Necking up 223 WSSM to 243

[BGD]

I am going to neck up some 223 WSSM to 243 WSSM. Do you think I should anneal them before or after I neck them up?

I have never annealed cases before and this is what I am going to try. I have some 450 deg tempilaq. I will place it 1/4 inch down from the shoulder. Put the flame in the center of the neck and spin them in the drill with a socket. When the tempilaq melts drop it in a bucket of water. I am a but nervous as I don't want to anneal the base. Do you know how far the heat has to go toward the base befor it is dangerous to use?

 

[ironworkerwill]

You won't anneal the base if its dropped into water after about 4-6 seconds of torching. If you turn the lights down you'll see if you've gone too far.

You can use the old method of annealing in a cake pan and tip them over as soon as the neck is annealed. The heat will never reach the head.

 

[Boss-302]

Hi BGD. I take it you can not find any .243 wssm brass. I know I have not seen any in a while.

 

[BGD]

No I haven't found any 243 WSSM brass. I found some federal 223 that I am going to neck up. I need to get this annealing thing down. The necks split on the 4th firing.

 

[Sunray]

Annealing isn't rocket science. Just don't get the brass too hot. Enough time to have the brass change colour only. Red hot is too hot.
Kind of suspect the tempilaq may be getting spun off in your drill. Only used a pan of tap water, a propane torch and nothing else myself.
The necks split because you're stretching the brass 20 thou then resizing it. It gets work hardened. Suspect you need to anneal after necking up too.

 

[CarJunkieLS1]

I have 243wssm factory ammo that I would sell you. I have 30 winchester 243wssm 100gr factory loads and 10 pcs of new primed brass I pulled the bullets and dumped the powder.

 

[spitballer]

I suspect that annealing should be done first, and only with brass that hasn't been annealed subsequently after it left the factory. This advice may save you time, money and frustration: signs of subsequent annealing (discoloration) can be wiped off, and the brass may then give unpredictable results for no apparent reason! Necking down rather than up may be a different story, and others will disagree with me anyway, but it may be smart to invest in new cases for your project. Wish you luck.

An afterthought - THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN'T GET GOOD SOFT USED BRASS FROM A REPUTABLE DEALER!! I can't say this enough. When buying from a dealer, the softening has already been performed for you, and quite consistently, I might add. There is nothing wrong with this brass, and in fact I would trust professionally annealed brass more than my home-spun annealed brass! In the previous paragraph what I should have said is new cases OR PROFESSIONALLY SOFTENED, USED CASES. My suspicions center around brass of unknown origin, for the simple reason that the softening step that you need may have already been performed once. Again, others will disagree with me but despite what I've read online about repeatedly softening case necks with heat, it's been my experience that brass can be softened again once after it leaves the factory; case necks may benefit from repeated heat treatment, but heating does not always soften the necks. - TH

 

[spitballer]

I've added this post at the top of the page because I may have created misconceptions by failing to be clear on this:

PROFESSIONALLY ANNEALED, USED BRASS FROM A REPUTABLE DEALER IS A BARGAIN and is every bit as soft and useable as new cases which are considerably more expensive.