronograph then a 10 shot group @ 1000 yards should give the information one needs

[hunter686]

9 hours ago, Big Al said:

I would be happy to anneal some cases for you.

I'll take you up on that. As soon as I free up some cases I'll tie in with you. 

[Ronin]

Be interested to see the results of a comparison bettween flame annealing (from someone who uses this method regularly), the AMP annealer and zero anneal procedure.

 

Have to say that hand held torch, socket and low speed electric screwdriver have worked for me for years. 

 

Though I havent won any comps recently either 

 

[Big Al]

14 hours ago, bradders said:

20rds for your comp, is that it?

Not quite, I just loaded the actual comp rounds rounds I needed which are 4x 5 shot groups. I will do another 15 later this week for foulers/sighters.

Quality rather than quantity for this game.

[bradders]

5 minutes ago, Big Al said:

Not quite, I just loaded the actual comp rounds rounds I needed which are 4x 5 shot groups. I will do another 15 later this week for foulers/sighters.

Quality rather than quantity for this game.

That's something you should be doing in your dotage, while you're fit and able with air in your lungs...the fun is to be had elsewhere