308 Win military cartridge identification

[375RUGER]

While sizing a new batch of mil brass, I ran into a several of these FC headstamps that were quite different than the other FC headstamps.
Extremely heavy crimp on the primer. I used a hammer and punch to get one out, and it took a beating.
Any idea what these did for a living? What they were fired in to leave the ridges in the shoulder area?

[groovy mike]

Your "ridges" are from gas blow back in a fluted chamber. These were fired from an HK91, G3, Cetme or similar design. They are perfectly fine for reloading. As to the primer removal - step #1 - confirm that they are Boxer primed not Berdan (one center flash hole not two offset). FC should be Boxer primed. They are probably just heavily crimped primers common to military use.

[375RUGER]

Thanks for the G3 lead.
Definitely Boxer, and a much heavier crimp than common military use.

[MtGun44]

Definitely G3/HK91 chamber marks. Perhaps there is a blank for launching
rifle grenades from that rifle.

Bill

[Just Duke]

HK-91. I have reloaded the up to 10 times.

[45 2.1]

The flutes are VERY light to have come from those rifles. Usually they are a lot more defined. H&K did make a couple of commercial rifles with that system, but I have never got to examine a case out of them.

[johniv]

Fluted chamber, as noted above, also some of the commercial HK's had a boss in the middle of the bolt face that swaged the primers of commercial ammo in place to keep the primers in place during the rather violent extraction of the brass. This was common in their model
770,940 and 630 sporting rifles. caliber, 308, 30-06 and 223 respectivly.
John

[Just Duke]

Also if they were shot out of an HK-91 the fella that shot them used a case buffer. There is no huge dent in the side of the case.

[nicholst55]

According to The Cartridge Collector's (http://cartridgecollectors.org/?page=headstampcodes#F) website, FC could be Federal Cartridge, Departmento de la Industrial Militar, Mexico City, Mexico; or Prvi Partizan, Titovo, Uzice 31000, Yugoslavia. So just because they say 'FC' doesn't mean they're Federal.