Help with identifying crimped primers in factory ammo

[bbowles]

Haven't reloaded in 20 years. Just got new equipment and am looking over brass and most has small shiny ring around primer pocket. So been googling to research and can't figure out if what I have is crimped. I have Winchester match which has small shiny ring around pocket and is not real symmetrically round (offset circle). Then have hornady match and has small shiny ring. Have lots of fed/American Eagle (black box) with FC head stamp again with small shiny ring. Remington with rp head stamp but NO shiny ring. Barnes tsx with Barnes head stamp and NO ring. Fusion with FC 13 head stamp with shiny ring AND green color on only ring area. Winch white box with WCC 13 head stamp with slight ring. PPU head stamp with NO ring. Fed XM 193 FMJ with LC 13 head stamp with small ring.

So....can someone help a confused guy so that I can be safe and not ruin my equipment? From reading many sites it doesn't sound like will hurt sizing/decap die but will just be harder to deprime. But in installing new primer with crimp sounds dangerous. Thanks for your help!

 

[ChrisGarrett]

Most all NATO speced ammo is crimped in. Some Federal commercial 223 stuff has used crimped in LC brass, so with Federal stuff, there's no rhyme or reason.

Pop a couple of primers out, after cleaning and see if you can seat fresh primers easily.

You'll pretty much know by then, which are crimped and which aren't.

Chris

 

[bbowles]

I will size/decap in next few days. Can't get to this for a week. But will do as you suggest.

 

[fdkay]

My American Eagle 168 OTM match load has crimped primers (intended as match load for a gas gun)

Most ammo that is made specifically for gas guns will have crimped primers.

 

[lightman]

If it has a shiny ring around the primer, it was probably crimped. Although you listed a few that I did not know would be crimped. Like Chris posted, try to gently seat a primer and see how difficult that is. There are lots of ways to deal with a crimp, its just another step in your case prep and only has to be done once. Tools can range from cheap to around $100.00. Lightman

 

[dondlhmn]

Ammo that is highly likely to be used by military or LEOs in a semi-auto gun will probably have crimped in primers for a couple of reasons (1) Semi-autos are pretty hard on ammunition and if a primer is going to back out, during feeding, a semi auto will likely make it happen....and if it only comes part way out, the likelihood of a slam fire increases. (2) Most Military and LEOs view a crimped primer as being a necessity for reliability.

That all being said, the primers can be removed with a sturdy resize die/primer punch in your press, and then the crimp can be removed with a tool (hand held gismo that screws into an RCBS tool handle....and I'm sure that other manufacturers make them, too....) made just for that. Personally, I put the little tool head in the chuck in my lathe and have at a bunch of the cases after the primer has been punched out. I just did a batch of Hornady Match .308 the other day...about 300 of them and the ENTIRE process (de-priming and opening up the crimps) consumed about 45 minutes IIRC. Once the crimps are removed (they are really only a small ring of brass that gets "squished" in around the very outer end of the primer pocket), the primers seat press in nicely and the brass can be reloaded pretty normally.

 

[mtrmn]

I deprime mine with my regular sizing die. I keep a supply of extra decapping pins just in case, but if you go at a steady pace you shouldn't have too much trouble. Many use a seperate decapping die that does not size the case, and I have one, but never really needed it.
There are many methods of fixing the crimp and everyone has their favorites. Some use a phillips bit in a drill, some use their deburring tool, and there's a lot of swaging tools out there. Swaging pushes the brass out of the way and reaming removes brass. I personally recommend the CH4D swaging tool for high volume swaging. It's the fastest I've seen.
Priming & Swage Kit : CH4D

 

[tomme boy]

If it is 223 brass, keep the Remington brass and get rid of all the others. It will be the one that does not have a crimp. A few years back, they did have crimped primers but it is very rare to find them now. I sell all other brands and only keep the rem. Too much work to mess with the others.

 

[bbowles]

tomme boy,
So you think even all the Winchester & Hornady brass is crimped too?

 

[tomme boy]

Not all of it is. One way to tell is look for a primer sealant. Usually if it has a primer sealant, it has a crimp.

 

[George63]

If it is 223 brass, keep the Remington brass and get rid of all the others. It will be the one that does not have a crimp. A few years back, they did have crimped primers but it is very rare to find them now. I sell all other brands and only keep the rem. Too much work to mess with the others.

obviously you are not processing on a 1050

to the OP: crimped primers are a fact of reloading - figure out your system and start processing them, you will eventually anyway

 

[bbowles]

tomme boy,
I don't see any primer sealant on these. I just can't get time for few days to pop primers out to see. Was just hoping to be able to tell before messing with them.

I don't intend on messing with any brass with crimped primers. Will sell them and just either buy factory Reminton (if they don't have crimps) or buy new brass.

 

[tomme boy]

Any of the FC small print, WCC, Speer, LC, Some Win, PPU, NNY, Some PMC, Some Hornady. List goes on and on. Look for the sealant. That is the easiest way. This is with 5.56 brass right? Thats what I'm basing this off of. I pick up about 1500 pcs every week end in the summer. Sometimes more. You get an eye for it after a while. Like I said, the RP brass is the easiest to see it is not crimped. Or if you buy new unprimed, then they will not be crimped.

 

[Pinecone]

The best way to deprime unknown brass is with a Lee Universal Decapping Die. You really have to work to break the pin. The decapping rod is held in a collet so it slides if you try to decap a Berdan case. Crimped primers are nothing to it. I have decapped MANY thousands of .223 and .308 crimped primers with mine.

As for dealing with the cases, I prefer the Dillon 600 Super Swager. About $100, but lifetime purchase. I tried the RCBS press based kit and it was, IMO, worthless. I reamed a large number of cases, but find that literally painful, and tends to make the primer pocket too large.

 

[bbowles]

I finally got around to trying my first brass. Ran handful of Rem brass thru whole process without a glitch. Shot 3 rounds of VMax 50 gr with CFE powder and cycled and shot great.

So I tried Hornady Factory Match brass next. I tumbled and then ran case neck brush thru. Then lubed and FL sized pushing back shoulder about .003". I did notice some of the primers not coming fully out of case without running again 2 or 3 times. So ran decap pin a little deeper and seemed to be fine.

Then I get to flash hole debur first case and then tried to put Sinclair primer pocket uniformer in case and wouldn't begin to go in. So I guess I have found 2 things: 1) that Hornady Match brass is crimped (checked 2 different lots) and that if my primer pocket uniformer won't fit then it is primed. Is this a fair assessment?

Also, I can now see that the Hornady has a small ring around inside top of pocket and that the Rem did not.

Thanks for all your help with another newbie question! Hope everyone here has a Merry Christmas!

 

[bbowles]

Decided to test all the other factory brass I have by sizing/decap and then seeing if my Sinclair uniformer would fit in pocket, like I did the Rem and Hornady. Here is my findings:

Uniformer fit easily into pocket:
Barnes, Winch Match, Fed (FC head stamp), Fed/Amer Eagle (black box w/ FC and 3 evenly placed circles), winch varmint x, PPU headstamp, Winch white box (WCC 13 head stamp), XM193 FMJ (LC 13 head stamp).

Uniformer DID NOT fit at all in these:
hornady match, Fusion (FC 13 head stamp)

Surprised me as to which ones. ESP since many that fit had small ring around inside top of pocket and most seemed off center and rings not complete circle.

I hope my uniformer tool test confirms that these don't need crimps removed. I wouldn't think so since primer should seat as easily as uniformer fit fully into pocket. Anybody confirm my test is accurate? Thanks.

 

[bbowles]

I have a lot of American Eagle black box (with FC and 3 evenly spaced circles on headstamp) which doesn't seem to be primer crimped. See above post. I think I will start loading it along with my Rem cases. Anybody know about Amer Eagle quality?

 

[tomme boy]

They have a light crimp. Some will load fine and some will crush the primer. Federal has two fc stamps. Large and small. The large is not crimped.

 

[bbowles]

Tomme boy,
I just prepped 80 cases of mixed Amer Eagle and found several very hard to seat. Seated with RCBS hand primer. The hard ones did seat but shaved some metal from primer. Most of them, even ones seated hard, seated .003 - .005. Will these that shaved metal still fire well? Did I crush primer? All I could see was shaving of metal. Many of the batch seated like normal though.

 

[bbowles]

Tomme boy,
How do you tell large and small?