Deacpping 223 Crimped Primers

[jonbearman]

Look into the case with a flashlight and if you see 2 flash holes off center,that is berdan.Alot of FNH brass is berdan. My guess is you picked up a bunch of berdan primed cases.

 

[bigedp51]

bigedp51, Since I have a lathe I'll see if I can make up a go/no-go gauge. Thanks for all the info and pics.

Thumb

Its a shame but the majority of the Federal ammunition you buy with Lake City cases are LC cases that failed quality mil-spec inspection. Meaning the cases are not up to military standards and might have oversized primer pockets or other defects. Much of the M193 type cheaper blasting ammo will have defective cases with case neck thickness variations, wide variations in case weight or oversized primer pockets. It is very hard to find actual once fired military Lake City cases but these cases are much more uniform and a higher quality control standard.

Bottom line, you can't just sort these cases by their date stamp and if you want high grade and quality cases you will have to inspect each case. Meaning case weight, primer pockets, case wall uniformity and neck uniformity if you want more than blasting ammo.

Below, mil-spec 5.56 requirements, cases that fail these requirements are sold by Federal as cheaper military grade blasting ammo. (M193 type) Please note neck thickness is only allowed to vary .002, and I have some LC Federal cases with neck thicknesses way over these limits along with primer pockets.

 

[Thumb]

These Lake City cases are ones that I have shot and all from the same lot. I have already measured the lengths at least and I would say 98% of them were 1.76" in length and the 2% that were not I trimmed but that's all I measured.

I also didn't know about crimped primers either until I started digging more into reloading these cases. I know that my friend has been reloading the Lake City M193 cases for years and he never mentioned having any problems with them other than only reloading them at a max of 4 times.

I guess I can check them all since I have so many of them though.

Thanks for the insight on all this, it will come in handy.

 

[jonbearman]

One other curve ball would be having the decapping pin too far extended which makes it more flexible.You have to extend it for large cases but they usually dont have crimped primers.