Anneal before or after neck expanding?

[Bama]

If expanding neck up in size is it better to anneal before or after resizing and why?

[Butler Ford]

When I anneal, I do so before sizing, makes the brass more malleable.

BF

[Outpost75]

When I neck up .30-30 brass to. 35/.30-30 I anneal first to prevent neck splits in expansion.

[Mk42gunner]

Depends on your brass and how much you are necking up.

I have quite a bit of brass in the oops bucket that I annealed too much of the shoulder and the case accordioned before the neck expanded. If I am doing a relatively simple job like making .35 Whelen from new .30-06, I don't anneal until after the forming is done.

Robert

[tygar]

I form a number of different cases & if it is new brass or once fired LC, I don't anneal & I most always expand up. e.g. 25-06 to 6.5-06.

If it is "fired" brass I would anneal, but I almost always use new or 1x LC.

If I have over annealed, I try to FL resize it several times until it takes & holds the bullet. That sometimes works, or try fireforming with lead bullets over unique.

[GRUMPA]

Annealing is the very LAST thing I do.

When I expand the necks, or reduce for that matter, I want the weaker case to fail. Without annealing first any split necks are deemed weak, discard and keep going.

[dragon813gt]

Annealing is the very LAST thing I do.

When I expand the necks, or reduce for that matter, I want the weaker case to fail. Without annealing first any split necks are deemed weak, discard and keep going.

This for all the reasons stated.

[fast ronnie]

I do mine before AND after.

[tygar]

Just did 50 LC67 to 338/06. One neck split. Not bad for brass that I might have used in VN in 67.

Now to anneal. As someone said, rather have a bad one split now rather than later.