Which brass

[Rick in Oregon]

acloco: I guess the mystery continues then, as I can't believe that Winchester sends all the "good" brass out west. I'll just be content then with my good fortune of having consistent WW 204 brass neck thickness and zero split necks.

Of course because now I've said that, you know what will happen upon my next neck sizing/shooting session.......

[Verminator2]

I haven't had a problem with Winchester having split necks

[K_Hini]

I have used nothing but winchester brass so far and have had no issues with it!! Except right out of the bag having a crushed neck!! Other than that it has been great!!

kyle

[acloco]

RIO/All.....no...I just believe that this is my own little personal karma of 204 reloading!!!!

The brass is from different lots as well. Some from Midway, Cabela's, & local gunshop.

[skipper]

Since I started annealing my WW case necks right out of the bag, I don't have a problem with split necks.

I'm not sure about the neck sizing theory. We're both sizing the neck whether full length sizing or just neck sizing. It's splitting from the mouth back towards the shoulder so I'm puzzled about that myself. Anybody ever think to measure whether the case grew or shrank when the neck split? Have we ever compared after firing O.D. of case necks to determine if there were a certain chamber diameter that was prone to splitting? We might uncover something if we started keeping those kinds of notes.

1) If your rifle has a tendency to split WW case necks on firing, what is the outside diameter of your other unsplit WW case necks after firing??
2) What was the case length of your WW brass before firing and after firing when the case neck split?

[Hawkeye Joe]

It took 8 firings without annealing for my WW brass to work harden enough to split the necks.

[jo191145]

It might be more luck of the draw in lot#'s that we're seeing.
I have 600 pcs of Win brass from years back that I consider useless. Neck thickness variations of .004 and a few split necks straight out of the bag.
As Skipper stated annealing seems to solve that problem. I think the huge neck variations are the reason I could'nt develop a consistently accurate load with that brass. Neck turned them all down to .010 and saw some improvement.
Reduced neck tension to almost zero and I saw more improvement. It wasn't worth the effort for me.
Reloading is all about removing variables that cause inaccuracy and I don't trust that brass.

The last lot of Win brass I bought in 223 had neck thickness consistency that would make Lapua jealous.
The primer pockets loosened up after the first firing though.

Cheap brass can be a crapshoot but I think in overall its improving compared to the early days when everyone was rushing the new 204 stuff out the door.

[badhop]

I bought a box of Winchester 34gr ammo when I picked up my 204 to break in the barrel. 3 out of the 20 rounds had spit necks after being fired about 4 of the cases were longer than spec by a couple of thousandths. The shortest was 1.848". I have a bag of a hundred Winchester brass that I'm going to anneal before I prep them after reading these posts.