Is it better to neck-up brass or neck-down? Opinions please.....

I've always had fewer issues necking up.

It depends on if you have a tight neck chamber or need/want to neck turn the cases ... If you have a standard chamber necking up is generally easier as necking down can lead to the neck walls being too thick. That being said if you want to turn necks for uniformity/to fit your tight neck chamber you need to neck down in most cases. There's also a functional limit in terms of how far you can neck a case down before you have to turn the outside and/or inside of the neck. Necking up doesn't have the same limitations in most cases.

So, if I neck up some .260 Rem brass to 7mm-08, should I anneal the cases?

I prefer to neck down for better cases. Factory cases necks are already too thin for a good chamber fit and expanding necks only makes a bad fit worse.

Never anneal 'cases'. Anneal necks if you go up or down because that involves quite a bit of cold working.

quote:

if I neck up some .260 Rem brass to 7mm-08, should I anneal the cases

Couldn't hurt. With the cost of 7-08 brass I sure wouldn't jack with it.

I have to agree if you want a tighter neck in a loose chamber necking down would be better. I run many custom chambers and custom dies on anything I'm reforming anyway.

I've necked .243 brass both virgin and 1x up to 7-08 and I've necked both 7-08 and .243 up and down to .260. I've also necked .308 down to 7-08 and the neck turning was a bitch. Too thick to turn the brass down in one turn. I've never annealed anything. YMMV but I'm more of a shooting guy rather than a shop guy.
One possible danger with necking up is one of your reloaded cartridges might fall into someones hands that could possibly load a .260 or 7-08 into a .243. I don't know if they would really fit or not.
I agree that with the ready availability of brass for .260, 7-08, I'd be reluctant to go to the hassle. But it is fun to learn how and do it a couple of times just to see how it works out.

I don't do either much, but I liked the results of necking .270 down to .25-06. They wind up having a closer fit to my chamber and neck sizing barely moves any brass. I've got at least eight loadings on them so far, no cracking.

I've necked down but not up now that I'm thinking what I've loaded for. I've necked '06 down to .270, the aforementioned, and even .308 down to .243, but never up. Nate

I prefer to neck down.

I think sizing down is preferable. when you size up the work is done at the expander button, when sizing down it is done by the die. Sizing down is also the prefered method for swaging copper jackets.

It isn't a either/or thing...it is a "which way produces the 'best' formed case for a SPECIFIC CASE/CALIBER application"...and depends on a lot of factors.

I neck up by fireforming with "cream of cereal" with anything over over one cal difference...I can fireform just about any size in one operation which doesn't cause a lot of case work hardening that necking up in stages causes...a tapered expander works OK within one cal...or a succession of larger and larger size buttons will also work.

USE ONE OF THE WAX SIZING COMPOUNDS INSIDE THE NECK AND ON THE "BUTTON" IF GOING UP AND ON THE NECK AND BASE IF GOING DOWN.

I've been at this wildcatting/reloading game a long time and WAX is the only way to go to keep from getting cases stuck in the sizer die, under normal sizing AND case forming.

I don't anneal my cases for many reasons including the major fact that keeping the temp within the correct temp range is just about impossible unless you use one of the annealing machings, which is basically what the factorys do, to UNIFORMLY heat the canse neck.

You can ruin a case quicker by nonuniform heating that you can by just normal reloading until the case dies. Annealing is one of those highly argumentitive "urban legend" things that is also highly mis-understood, mostly un-needed and continues being bandied about continuously on the net.

I neck down if I can find a case/cal that is also about one cal larger...that is usually a one step process also. I've use 375 and 458 belted mag cases to form 416 Taylor cases, one pass for both...270-280,30-06 to form 25-06 and 338-06(9,3x62 cases work great also)...sometime I use a slightly smaller cal seater die first then a FL sizer to get the final shape.

I also prefer to buy new cases to start with and NOT form if possible. I have cals from 22-35 formed from 308 W and 30-06 cases but I only form if I can't find a standard cases.

Mucking about forming cases also has problems with neck thickness, eithe too thin or too thick that need to be addressed at the same time as the forming issue is addressed. Buying standard cases helps to eliminate that problem...and also case length problems...necking down usually lengthens and thickens neck and necking up usually shortens and thins necks.

Sometimes I buy a cheap used or Lee sizer die or just use a smaller sizer to size the neck about half way down. then go to the correct sizer to finish.

Nothing locked in stone here...lots of ways to "getrdone"...and lots of different "right" opinions on how it should be done...depending on the INTENDED USE.

Luck

I actually prefer to use necked down reformed cases in most instances simply because of the better fit. I don't need a head stamp to tell me what cartridge I'm loading and we really can't chamber a 7-08 in a .260/.243 anyway. I put both my reloads AND my spent cases in the properly labeled boxes and even my youngest grand sons can read the labels!

I LOVE to make .22-250 and .243 cases out of bulk .30-06/.270/.35 Whelen cases. It insures the finished necks will be 'too thick' and then I can turn them down to a proper snug fit to my chambers. Sure, it takes more than a single pass to get them right but that's not a really difficult chore, IMHO.

After all the time spent to select, reform and prep those cases they will split the necks in maybe 3-5 cycles if they aren't immediately annealed. Subsiquent annealing, about each 5 cycles, will allow them to last virtually indefinitly - I typically get more than twenty! So, making the effort to anneal necks correctly - without a costly machine - is not only interesting, it pays off handsomely for some very high grade case life for me. YMMV.