When to anneal?

[quasi]

I have some .348 Winchester brass I need to expand to .50 cal. for my .50-95 Chapparal 1876 short rifle. Should I anneal before expansion or after or both?

[country gent]

Annealing before expanding may save some split necks and other issues. then the fireform load and I would anneal again just to be sure.

[ballistim]

GRUMPA made a good point elsewhere about annealing after forming although I've annealed before forming to avoid split necks. Annealing after forming seems like it would keep the brass soft to conform to the chamber when fire forming and ease seating, and any weaker cases would be exposed during forming before annealing, so it sounds like good reasons for both before and after.

[JSnover]

I would do both. Anneal before to prevent splits and after to get rid of any work-hardening that happened when you expanded them.

[GRUMPA]

There's different techniques when it comes to annealing brass. When folks ask me about annealing there's the type that have an actual annealing machine and those that don't. For the folks with an annealing machine it makes things simpler in a manner of speaking. For the folks that don't, or anneal with a torch or torches on some sort of drill or cup it gets just a tad unpredictable.

If a person is expanding the neck, and has enough of the parent case, I would only do a few on a machine and see how it goes. There's what I call "variables" when it comes to this. Are ALL the parent cases from the same lot? Are they clean or dirty? Are they 1x fired? And those are just but a few of the "variables" right off the top of my head.

When I convert 1 case to another I "have to" do things a bit different. Folks actually want what they pay for (Why I have no clue). If I were to anneal first and then convert, then clean, all the annealing is removed to the point it's hard to see to an untrained eye. Then the colorful PM's or emails come rolling in like the storm from h3ll. So like I said I "have to" do things just a bit different.

To give folks an example: If I were to anneal a 223/5.56 case prior to converting it into 221Fireball, the first thing that happens is it collapses the body right below the angle. That is something that I avoid by annealing very last.

When I convert 223/5.56 into the 7mm TCU since I'm making the neck larger I don't anneal either. But keep in mind your working with a rather thin case neck.

A key component when it comes to expanding the neck on a parent case is the expander itself. I've made my own since most (Not all) expanders aren't to my liking. Some of the factory expanders "Look" fine but the taper is a bit to abrupt and strains the material to much resulting in more than a few split necks. The ones I make for myself are more gradual and that doesn't mean I never get split necks either, I get much fewer split necks.

Now I'll say this again: I want the weaker case to fail knowing full well I'll get a few here and there. The parent case is not on the Periodic Chart right next to unobtanium, there's usually plenty out there. I flat out refuse to anneal brass first, like I said I want the weaker case to fail.

There a couple that do require annealing first, the 22Rem Jet from 357 is 1 since there's no other way around it. But it isn't a heavy anneal but more a very lite anneal. And (No PM's on this) when I make the 219 Zipper cases from 30-30 brass. Those get a rough forming then a lite anneal, then there's 1-2 more forming operations in order to complete the conversion.

[EDG]

It is difficult to make a one size fits all statement about when to anneal.

A case that is being expanded has different forces applied than one that is being necked down or one that is having the shoulder pushed way back. The cases that are being severely necked down, with a 40 degree shoulder and having the shoulder pushed back are even more difficult. The case body has to withstand the force to squeeze the neck down creating and even bigger shoulder. This can accordion the case or buckle the shoulder so that the neck is shoved down into the case turtle neck style.

So you need the neck soft to neck it down, but you need the body hard to support the shoulder being pushed back.
In many cases (no pun intended) you can only get the job done by small neck reductions requiring 2 to 5 dies.

People ask about annealing at the start or annealing at the end.
The truth is sometimes you may have to anneal in the middle of the process too.
The annealing question is also muddied by the condition of the cases you are using.
If you are starting with new factory fresh brass they may form with little trouble.
If they are once or twice fired and 50 years old they will behave differently.

I once developed a process to form 6.5X53R Dutch Mannlicher from .303 British. Comments on the net and in gun rags would leave you with the impression that you just FL size, trim, load and shoot. That does not really happen if you do not want to lose a high percentage of your brass. The only cases that I got to form in one pass were a few once fired Federals. Some of the same Federals also folded (accordianed) at the shoulder. One pass efforts with WW and R-P once fired brass crushed or turtle necked with the neck telescoping down inside the shoulder. After crushing and denting 20 or 30 cases I developed a process that gives 100% yield. It involves several dies but I lose no brass and it only has to be done once. After I load and fire the brass the first time I anneal it.

I guess in summarizing that the general rule might be as follows
1. Use as many dies and anneals as it takes to form good cases. I tend to skip prior annealing, if I can, and use more dies. The reduction dies you use have a direct bearing on the amount of annealing required.
2. Once formed anneal for long life.

[texassako]

How are you going to expand them, and are they new or fired cases? I anneal and fire form fired 8mm Lebel cases into 10.35 Italian Vetterli, and used a few new .348 cases before realizing that rim was to small. I have also expanded them in several steps with various dies, and they had to be annealed to stretch instead of just crack.

[georgerkahn]

A HUGE "YES" on GRUMPA's (#5) post! Being sometimes (??) a bit OCD, and owning a Giraud annealing machine (which I love) I had to try the before and after annealing; GRUMPA, again, is 100% correct! I know I shan't anneal as a "before"!
BEST!
georgerkahn