I have been reloading 223 ammo, appx. 100 rounds. It has been working fine, haven't noticed any problems. I had appx. 300 "onc

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I have been reloading 223 ammo, appx. 100 rounds. It has been working fine, haven't noticed any problems. I had appx. 300 "once fired" casings on hand. Some were marked 223 Rem, and some marked 5.56. I had a suspicion the 5.56 casings were ex military. In line with earlier warnings, I tried to ream out the primer pockets, just in case there was the remains of a crimp. As best I could tell all was fine. As stated above, no problems. First of this week, I started reloading 223s again. With the same case prep, when I started repriming these casings, I noticed a very slight crinkle in the "face" of most primers. Hadn't seen this in the earlier reloads. The priming process being the same as in the earlier reloads, I am assuming the primer pockets were not reamed enough. Am I thinking straight, or have I completely missed something? HELP?????? Any ideas? BC

[jhjimbo]

Somehow you are now getting a little extra force on seating the primer. If you are using your press, that adjustment could cause it. If the primer is seated too deep below the head, you could get a misfire. I have loaded once fired military 5.56 and not done anything to the primer pocket - they were not crimped.
Another caution, take both .223 and 5.56 to the range and try cycling them through the action. You may find some do not cycle properly. I have had that happen. I have stayed away from military brass as there are too many variables that depend on the gun they were fired in that affects the way they reload - i.e. full auto brass seems to be the worst. Not worth the effort. IMHO

[Clay Cooper]

Here's your fix, ENJOY!

www.midwayusa.com/product/235832/rcbs-primer-pocket-swager-combo-2

[Clay Cooper]

Reaming out primer pockets doesn't 100% work.

The most reliable way to take the primer crimp out of military cases is with a Primer Pocket Swager. It has been 100% effective in all the cases I've reloaded and I'm talking about thousands which includes others who reload who I helped.

[FirstBubba]

DITTO Clay!

[DakotaMan]

Clay has the best solution but you can do an OK job just using a small primer pocket reamer too. It usually works on most cases and if I have a problem case once in a while, I just throw the case away. I pick these up at the range so they are quite expendable and I can pitch a lot of them for the price of a nice swager.

You won't have to worry about case dimensions for loading your chamber smoothly. After they are fired once, they are all blown out to be exactly the size of your specific chamber. When you full length size them, they will all have the exact same external dimension.

Like all brass, the internal dimension will vary from case to case and different head stamps may vary considerably on internal dimension because of changes in brass thickness. For target accuracy, I weight all my cases and sort them by weight. If you are seeking extreme accuracy, this really helps in these little cases. With .223s, you need to trim the cases to length every few shots so you don't have loading trouble. The Lee case trimmer is relatively inexpensive and it does a great job; especially if you chuck your case in a drill to turn it automatically. I also turn the necks after about 5 shots or so on AR15 fed .223s so the bolt closes right every time.