Hi,

I was hope you guys can help me. I am reloading Federal 308 brass, Once fired. I am using 45.1 grains of Win 760 and Sierra 165 grain Game king bullet heads and I am experiencing these splits in the necks. I am not sure if its just bad brass or its something Im doing wrong.

Other than your load being particularly light (Hodgdon shows 48-52 charge weight range), I would probably chalk it up to your particular stock of brass, not knowing all of the details.

How many splits have you had occur? What kind of sizing die are you using?

Are you sure they are once-fired? Split necks are from the brass being work hardened from multiple firings. If you anneal the cases, it should not split. I've never seen necks split on truly once fired 308 brass. I would anneal them, and it should solve your problem.

Im using RCBS dies, Out of 20 I would say 15 split.
Thanks

Thanks, I bought a few boxes of Federal bullets, the ones in the blue box and I saved those brass. Thats what Im using. Now those are the cheap bullets like 16.00 per box. I never annealed before so I will google that and give it a try as I still have about 50 rounds of Brass.
Thanks a bunch for your help.

On youtube there are videos of using a drill, socket, torch and pan of water or oil to aneal. Works pretty good

Thanks a bunch for the links, I will check them out when I get home from work.

I agree that if truely once-fired, it would be unusual for the splits.
But if it's from work hardened necks, the annealing should sure fix it.

Sounds about par for federal brass. I have had the worst experience with splitting using federal.

like others have said , looks like work hardened necks/cases

if you don't have carbide dies, you must remember to lube the case and necks

You know I never lubed the neck cases, just rolled them on the lube mat. Im kinda new to reloading so there ya go. I will learn how to aneal them and report back. Thank you all so much

if you bought the RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme kit , it comes with a nylon brush to apply lube inside of necks

Yup, thats the one I have. Ok. I will try that tonight before I aneal them and fire off a few rounds and see how they do. I guess I may be cracking them with out using the lube and not seeing the stress crack untill after I fire them. Would that be a possibility?
Thanks

you didn't crack it, you stressed it

you have a dirty inside neck
not lubed, so it's gritty and dry

you pushed an expanding ball through it , stretching the brass
you pushed a collet down, stretching the brass

think metal galling, pulling, stretching

you now have a piece of brass that is hardened, stretched thin

you set off an explosion , brass expand but too brittle so it cracks under pressure

If it's once fired then no matter the process used if it cracked it is sorry brass. Annealing will probably help the problem. I had this happen with a batch of once fired 22-250 Winchester white box brass. About half split in the shoulder area so I trashed it all.

^^^^ Exactly. The brass I see that split the easiest on once-fired is the small diameter brass, like 22-250, 204 Ruger, and some 223. The 204 was the worst. I've loaded a lot of once-fired brass, and had about 25% get cracked necks. Also, if you neck up a case and make the necks thinner, it's more important to anneal to prevent split necks.

buy Winchester brass and junk yours if it is junk it is junk