Crimped Primer pockets. help me understand

[piwo]

Ok, so when is the "CRIMP" on the military primer pocket performed? I ask because there are a couple places right now to buy NEW, UNPRIMED Lake City 5.56 brass at a pretty decent price. One says in the description that the primer pockets do not need de-crimping, the other says nothing about it. I've never used milspec brass in my reloading and am ignorant of when that "CRIMP" is applied. If the brass is "Once Fired", it will have a crimp unless it's been removed. That much I understand. But what about new brass that's never been primed? Do they prime, then crimp, or vice versa? I think it's prime then crimp, but hey, I don't know. So many times when I think I'm applying sound logic, I look my worst!

I know there's folks out here who know!

[BruceB]

Think about it.

The crimp is applied to stop primers from backing-out of their pockets, so it's pretty obvious that the crimp is applied AFTER the primers are seated.

"New" brass will never have been crimped. Most once-fired military brass HAS been crimped, except possibly for some Match loadings. Various suppliers may offer brass with the crimps intact, or else "processed", which usually means the crimps are removed before sale.

Crimp removal is a pain in the butt, being boring and repetitious. I'd say buy the processed stuff (or new, as you mentioned) to avoid the chore. Still, if money is tight or brass hard-to-come-by, the do-it-yourself crimp-removal option is viable.

[piwo]

alright then... My initial take was right on... but like I said, whenever I apply logic to this endeavor, I'm almost always red in the face. Midway USA has it in stock for a pretty decent discount over what was available previously, and Natchez Shooters had even better, but they don't actually have it in stock...... backorder.

I've seen the once fired processed, crimp removed on TOP BRASS site for a fair price, but was looking for new, unfired. I open to shelling out a bit of money, but having good pile of brass for some time.

Thanks for the clarification and confirmation. I probably should have KNOWN better, but never having reloaded military brass, I wanted to confirm....

[doubs43]

I bought 500 pieces of the Lake City brass, new & unprimed, about 6 or 8 months back. It is not crimped.

[piwo]

I bought 500 pieces of the Lake City brass, new & unprimed, about 6 or 8 months back. It is not crimped.

I have an order in for 500 pieces: Natchez Shooter had 1000 pieces for a good price but of course didn't have it in stock. I suspect when it is, it won't be at that good price...... My friend won't do business with them because of some past dealings with them, but I guess I'll try folks until they do me wrong... But they don't have any so it's moot....

[MakeMineA10mm]

I think you're better off with the brand new brass, not only for the lack of messing with the crimp, but also because you know it's in good shape. A significant percentage of "once-fired" 223 brass that is ex-military has been fired from M-249 SAWs (machineguns), and this brass has a tendency to be damaged to the point of making it of questionable value. (It often gets banana-shaped length-wise, due to the violent process of feeding, firing, and ejecting through the action.)

I have thousands of once-fired 5.56, but it was all fired in M-16s in my presence, so I know it isn't machine-gun fired brass. I got it for free, so I'll go through the effort of dealing with the primer crimp... Also, it all came from two lots of ammo, so I got the benefit of very consistent lots of brass.

I just got done processing 1000 pieces of ex-military 30-06 brass, and removing the crimps is only one of many stages of processing that older stuff. (I also had to anneal it, because brass age-hardens and at 50+ years old, it needed annealing, even though it had never been fired.) It was pull-down, so it had been loaded; therefore, even though it was never fired, it was loaded, so it had crimped pockets... Yeah, it's work and time, but I know what I've got in that brass!

[Hang Fire]

Most all military brass primers are crimped, aside from NM, of which I was able to get a 5 gallon bucket full of 7.62x51 years ago.

[Char-Gar]

Many years ago, I was given a 5 gallon bucket filled with LC 54 (30-06) once fired brass. Over the years it is now all gone. I fired it in many 30-06 rifles, and converted it to other calibers such as the 8X57.

I don't find removing the primer crimp to be much of an issue. It is good stuff and don't hesitate to use it, if it can be had.

[AZ-Stew]

Piwo,

If you have already worked up loads for your .223 in commercial brass, be sure to drop the charge weight back a couple of grains and work back up with the MIL-spec brass. MIL brass is typically thicker than commercial, giving you a smaller combustion chamber and higher pressures.

Regards,

Stew

[nicholst55]

Piwo,

If you have already worked up loads for your .223 in commercial brass, be sure to drop the charge weight back a couple of grains and work back up with the MIL-spec brass. MIL brass is typically thicker than commercial, giving you a smaller combustion chamber and higher pressures.

Regards,

Stew

While this is definitely true with .30-06 and 7.62mm NATO brass, it is not necessarily true with 5.56mm brass; it tends to run in the middle of the pack for thickness. I've personally verified this with around 10-12 different headstamps of brass, including 5-6 different year/plant headstamps of USGI brass; others have done the same and published the results. Some of the foreign brass tends to be be both thicker and softer than USGI, so all bets are off if you use that.

[MakeMineA10mm]

While this is definitely true with .30-06 and 7.62mm NATO brass, it is not necessarily true with 5.56mm brass; it tends to run in the middle of the pack for thickness. I've personally verified this with around 10-12 different headstamps of brass, including 5-6 different year/plant headstamps of USGI brass; others have done the same and published the results. Some of the foreign brass tends to be be both thicker and softer than USGI, so all bets are off if you use that.

Yep, that's been my experience too, almost exactly.

In fact, I've also found some issues with applying the rule to 30-06 brass. In my collection of 30-06, I've found some commercial Remington (R-P headstamp) that was just as heavy as Lake City 1950s 30-06, whereas some more modern, commercial Win brass is much lighter. I wouldn't switch any kind of cases without adjusting the load, and I wouldn't assume Military is ALWAYS thicker/heavier.

There was a small batch of military 308 brass I was given by an Air Force guy who said it was loaded for miniguns, and because of their cycling system, the web of the brass about half-way up the powder chamber was twice to three times thicker than standard 7.62 NATO. It was impossible to load as hot, because of the greatly reduced capacity limited powder charges so much. That was long before I was into cast boolits, or I'd have saved that brass for cast loads (with the smaller powder charges it would have been perfect).

[AZ-Stew]

I developed a load for my M-788 Remington back in the late 70s using commercial brass that worked fine and was accurate (10 shots under a dime at 100), but that would blow primers in MIL brass of that generation. YMMV.

Regards,

Stew

[Baron von Trollwhack]

I'm glad you said that nicholst55. There is a lot of story around our hobby, quite a bit of which is just not so, yet still gets passed around like it happened yesterday.

6BR has a great article specifically addressing 556 case weight for many brands including military and it covers this issue. I gave up worrying about name brand brass for 556 in the 70s. I segregate 556 for other reasons though. BvT

[shotman]

guessing st used a rem 223 in 788 or 700 mil case is little different in neck and once fired work good in the remmys Mil stuff is hot and dont do well in a remmy I think rem is a 12 to 1 and mil stuff is for 10 to 1

[nicholst55]

guessing st used a rem 223 in 788 or 700 mil case is little different in neck and once fired work good in the remmys Mil stuff is hot and dont do well in a remmy I think rem is a 12 to 1 and mil stuff is for 10 to 1

Yes, the neck of a 5.56mm case is significantly longer than commercial .223 brass. Military M193 Ball (55 grain) is rated for a 1:12" twist; M855 Ball (62 grain) is rated for a 1:7" twist, although it will work equally well in a 1:9" or 1:8" twist. The reason the military went with a 1:7" twist is to stabilize the M856 Tracer cartridge, which uses a significantly longer bullet.

Stew, I don't doubt your experience with military brass. I have some TW 73 headstamped brass that is slightly heavier and thicker than more recently manufactured brass.

[c3d4b2]

Here is a link with the weight of different brands of .223 brass. You will need to scan down the page.

http://www.accurateshooter.com/cartridge-guides/223rem/

[mroliver77]

While we are on the .223 subject. Has anybody ever ran into Berdan primed 5.56? I bought a box full of brass at a garage sale for a darned good price. The fellow said he fired them his-self. I was grinning when I left. It took a bit to realize what I had. It is the only berdan 5.56 I have ever run across. It is nice stuff though and will be used to make jackets.
Jay

[LuvMy1911]

MidwayUSA has Lake City never fired, no Primer Crimp, on sale untill Mar 30th.

http://www.midwayusa.com/Search/#Lake%20city%20unfired%205.56____-_1-2-4_8-16-32

500 pcs for $79.99
1000 pcs for $149.99
I ordered 500, they are clean and seem to have no badly formed cases.
After reading about the perils of eother swaging or reaming the primer pockets (and living though it on some mil-sup. 8mmx57js brass). I decided the sale price wasn't all that bad.

Hope this helps - Jim

[hillbill]

when i get the crimped brass i just use a deburring tool to remove the crimp from the primer pocket.it will take a little bit to get the feel of it.what i hate is deprimeing crimped brass. if you are not carefull it will break your deprimeing pins in your dies.i dont run really hot loads so i load the mil spec cases same as every thing else.yu will notice if the capacity is different by how far up in the neck the powder comes.i dont like to compress loads very much and if i notice it ill start separateing the cases.

[MakeMineA10mm]

MidwayUSA has Lake City never fired, no Primer Crimp, on sale untill Mar 30th.

http://www.midwayusa.com/Search/#Lake%20city%20unfired%205.56____-_1-2-4_8-16-32

500 pcs for $79.99
1000 pcs for $149.99
I ordered 500, they are clean and seem to have no badly formed cases.
After reading about the perils of eother swaging or reaming the primer pockets (and living though it on some mil-sup. 8mmx57js brass). I decided the sale price wasn't all that bad.

Hope this helps - Jim

I don't know if I'd term it "perils," but your point is well-taken.

I just got done doing 1000 30-06 arsenal brass, and it really wasn't that bad. Did it in about three batches.

I've found the issue with the crimps' removal is inversely proportional to the size of the case and the number of cases you have to process. The 30-06s are easy to handle, and breaking them down into ~300-piece batches wasn't horrible. Now, switch over to processing 10,000 9mms, and it's a HUGE ROYAL PAIN!! :sad:

I've decided to take my brand-new, once-fired military 9mm brass and anneal it and make it into 10mm bullets using the swaging die from BT Sniper. (Check it out in the swaging forum here at CB.) I've got 10,000 military 9mms that were bought from Scharch "processed" so there's no crimps, all re-sized already, and they've even been inspected so any of them where the crmip and corrosion caused the decapper stem to punch out the center of the primer and leave a "ringer" (sidewalls of the primer) stuck in the primer pocket have been sorted out of the batch.

That was the best work-around I could find 20 years ago when there was none of this convenient arsenal-new, never-loaded, never-crimped brass was available... I wonder if Federal will sell 9mms the same way as these 223 some day?

[NoDakJak]

In the mid sixties I acquired about seven hundred once fired 38 Special cases that we fired through the Victory Model Smith & Wessons while qualifying for guard duty. These were the 130 grain FMJ Tracer loads. Headstamps included Winchester, Federal and Remington. I believe that the Remington brass carried RA-62 and RA-64 headstamps but can't swear to the year without searching through boxes of loaded ammo. The Winchester brass did not have crimped primers. It was also thin, flimsy brass and most succumbed within two or three loadings, usually splitting the length of the case. Scary stuff! The Federal and Remington brass was very heavy brass and I am still loading a couple hundred of them after almost fifty years. These will be retired this cycle as I am getting a large number of split case mouths when belling. The Remington and Federal cases had crimped primers! I was taught that crimping primers was to insure more reliable functioning through full auto weapons. I just can't comprehend the reason for crimping primers on revolver cases. Neil

[3006guns]

NoDakJak......you found crimped primers, in REVOLVER ammunition? That IS weird. Sounds like one of those decisions made by a boardroom member of the ammo company that knows nothing about ammo! After all, if you're experiencing primers falling out in a revolver, something else is probably wrong.

To the best of my knowledge primer crimping is simply to keep the primers from "rattling out" when used in full auto applications......in a belt fed machine gun for example. Since you can't guarantee which gun it's going to be used in, you crimp them all as a precaution.

Now, since I have several hundred 30-06 military cases (and other calibers) and I'm too cheap to buy anything new these days, crimp removal has become of some importance. I have an RCBS primer pocket swager but I never could get the primers to seat easily even after that operation. Thanks to someone here on the forum, I started using a case mouth reamer to gently cut a bevel on the pocket mouth. That gets rid of any square edge and makes a world of difference.

[NoDakJak]

I used primer pocket reamers for about fourty years before buying a RCBS swaging tool. Cutting a chamfer on the pcket was even more important when you reamed the pockets. Reaming the pockets was slow and a real pain but it was the only way many of us could manage to get enough brass. Neil