Federal primers in .223

[Andrew Quigley]

Anybody having trouble seating Federal primers in .223 brass? I read on another forum that these weren't fitting in almost all brass. Just curious if anyone here has run onto this.
I just bought a 1,000 Federal small rifle primers but haven't had a chance to try them out.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Federal primers are probably easier to seat than some of the others. It's possible on that other forum the person complaining was trying to prime brass that still had a military crimp.

 

[SMSgt]

^
My thoughts exactly. When I reloaded for my .223, I used mil 5.56 brass exclusively and never had a problem with any name-brand primers --once the crimp was removed.

I still use Fed primers on occasion for my pistol cases and haven't noticed any problems.

 

[Andrew Quigley]

Wasn't just one but several people reporting it. Think there was 3 or more pages of replies to the thread.
Seems the problem was not only swaged military cases but RP, PMC, Winchester and other brands.
I don't have any problem with Federal primers in my large or small pistol cases nor my shotgun primers but this is my first attempt .223 and was just curious if anyone here had run into the same problem.

 

[checkenbach]

I loaded 100 rounds of .223 PMC with Federal 205's the other day, and had a few(2-3) primers go in VERY stiff, with one crushed and unusable, I'm using a Hornady LNL Progressive. Federal pistol primers have worked great in the past for me.

 

[jbouwens]

Yea, federals will not "power" themselves in so to speak, military crimp, dirty pockets, alignment, etc are all causes for crunching those little primers.