I recently decided to start loading .223 Rem. I already had primers, and I found powder and bullets pretty cheap. I also have a bucket of brass from years past, mostly Federal, that I decided to start with. What nobody ever told me was that Federal .223 has crimped primers just like 5.56mm. So, I had a bucket of brass I couldn't reload. I then had to order a primer pocket swager so I could put primers in these things. Anybody know of other brands of .223 brass that has crimped primers?
I just assume that everything .223 or 5.56 is crimped until I've processed it myself.
Yeah, the old primers came out easy enough, but I couldn't get new primers in. I was able to make a few test loads by taking an old Phillips screwdriver and reaming the pockets a little, but it didn't really do a good job.
A screwdriver? That's terrible. I feel your pain. When I first started .223/5.56 I used both a pocket knife and a utility knife to scrape the crimp. It was also terrible. I ended up getting a reamer. It's cheap and I can use it with my drill or screw gun. But that gets old if you do more than a hundred or so; starts to hurt my girly-man fingers trying to grip the brass to keep it from spinning over-and-over-and-over. So I got a "damaged box" RCBS primer pocket swager. It's faster and easier on my fingers, but it really needs to be properly mounted. I've got it on a lap-sized plank of wood and it's really not enough. But it did let me swage a ton while potatoing on the couch.
You know what I found out? The reamed pocket seats primers easier than the swaged pocket. The reamed pocket makes kind of a short "funnel" to guide the primer. Not so the swaged pocket. It's not really a big deal but I can definitely feel the difference when I prime.
You can also take a drill bit and remove the stake if you go slow and pay attention but it is slow wouldnt want to do alot but will get you out of a jam
I'm cheap so I tried it ages ago. It didn't work well at all. The hand method with a pocket knife or utility knife worked better. I never tried a Countersink Bit but I think that would have worked better. I even tried chucking the primer pocket cleaner head in my drill gun because I read some people do that. It didn't work at all.
Of all the methods I've tried, the primer pocket swager is the quickest and easiest but the most expensive. The cheap Lee primer pocket reamer gave the results I liked best but I had to be particularly careful if I wanted to make sure that it reamed 100% consistently (not an issue unless you're doing long range competitions). The cheapest (free) method that actually worked was hand scraping the crimp with a knife of some sort; which works but is agonizingly slow and shouldn't be done for more than a 20-round box if you value your sanity, time, sanity, sense of calm, or sanity. Everything else just flat didn't work. And I tried all of them except the Countersink. ...cuz I'm cheap.
Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
