I’m trying to form 300blk out from 223/556 brass. I have an annealing set up and was wondering if I should anneal prior to re-forming the brass or wait till after? My minuscule logic says anneal prior to forming. Any advice is most appreciated.
Taz
I’m trying to form 300blk out from 223/556 brass. I have an annealing set up and was wondering if I should anneal prior to re-forming the brass or wait till after? My minuscule logic says anneal prior to forming. Any advice is most appreciated.
Taz
Just knowing enough to do it, is not enough to do it right! -Taz
It has been said that you get better results if you anneal first. When I first started making 300BO, I had no anneal setup. My brass is fine. YMMV.
If you have an anneal setup, do it if it’s easy enough.
BTW, I first made mine by cutting then sizing/trimming with a 1200. I upgraded to the 1500 trimmer and left the cutting out. Sized/trimmed all in one step.
I formed all of mine without annealing. RP 233 and Lake city 556 brass. Did not anneal afterwards either. I have a few reloads on them and no split necks yet. I think I would just anneal afterwards unless you get failures from the forming.
It is not a very drastic movement of brass to form the neck from the body below the shoulder.
Tazlaw -- I'm pretty certain my logic is considerably LESS than yours! That being written, I have very little re-form case experience, with mine being the quite "easy" changes to brass in the Remington Auto group: e.g., .25 Rem; .30-30 Remington; .32 Remington;, etc. -- for mostly Remington model 8s and 14s -- including their varients.
I had thought similarly as you, and have a Giraud annealer as well as other equipment. For the Rem auto brass, I recall the Todd Kindler "circle-torch" head ( http://www.woodchuckden.com/catalog/catalog2016.pdf ) being used -- worked well -- BUT the best results were NOT annealing until AFTER the calibre-size change was done. An observed "justification", a lot of brand spankin' new commercial brass comes with colour marks (Star-Line used to even include a note re this with new brass) from it being annealed as its very last process in its manufacture. Kindly re-read my first sentence -- but, I thought I'd share my wee experience. BEST!
geo
My experience has been that annealing prior to reforming results in a high number of ruined/crushed cases. I was forming 22 HP from 30-30 cases, using a 25-35 intermediate die and using pre-annealed cases I had about a 60 to 70 percent loss. When I used un-annealed cases the loss dropped to almost none. I did find that some brands of brass seem to me more amenable to being reformed.
R.D.M.
If you have the annealing set-up set up ...go ahead and anneal prior to forming .
Annealing softens the brass so it reforms easier with less loss .
In your case you will be expanding the neck . In cases where you reduce the case mouth you may not want to anneal .
Before doing all , test a few ... annealed and unannealed and see what works best .
Lots of variables so no one answer fits every case .
Gary
Last edited by gwpercle; 05-18-2020 at 11:36 AM.
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W/ forming 300 BLK cases it really doesn’t matter. You can produce good cases w/ or w/out annealing. I anneal at the end because I have a machine and it takes little time
For other conversions it matters a lot. What you’re converting to and from matters a lot. W/ multiple step conversions you will find that some steps require annealing while others don’t.
My opinion only: Try it both ways to see which works for you.
Grumpa (RIP) formed brass as a business, and he recommended annealing last. He formed more brass than I will ever think about doing.
Doing something like making .25-20 from .32-20, in my experience, annealing first results in a collapsed shoulder and a ruined case. A .300 Blackout from .223, probably not.
6.5-06 from .30-06, never did anneal it.
.35 Whelen from .30-06, expanding necks is easier with soft brass.
Good luck and expect to lose some cases to learning,
Robert
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