Annealed a few cases via a candle but there are still hairline cracks in the sticks of brass from which I am pulling the bullets & powder. Maybe they didn't notice the little buggers. But regardless, each unprepped stick of brass much be annealed down to 0.4" from the base. That's where about all of the cracked cases endI(or start). I have not seen any cracks from midway of the case to the mouth. On the cases I am pulling the bullets, the hairline cracks are between 0.4" above to about 0.7" from the base. Even the sticks of brass that followed the Springer from Kodiak to Alabama had cracks that ended between 0.5" to 0.7". Why they are cracking so low, I can't say unless that 1st burst of pressure is exactly where the case isn't fully malleable & must be properly annealed.
Loaded a couple boxer primed cases that turned out to have hairline cracks w/ 26 grains of VV N 140 & the average velocity was a little over 2100 ft/s.
I am going over the re-loaded rounds with my fingers and a loupe in an effort to search for a few cases that do not have cracks. And I am annealing them w/ a hand-torch(not flashlight). None of the Berdan primed RWS sticks of brass had or have cracks.
Accuracy w/ the Gerrad Glass is just lovely @ 30 metres of hand.
Hochachtungsvoll,
Raimey
rse
