W.D.
A couple of comments on your annealing and sizing videos. I can see some things that are causing you problems.
I've got a lot of experience on doing this sort of stuff.. and also being self taught, I also taught myself of WHAT NOT TO DO.
1. Where you were crushing your annealed brass but not so with your unannealed brass:
Couple things I would point out that might be your problem with the annealed brass. The 17 cal, makes for a small neck, so you have very tight tolerances. The reason I believe you are not having a lot of problems with unannealed brass, but are with the annealed brass, is that the annealed brass is air cooling and is having tighter neck walls, than the unannealed brass is having.
you can solve this problem, by putting a cleaning rod brush down the neck and cleaning the gunk out of it, left over from the last firing of the round Do this before you anneal it.
the easier way, I'd try, is to neck down the brass first to 17 caliber, and THEN anneal it afterwards. You're putting the cart before the horse in this step the way you are doing it now.
I'd also ask Redding if they have a tapered decapping rod. ( and yeah, take the decapping pin off of it. ). Remove the factory one, and neck it down to 17 cal, without a decapping rod in there. Then it will take a second pass thru to open up the neck, to seat a bullet in that thin neck.
If you are using Boat Tail bullets, like Hornady's 17 caliber ones are... you probably won't even need to run the rod thru the case, to open it up a little. The boat tail bullet, will pass thru and open the neck up itself. The one down side, is if you can seat your bullet down the neck, without having a bulge below where the bullet stops in the seating process.
I wrestled with all of this, in make a chambering in a 17 Fireball. I was managing 15 or so reloads before case failure in the 17 FB. I annealed each sizing time, but sized the neck back down and then annealed secondly. It eliminated the number of crushed necks you were experiencing doing it the way you were.
I'd also recommend decapping your fired brass first, in two steps. Put the 17 decapping spindle, in a 223 case, and decap the primer out. THEN neck the case back down in your 17/223 die, with NO Decapping spindle in it.
My 17 FB die set was an RCBS set. I went thru a batch of decapping spindles and pins, and sent it back to RCBs. One of their service techs, called me up and we talked for 15 to 20 minutes on the phone. He sent my die back to me, but he had opened it up to where I didn't need the decapping spindle in the die, since I had said I was using a 223 die to run a decapping spindle with a taper one it to decap, doing it in two steps instead of one. he just sent it to me and I was never charged for it... he did it because he was a 17 FB shooter also.
