Hey all, I have been having a bad problem with case necks splitting after two or three firings. Caliber is 300WSM using Winchester brass, pressure is around 55,000 definitely doesn’t go above 60,000. I have tried annealing after every shot but nothing seem to work. I have never had this problem with other calibers. Any ideas?
Thanks, luke

Sounds like the annealing didn't work. What procedure did you use?

quote:

Originally posted by Smokin Joe:
Sounds like the annealing didn't work. What procedure did you use?

I heated the necks using a propane torch until the necks barely turned pink and the shoulder was blue then dropped them in water.

Check out this info

http://www.massreloading.com/annealing.html

https://bisonballistics.com/ar...idge-brass-annealing

Hopefully, the rifle chamber isn't oversize at the neck.

You could try a different brand of brass. Might work.
My main cause of brass lossage is necks splitting, although infrequent enough. My earlier handloading days was mostly with Winchester, CAC & Remington brass. I just tossed any with split necks. With improving circumstances I switched to Norma brass exclusively. I don't anneal, ever, and still get the very odd split neck, but rarely. Most of my various loads hover around max level and I can get a case handloading life of roughly 20 loads .

How do you resize your brass?
If the neck is being sized too small then expanded a lot, a dry type of lube inside the neck may benefit you.
I would also recommend polishing the expander to be .002"-.0015" under bullet diameter.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

check your sizing die - make sure that it isn't oversizing the neck

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:
check your sizing die - make sure that it isn't oversizing the neck

^^^^^^ THIS^^^^^^^
Had the same problem with my 375H&H die. It was sizing the necks down about .010 and the necks split on the second or third firing. Take your expand/decap stem out and size a couple of cases. Measure the sized inside diameter, for a 300 cal it should be only slightly smaller (1-2 thousandths?) smaller than 308. If it is more, send a couple of fired cases, a couple of sized cases and the die back to the manufacturer explaining the problem.

Blacktailor, I think you might be right. I haven’t checked yet but I have noticed when resizing, it is much harder to pull the case out on the downstroke than most other cartridges with other dies. I will check on that.

Bad brass. Proper Brass will take sizing .010 down and up for more than three times.

crazy. As a useless comparison, my 7mm SAUM Brass goes 8-10 reloads with no annealing before I see neck splits.

On the other had my 300 H&H (pre-64 70) would split after 2-3 reloads.

The die suggestion is a very interesting one.