If anyone is wondering -
You can chuck a 1/4” drive extension into a Ryobi 18v drill and use a 3/8” socket to pretty much perfectly hold a 5.56 case. This is more poor man’s annealing setup. Tempilaq on the case, butane torch, power drill.
If anyone is wondering -
You can chuck a 1/4” drive extension into a Ryobi 18v drill and use a 3/8” socket to pretty much perfectly hold a 5.56 case. This is more poor man’s annealing setup. Tempilaq on the case, butane torch, power drill.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
Definitely going to anneal. I've actually got some Tempilaq and a good torch kit on the way from Amazon.
My process right now:
Cut to relatively short length with tubing cutter (1.36" or so)
Form and decap
Trim back down to ~1.36"
Anneal
Load
Or at least, that will be my workflow, if FedEx ever delivers my fucking dies. FedEx decided my neighborhood is too "unsafe" and hasn't done deliveries here in nearly 10-days and won't let me pick up my package...
My understanding is that a lot of .300 brass formed from 5.56 will get split case necks in just a couple of loadings, basically due to the work hardening from cutting and reforming the brass without annealing. I could maybe get away with annealing, because I'm using all Lake City once-fired brass that was annealed initially. But why risk it? It adds a step, but I'm loading in lots of 50-100 rounds, it takes 5-seconds to anneal a case.
I’ve never had an issue with split cases formed from 5.56 brass, and some of my cases have been reloaded multiple, multiple MULTIPLE times. From the knowledge I’ve acquired annealing precision rifle brass, I would be more concerned about damaging the case due to over-annealing than splitting necks. Overdo it and you weaken the case head significantly. This can lead to ruptured case heads.
Working diligently to enlarge my group size.
I was only thinking of annealing the case necks. And I was under the impression the best way to do is is tempilaq and then dunk them into water.
I have plenty of brass (I bought ~2000 pieces). So I might try a lot here of a couple hundred cases without annealing and see what happens.
Range day Sunday afternoon with wife - orientation day for her on the AR pistol in 300BO. We shot the final 50 of the "30 Carbine" 110s FMJs with no issue. She had no issues with the 300BO. I need to order some more of the 110 FMJs. Loaded about 90 Hornady 110 Varmint SPs to have on hand.
Solid.
My Lee dies finally got here this morning. So, I spent time this afternoon forming some of my cut brass and doing some trimming. I guess I can finally order powder now (the last thing I need. I honestly wasn't going to bother until I had dies and bullets). Looks like the expander in my Lee dies will be just about right for Speer TNTs. I measured a random sampling of case neck diameters at 7.8mm and my TNTs are 7.7mm in diameter at the base. Should be just about perfect.
What are folks running their trim lengths at?
Ideally, I'm running mine right about 1.36" or 34.5mm, but I have a few cases that are on the short side at 1.338-1.340'ish - which is right around 1/100th outside the SAAMI spec on length (1.348" is min for SAAMI).
I'm trying to decide if I should ditch the shorter cases, or load and fire them, knowing that they'll length when I fire them. Since .300 headspaces off of the shoulder and the 1/100th is on the neck side of the equation, I should be good, right? I think I'm overthinking this.
Trimming to 1.358".
I really don't know how much case neck tension and surface area is required to keep a 300 BLK from setting back, but I wouldn't really want to find out. For what that gun cost and the potential for injury, I'd ditch the brass.