I am in the process of forming new brass for my 30 Gibbs out of 30/06 brass. The shoulder on the 30 Gibbs is considerabley higher than on the 30/06, so I have run the brass through a 35 Caliber expanding die to form a shoulder and then resized in the 30 Gibbs die. My question is, should I anneal at this point or wait until after I fire form or both? Would both be too much?

Thanks,

I think that both would be too much of a good thing. If it were me, I would either anneal now, or wait until they're fireformed, then anneal.
I once made a batch of 7mm Mag. brass into .375 Taylor. (.375/338 Mag.) I opened the necks to 30 caliber, annealed then opened to 35 caliber and annealed, then the final resizing to 375 caliber. I found out that I could anneal jsut once prior to just running them through the Taylor sizing die with minimal case loss. I later decided it was a hell of a lot easier to just run .458 Mag. brass through the die and fireform. The only reason I used the 7 mag stuff was I got 200 rounds of new brass for free. probably should have just traded them off, but what the heck? It was a learning experience.
Paul B.

I probably would anneal at this point. The brass has been worked pretty good, and annealing should soften them up and also will allow the shoulder to form more completely.

Steve

Makes perfect sense. Being expanded up to 35 Cal and then necked back down to 30 has probably hardened the brass. It will still have to blow out to completely fire form and if the brass is annealed first it will be softer in the shoulder area and less likely to split.