My new homemade annealer

[alamo5000]

Before I didn't anneal anything but in recent months (or more) I started to really anneal everything, especially precision ammo. It does make a big difference. And for things like forming 6 ARC brass out of 6.5 Grendel brass it is an absolute non negotiable thing to anneal. It literally won't work unless you anneal your brass first. Hence I found myself more and more involved in the annealing game.

I tried the hillbilly method of a drill and socket with a propane torch for a while. It works, but it's by far not the best or easiest thing to do consistently. I've considered getting an AMP Annealer, but the backlog is FOR EVER and they cost $1,500 for the machine and you can easily add an additional $500 in add ons such as software and other things.

Then I happened upon this Youtube video:



I however made mine just a little bit different. The only major difference is his timer runs off of DC power and hence requires a second plug usually meant for small electronics. Mine however runs off of 110V A/C so I can do mine using a single plug. I have since learned that the DC timers can also go down to 1/10th of a second on their timing whereas my 110V unit only goes to the 1 second mark. (Honestly there are enough other variables still involved that I don't think it needs to go sub 1 second, IE being able to set your timer to 3.5 seconds vs just 3 or 4 seconds)

The hardest part of the deal was figuring out how to wire the timer because the instruction manual absolutely sucked in this regard. None the less after a few emails and some trial and error I figured it out and ultimately housed the unit and the connections in an old Lapua box.

I have only been playing with it for about a day but it works GREAT. It's substantially faster than the hillbilly method and it's precise down to 1 second (or below that if you think it's worth it). It literally does the exact same anneal every single time on every piece of brass. From what I hear it's even much faster than the AMP Annealer.

I bought some aluminum reloading trays because I didn't want to risk melting a plastic one. You can load up a loading tray with a case in every other hole (around the edges) and just hit em once and they are good. It's really fast. Each case is about 10 seconds to do (total, not just annealing time). So all that time people use with some shell holder device and all that is not needed. In under 10 minutes (easily, with time to spare) you can anneal 50 cases and be done with it.

I have my timer set to do a 5 second countdown, then it turns on the power for 4 seconds (or however many are needed) then it turns off and does that on auto repeat.

Anyway I am learning it's quirks but with between 24 and 48 hours since I finished getting it together and working it's been awesome. For a little north of $200 total so far it's a good investment. Cell phone pic below.