As far as I am aware... Remington and Winchester cases are not annealed from the factory.  Privi cases are, however and if you are using .303 British cases, then you should be good to go from the start.

That said, I'm not by any means the expert here as far as metallurgy goes, so I can only offer lay advice... but I believe that annealing the cases once should be sufficient.  Annealing the case necks makes them pliable and more easily repeatedly resized without stress cracking (Brass, although soft in nature, can become brittle with repeated working AND heating, ala firing).

I know there are several accepted methods for annealing the case necks, and I won't dispute one method over another... but the method I use is this:  I chuck my case up in my drill using my LEE case trimmer adapter.  I then spin the case while applying a blue-tipped flame from my butane torch until the brass changes color down to about 1/4 inch past the shoulder.  I then loosen the adapter and let the case fall into a metal bowl to cool naturally.  Some quench the brass but my feelings are quenching can cause brittleness (you quench other metals to harden them!).  Using the drill allows me to heat the brass evenly, rather than obtaining hot spots.  This method seems to work well for me, and I've got almost 20 reloads on some of my Krag brass!

As for expanding the case necks to .358... I've never done that, so I really can't comment on it.  I defer to others with more experience in that department!

Yeah, I figured you already knew what you were doing, and put my method in there for those reading this thread who didn't, LOL

In dropping my brass into a metal bowl to cool, I just don't try to handle them until I'm done with all of them, and allowed the entire lot to cool sufficiently before I try to handle any (I did pick up a hot one once... wasn't fun after about a millisecond).

Interesting thing about Remington brass... it doesn't show the heat tint as much as say Winchester or others.  I notice Winchester brass polishes up much brighter than Remington does too.  Once upon a time, I used red tuffnut in my tumbler, and some of the Remington brass also took on a slight red tint too!  Strange...

Thanks, Parashooter.
I did fairly well confirm that new brass is fairly well annealed so my first annealing was a waste of time. There is so much contradictory info on the web. Annealing and work hardening of cartridge brass seems to be worse since the big boys (Rem Win, Fed and etc.) do not share info. 303Se stainless look it up in a manufacturers hand book. Cartridge brass you can find so many answers that are 180 degrees off. Looks like graphite maybe a better lube than the RCBS lanolin I was using. I will try it out if the local hardware store has it.
Here are some of the things that I found that sounded sorta reasonable, No guarantees because the info comes from the WEB.
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(You need to Login to view media files and links) Says quenching in water improves grain structure? Too many people that ought to know better do not quench.

Parashooter wrote on Apr 19^th, 2016 at 7:44pm:


I did not know that Para.  Good to know though...  Thanks Para.