I've occasionally found a split case neck on an unfired piece of brass right out of the bag, and occasionally after the first firing.[:@]
That's the unfortunate thing about a lot of the remchester-short-whatever magnums- most of the time you are stuck using brass of inconsistant domestic manufacture since you can't get a lot of them from Lapua or Norma.

That might be a point of confusion as people usually describe that process as chamferring.

Thats the reason I asked, there is a thing called inside neck reaming, kinda like outside neck turning. It wasn't to attack you. Reloaders call what you are talking about "Chamfering" or neck deburr.

I didn't think you were giving me a hard time, just busting my chops. I have heard of turning the outside of a neck but never the inside. But anyway can we get back to the subject at hand.

I went to the Winchester site and they make it pretty difficult to contact them. I had to send a snail mail letter. I know it will take sometime before a response, if they want to give one. We shall see.

Now has anyone else experienced this problem? A fewhave told me to anneal the necks, but I don't thinkweshould have to do this at our level. But again, if that is what it willtake then it may be cheaper then buying new brass repeatedly. It will also get a lot expensive too!

Gotta go. I got another doctor appoint. This old body is breaking down by the numbers.

I don't think anyone is belittling anyone here intentionally...back to the topic... Two of the three procedures being discussed here are advanced tactics for reloading and one, chamferring is pretty basic. TO be honest, with a factory chambered rifle, inside/outside neck reamming are not needed and will produce very little of anything other than if you take to much off, you'll cause greater space between the neck of the cartridge and chamber, usually resulting, if the stretch is to much-- a cracked neck.. I believe you may have a chamber that may be too big, if your cracking cases on first firings..it all depends how many chambers were cut with that reamer at the factory, the first ones seem to have the problem more so than the later ones... WHAT is the measurement of a fired case neck..check the reloading manuels and see what a sized case should be.. subtract the difference and see how much yours are expanding.. I'll bet it's more than .012, if it's much more than that I'd say that your problem, not the cases but the expansion...

Annealing properly is difficult. Most procedures like from John Barsness only stress relieves. He tells people to just heat the necks until you fingers get hot holding the brass. I totally disagree. You need to buy a temp sensitive crayon (welders use) and a propane torch.

Annealing can help with your problem, but should have never happened in the first place if they annealed correctly.

The fundamental part of annealing brass is the cold water quench after a uniformheating of the neck and shoulder. Some folks throw them onto a cold wet towelbut I think a dunk in a pail of water is a more complete annealing action. Brass is the opposite of carbonized steel in that a heating and an immediatecold quench makes it softer.

Heating the brass until it just starts to turn color is plenty of heat to accomplish this, and consequently too hot to hold onto without gloves. A smooth jawed set of plyers works the best as you can hold thecase neck over the end of the torch flame, shooting the heat into the case mouth, giving a nice even heat...and not roast your digets in the process.

Annealing brass that should have been anneal2 or3 loadings prior isn't going to gain you much back.............

The annealing method we used to use was to stand the brass in a pan of water so that they are submerged to just below shoulder height. Then heat each with a torch and when it is hot, use the torch to tip it over. Properly annealed brass will go a long time unless you are really working the neck/shoulder area hard.

Annealing is a pretty simple process that most people don't understand.

You don't need water- The oft-quoted way of annealing is to place cases in a pan and heat the necks until they are cherry red, then tip them over. All this does is protect the case body from annealing while over-annealing the neck. If you heat the necks this hot, they will be annealed, but won't have enough tension to hold a bullet. BC's idea of using a temp stick is a good one- it will keep the necks from being overannealed.

You don't need to quench brass to anneal it. Once the brasss is heated hot enough, its already anealed. Dropping it in a bucket of water or tipping it over in a pan is useful if you don't want to deal with hot brass lying around. I just toss them in a coffee can (the old kind, made of real metal) to cool.

Annealing by holding on to the rim is the easiest way to do it. You turn the brass in the flame to heat it as evenly as possible. You'll see 2 color changes- the first is where the brass gets shiny as the water is boiled out of the surface of the brass, followed by the brass turning a blueish-purple color as its annealed. You keep the brass in the flame until the blue color hits the case body. I've never tried this on WSSM cases and don't know if it would work because of the short casemight conduct heat to your fingers too quickly, but I use this method for knecking up .284 brass to make 7.5x55 brass, and anneal cases .308 and larger ever 3-4 firings to extend their life. (Note, I don't anneal .308 brass per sebecause its very easy to replace but save my annealing time for european cartridgescases that are much more difficult and costly to replacebut I have tried it with .308)

And that would be pretty much the point of using water......

As you air cool the brass in your coffee can,the heat migrates to any part of the case that is cooler than the neck/shoulder area and this would be the case body, head and primer pocket.

It'd be much prefered that that part of the case doesn't get softened any more than it is, as it doesn't sufferthe degree of work hardening that the neck/shoulder does. Gaining loose primer pockets or premature case head seperation isn't on the plus side.

You will also gain a more consistantamount of anneal by quenching in water, as brasscan be made several degrees ofsofter by addinga varying amount ofheat or by slowing down the cooling process. It's agreed that the slightblueish hue is the point where we want to be per color change and an imediate quench at that point will stop the anneal process dead in it's tracks giving you a much more consistant neck tension than by air cooling.

Building up hot brass in a metal container slows the cooling process down and lends to inconsistancy and over annealed case bodies, case heads and primer pockets.

In my experience not a better idea.........

I don't use the pan method because I might anneal2 or 300 cases at a time. 'Tis much easier to just fill a 5 gallon bucket and get to it.