Reloading Forum Friends - OttoSig and I need your help please. We were talking by email yesterday and Otto asked me a question about annealing 300 B/O brass that we both have created by cutting and resizing 223/5.56 brass.

Should brass created in this manner be annealed before use, or a better way to ask this question - Is annealing REQUIRED?

If you are annealing can you share your tools and methods please. Thanks in advance for your help. Mark and James

Sidestepping your question, I was planning on making some 300 BO ammo until I came across these guys:

https://detroitammoco.com/prod...variant=Anneal+Brass

For $130 they’ll convert your 223/556 brass and anneal it. They have been great to do business with.

Thanks Chris - I will check into these guys as I have plenty of LC 5.56 brass. Mark

I annealed my brass after I chopped, trimmed and forming the shoulder.

And I anneal after each shooting (with all my rifle cases in any caliber-seems to make them last longer)

Clean with SS pins and then dry, then I anneal.

How do you anneal yours Mike? What tools do you use?

Honestly, as to your original question, it doesn't hurt to anneal frequently as long as you don't get it so hot for so long that you "kill" the brass.

Not the same, but I tried converting 308Win to 6.5 Creedmoor. I annealed each time I "bumped" the case a little deeper in the sizer. It didn't work, but that was because I don't have the capability to machine necks, not because the process failed. The neck on 300BO is a lot less steep, I think you could get away with just doing it once, but I would personally do it twice - once after deburring, and the other after initial forming. I do anneal with each cycle too.

I have an AGS gen 2 annealer. They're made by a guy in Serbia. He's managed to get a pretty good approximation of a Bench Source at a fraction of the cost. I ended up getting a removable riser as well, which I tack welded to the main body to keep everything together. I know he's released the gen 3 by now, but I don't know anyone who has one, whereas I know someone with a gen 1. We're both really happy with our purchases.

My reloading has been put on hold for a while due to many reasons, but I have made many hundreds of 300 BLK brass out of 5.56 brass. I always annealed the brass after chopping and before forming the new neck. I did it because you are now using a part of the 5.56 brass that was more of the center of the brass and turning it into the neck. You want the neck to be a little “softer” to expand to give a good seal in the chamber. I think I had this all posted with pictures in my 300 BLK reloading thread, but I think the pictures were in Photobucket which now disappeared because I wouldn’t pay what they wanted. I used a setup of two blow torches in a vise grip to let me slowly rotate and heat up the brass to the right temperature and then drop them into water. I will try to find the pictures I took along with information and repost them. I just don’t have the time at this moment. For rotating the brass, I placed each one into a powered drill with a socket that fit the brass and slowly turned it in the dual flames of the torches.


Ok, what I posted is on page 10 here: https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...35/m/4450032123/p/10

quote:

Originally posted by OttoSig:
How do you anneal yours Mike? What tools do you use?

Socket (forgot what size but I use a 12pt bc it doesn’t bounce the brass while it’s going around in circles)on an extension placed in the cordless drill, set the torch on the workbench. Dip the shoulder (or neck) into the blue part of the flame, running slowly to a five Mississippi count, then lay it on the nearby toolbox(flat surface)to air cool

I’ve done the templaque stuff in the past and found I just needed a 5 count.

Otto et al: Quick update on this topic.

I read where 5.56 LC (military) brass, which is all I use because I make my own 300 AAC B/O brass is actually annealed two times (required under the military spec I guess) and because of this all 5.56 LC brass is annealed further down the brass neck than normal and is actually annealed in the area where 300 AAC B/O brass necking and sizing is done.

According to my reading the author went on to say that because of this he does not anneal his converted LC brass and has some converted brass with over ten reloads per piece without any visual neck splits.

It is also correct to say that everyone’s results related to this will vary and may not follow this specific persons results.

I will go on to say that this was one persons summary over at another website that focuses only on the 300 AAC B/O round (factory and reloads) as well as rifles, pistols, and supporting optics.

Below is a copy/paste from the person who contributed his comments to this discussion.

I disagree that there is a need to anneal to cut and form from 223/5.56 brass. You just need to start with decent brass. U.S. military brass is annealed twice. It go’s far enough down the shoulder and body that Blackout cases will have annealed necks. I form from LC brass, do not anneal and the primer pockets give out long before a neck splits. Brass forms well enough to shoot +/- MOA loads for 12-15 firings.