I accumlated (probably range pickup with my brass) about 100 cases marked 'FC 88'. I couldn't get the primers in and if I did, they were flattened because the pocket seemed too shallow. I thought they looked like they had bit of a crimp so I put a drill in my press and beveled the edges of the primer pocket. "NOW I've got it.", I thought. No, I didn't have it. I looked them up. There are three different brands.

FC Departmento de la Industrial Militar, Mexico City, Mexico 1

FC Federal Cartridge Corp., Anoka, MN 55303 (also produced in Germany and Austria for Federal) 1

FC Prvi Partizan, Titovo, Uzice 31000, Yugoslavia 1

Is anybody familiar with this stuff?

Needless to say, I threw them all in the recycle, which is where any future finds will go, too.

I got my reloading done for this week, but it seem like I was flummoxed by something every step of the way.

One thing I did accomplish was finally getting 9mm to plunk easily and reliably. The magic combination was eluding me for years.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I use this RCBS primer pocket swager; it screws into my old RCBS Jr. press and no more problems with crimped primer pockets:
Buy Primer Pocket Swager Combo-2 And More | RCBS

J.

Is there a small l or s also on the headstamp? I came up with Federal cartridge, 9mm subsonic for military contract.
Any crimped 9mm is just not worth ****'n with.

Back in the mid 80's I got my paperwork back on a full auto MAC-10 in 9mm. The majority of brass was mil surplus and crimped. I used the RCBS crimp tool that swaged them out and had no problems. I loaded several batches of 5000. I used the same tool to do 5.56 primer crimps again no problems back then. (one big batch of 20,000) I Finally ran out!

I've been working on 5.56, 7.62 and 9mm reloading the last 6months. The swaging tool doesn't seem to get the primer crimps about about 30% of the time, so I swage the brass, then use the newer RCBS attachment for the case prep center on all the cases. I'm still running about 1% with crimps still too proud to allow proper primer seating.

I am assuming that the formula for brass has changed in the last 40 years, but this stuff is really tough/hard!

Ivan

I guess I have been lucky with my 9mm brass, be it common or GI brass.

All my standard primers have worked without a problem, except for a few cases that were made by Tula, that were a little snug.

Never had to open up the primer hole but every now and then I get a case that does not want to go into the shell holder but a half turn and it will usually slide into place.

Any cases like this gets a black felt pen marking on the bottom of the case. Two strikes and they are out of here !!

9mm's are ok but I enjoy 38 specials a not more, if I don't mess up.

Any brass with a date goes in the scrap unless it is 45acp.

Hello. I have some range pick up brass that had the same issue but i used a sinclair carbide small primer pocket uniformer and it cut the primer pockets to correct depth. problem solved. available from brownells.

No, that's all there is.


And you right. I took some time messing with it and it was wasted time.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I'm glad to hear that! I just bought one of those for removing the primer crimp from military 5.56mm cases. I haven't used it yet.

..a LOT of .38 brass. I had gotten somewhat disorganized after this last year's rough road and I was wondering where all my .38 and 9mm brass was. Well, today I found it, as well as some other stuff.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I bought a case of Prvi Partizan 5.56, a buddy vouched for it and the price was right. 1,000 rounds, no issues, I still buy it. I am planning on starting into reloading and have been saving brass for years in totes. Should I sort out all the Prvi Partizan brass? The last thing I need is a curve ball when starting out reloading.

Short answer, yes separate it. Start learning to reload with straight wall pistol. Once you are comfortable move up to the bottleneck cartridges.

NO, don't toss it. Prvi is good quality brass. I have loaded thousands of rounds in 5.56 and 7.62 NATO using this brass without any unusual issues. They have crimped primers, like most all military / NATO spec ammo. As per the posts above, the crimps are easy to remove, just an extra, simple step in the reloading process.

Yea, reloading straight wall handgun brass is simpler than rifle brass, but its not brain surgery, and most reloaders seem able to handle it. Don't let "fear of the unknown" discourage you from reloading the cartridges you enjoy shooting. Get a couple good reloading manuals, read them, ask questions here if you have any issues, and have fun. Save some money to boot, and probably find handloads that are more accurate in you firearm than the factory stuff.

Larry

Once-fired 9mm brass of the same headstamp without crimp is very cheap from a number of sources and you don't have to deal with the headaches that come with some range pickup brass.

It is Federal Military brass 9mm with a crimped primer pocket.
Either swag, ream it or throw it away if you don't want to mess with the crimp.



Headstamp Guide | AFTE

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Still Running Against the Wind

Bottleneck brass might be a little harder to load than straight wall brass, but it's no deal breaker either. Don't worry about loading with it; just read and do it. I started out loading 22 Hornet as my first rifle or pistol reloads and with it's thin cases makes it harder to mess with than most bottleneck brass and it wasn't hard to load. The main thing to learn with bottleneck brass is how much you set back the shoulder and learning to lubricate the cases so they don't stick in the resizing die without over lubing where you get lube dents in the shoulder.

Learn to recognize " Crimped in Primers " , regardless of head stamp , and sort out everything crimped . Crimped primers turn up everywhere now , and head stamp doesn't matter , ammo with lead free primers are crimped .. just no telling by Head stamp alone .
Then use a primer pocket swage or cutting tool on them to remove that pesky crimp and lastly use a primer uniforming tool on all cases ... this uniforming tool insures all the primer pockets are the same size and will take a standard primer .
After pockets have had the crimp removed and/or uniformed , you don't have to bother with it again ... it's a one time task .
Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

I've never seen a 9 mm case with a crimped primer and all of my brass is range pickup. I'm not sure I would take the time to ream a 9 mm case but I wouldn't discard it.

There may come a time in the not so distant future that any modern brass will have some value as ammo becomes more expensive and demand moves beyond supply.

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That's just somebody talkin.

Per thread #10;

I am sure a lot of us have put stuff away in a "Good spot" only to get lost or forgot about.

Just think of it as a later date............. "Surprise party" !!

On a flight back from Florida I packed so well, it took two weeks
before I found inside one of my good dress shoes..............
my electric razor !!

Have fun.

One thought; are you "drilling out" the crimp or beveling the primer pocket mouth? "Drilling out" by trying to drill with the drill bit the same diameter as the pocket or using a drill larger than the pocket to just bevel/chamfer the pocket mouth?

When I have nothing else to do I occasionally sort my 9mm brass by headstamp (I know it doesn't really matter, but I find some weird/odd headstamps and I'm playing with my "reloading stuff"). I have a 1/2 gallon jar of military headstamp 9mm cases of a few different manufacturers, but I have never had a problem with removing any primer pocket crimps with a plain old 60 degree countersink...

That's how I do it. I have a nice RCBS swager tool. Haven't used it in years.

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That's just somebody talkin.

I used a slightly larger drill to chamfer the opening of the primer pocket.

It was futile though because again, some of the pockets were so shallow that I had to flatten the primer to get it out of the shellholder. in my priming tool.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

...is that each type of cartridge case, be it straight wall revolver, non-rimmed semi auto pistol, bottleneck or whatever, each has it's own idiosyncrasies that often involve safety issues. For instance, rimmed, straight wall revolver cases based on old black powder charges are very forgiving, high pressure semi auto and rifle rounds aren't so forgiving.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Reloading either pistol, revolver or rifle shells is a nice past time event that has lots of enjoyable moments and even better, if they do well on paper or game.

There are some rounds that are a "Bummer" to load and then the let it "Rip" for a thousand rounds................

.mil brass is almost always crimped and a lot of civvie ammo is getting that treatment these days.

I generally loathe the knee jerk "Get a Dillon" but... I have used their Super Swager and it's dah schizzle!

Might as well bite the brass & get one. Buy once, cry once. I doubt you've seen the last of crimped brass.

A very low percentage of the 9mm brass I scrounge at the range has crimped primers. I go for the shiny stuff anyway - usually when I see them throwing away the box. If it looks old or tarnished I'll pass on it. Could be old military or reloads.

... how I got such a large batch of those things.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Or you go all in, and get two, and keep 1 in large primer and 1 in small primer...... don't ask me how I know .

I just yesterday flared and primed 140 9mm cases, all WCC of varying mfg dates. I had previously deprimed and using a 60 x 1/2" countersink, removed the primer crimps. I primed all cases with my Lee hand primer and all went smoothly, no tight pockets, no residual crimps, just squeeze and a primer is seated. I would have probably done more but Ma called me in for lunch...

Not sure about what's going on here. Shallow pockets? In 40 years of "general" reloading and 9mm for 18 years I have never run into a "shallow" primer pocket (shallow enough to cause any problems) in commercial or military brass...