Reloading .308 / Finding The Best Accuracy

I have a couple of boxes I never opened?

 

Wow! What a thread! Somehow never saw this.

 

I just conducted a big study on case neck annealing.
My biggest take away is don't anneal your cases after the first and possibly the second firing. Just collet size or neck bushing size them to -0.002'' under the bullet size.
After the second or third firing, or if you're not sure how many firings, anneal them to dead soft by heating the neck and shoulder to at least 1,250f for a few seconds and use a standard full length sizer with ball expander to work the hardness back into them.
The worst thing you can do is use a standard FL die with ball expander and attempting to anneal with a low temperature of 800 to 900F.

 

Basically it is simple -spend TIME,measure and weight everything. The bullet weight, length and roundness! Make batches of the same weight, you'd be surprised how much even match grade varies.The case neck thickness,length, primer hole, roundness and weight. Primers from one batch. Powder from one batch. Load 10 rounds with load variances and test for best accuracy. And do not forget temperature! Of the surrounding and the weapon, it does more than change the bullet speed.