I recently bought a thousand fully processed military .223/5.56 cases. The pockets were swaged, they claimed, to remove the crimp.

So I go to prime the cases with CCI 400 primers but the primers were really hard to seat. It felt like a two-step process, as if the primer had to get past an obstruction before seating. When I examined the seater, I found these:



Little crescents of brass shaved from the primer pockets.

I have no experience with military cases, but it seems to me the primer pockets haven't been swaged properly. I'm willing to accept that I'm doing something wrong, but when I swapped out the military cases for some of my prior brass the primers seated smoothly.

So is it me or the brass?




P

Probably the brass.
You can make your life easier by getting a nice, multiple-flute countersink (mine's a Stanley, 5 flutes, forget when I got it, long time) and banging through the whole batch. You don't have to skin off much (see your shavings) but the 45 degree bevel also helps seating.
I just put the countersink in the drill press, run it at pretty fast revs and "bzzt" it for a second at most with consistent hand pressure and time. The trick is to be pretty close to "square" -- just "bzzt" off enough that you see a shiny ring all around the pocket. If the ring is all the way, you're good. Not all the way? A little more "bzzt."
I set up the work table on the press pretty high, this is to minimize hand motion and also as an arm rest of sorts. But you need to be careful, no long sleeves or rings. I have two containers set up, one full, one empty, "bzzt," peek, flick the finished case into the other container.
The other factor might be the primers. I can't remember, but one of the SR primers I use seems to be a hair "fatter" and needs to be seated carefully. Might be CCI 400s, but I use them anyway in my 223s because they give really good results, nice groups.
But I have attacked a number of crimped batches in this way and have had no problems with gas leaks or other scary things.

You know it's the brass. I don't even deal with military chit anymore. Too much of a damn headache...

I do the same thing that Dave does. It does not take long and you don't have to do it again.

I find LC 5.56 cases to be more consistent than most commercial brass and they last a long time.

Michael

I paid for fully prepped, by golly I'm getting fully prepped.





P

That's between you and your seller. Incomplete crimp removal is your problem.

Yep.

This brass is less than "fully processed".

I see it differently. I paid with a MasterCard, I'll be sending the brass back.





P

If he advertised fully processed with crimps removed he didn't give it to you. Hold them to their advertisement.
Might just be a mistake, but he still owes you what you paid for.

Pharmseller, I agree that this is incomplete crimp removal. I've had that same thing happen to me a number of times (I used exclusively CCI primers for years until the shortages of the last presidency) when I cut the pockets, but cut too little from them. So, cutting pockets sometimes forced me to remove more metal than I wanted to in order to avoid this issue. I also experienced this issue some when I used an RCBS primer pocket swager. I have not had the issue at any time since moving to a Dillon primer pocket swage.

The point? The processor didn't deliver what they advertised, and it may be that they would benefit from a different tool (or better set-up). The equipment issue is obviously not your issue. That's just an information-sharing observation.

Yeah, I kind of agree that's not fully processed. If you don't like the handwork and that's something you wanted to avoid, by all means -- begone.