Last night I thought I'd get caught up with some load development. So, having a bunch of 223 brass in need of priming I got the hand priming tool and a box of Winchester small rifle primers. (BTW just try getting some BR primers for the 223 right now. We need to end the war so I can start getting decent components at reasonable prices again.) Since this batch of brass was an assortment of mixed stuff, I sat down to prime and sort them out as I went along.
80% or more of the cases are head stamped FC 07. I assume this means Federal Cartage manufactured in 2007. All of the FC 07's are once fired in my gun. Here's the problem:
Over 50% of the primer pockets are so tight that I can't properly set a primer. Since the tolerances are off, either I damage the primer or the case making the round unusable. All of the other brands of cases (LC, RP, Win, PMC and Rem 223) accepted the primers with no problems.
My first thought was that FC uses a smaller small riffle primer but I haven't been able to find any published specs on it. Then I thought that maybe mil spec ammo requires a smaller primer pocket, again no specs. Then there is the possibility that a metric case has a slightly smaller primer pocket too.
Any help from our reloader's is much appreciated. If you know of a brand of primer that will work, and have a source for buying it, please let me know. Thanks
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