Federal brass has a reputation for being "soft" and wearing out quicker that "harder" brass (i.e. loose primer pockets, etc). Whether that reputation is fully deserved or not I couldn't say, but in some cases is does seem to hold true.
I've reloaded Federal 7mm Remington Magnum and Federal 223 Remington brass. The 7mm RM brass is from late 2008 (factory ammo) and the 223 brass is from 2016-2017 (range pickup).
I've only used the Federal 7mm RM brass for fouling or plinking rounds but this brass does seem to conform to the reputation of being "soft". Using a TruAngle tool to correct run-out on loaded ammo, there is a quite noticeable difference in how much less pressure needs to be applied to bend the necks into alignment vs Winchester brass. IIRC, the first time I used the TruAngle tool to straighten the Federal ammo, I completely "over corrected" so that it's run-out was the same or sightly worse in the opposite direction! I haven't pushed this brass hard or even used full power loads in it, so I can't say if the primer pockets would loosen quicker than the Winchester brass I use for my practice and hunting loads.
As for 223 Rem, I typically use Remington (R-P) head stamped brass. Most of the initial load work-ups I've done with Federal (FC) brass has shown larger groups than I've gotten with either R-P or LC brass. Not wanting to waste it I used the FC brass for my reduced "bunny loads" where I shoot a 55gr Hornady SP at 2,100 fps. I get sub 1.5 MOA with this combination, which I'm more than happy with considering neither the FC brass nor the Hornady bullet had much to show for them in full-power loads in my rifle.
While I think that the standard line of Federal factory ammo is excellent, and one of my first choices if I'm stuck with factory ammo, I'm not a huge fan of their brass. Hopefully, their new stuff has indeed been improved as you seem to have found.
