does pmc 223 have the "crimped primer"?

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FlyinBryan

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im not sure if ive ever seen the military crimp i keep hearing about.

ive seen 223 brass that seems to have less chamfer to the primer pocket, and just appeared to be straight walled.

most of my brass seems to be chamfered a bit, maybe allows easier primer alignment.

is there an easy way to positivly i.d. crimped brass?
 
You can ID it by looking at it.
Crimped primers have a swaged ring around the primer that closes the gap between primer & case.

rcmodel
 
The method I use, which is obviously not the only way, is to looked at the used brass on the bottom to see if it appears to have a bright shiny "ring" around the primer. I agree with you that it looks on regular brass as though there is a slope, or chamfer in the pocket.

On larger caliber brass they are sometimes "staked". Meaning that the base has been struck in spots around the primer to squeeze the primer pocket tighter around the primer.
 
Yes, PMC .223 is Mil crimped.

I had about 60,000 pcs of the PMC .223 that I sold last summer and fall and it was all crimped just the same as the Military LC or FC Headstamps. occasionally the primer cup will blow out of a non crimped load and if you have ever had a primer cup blow out into the lower receiver of an AR, you know how much fun it is to recover and to operate same rifle in the mean time!
 
Current production PMC .223, which is made in Korea, does have a crimp. Not sure if everyone knows this but PMC was bought up by a Korean company a year or two ago and is now basically a marketing name for the Korean co. I don't know whether old US-made PMC had crimps or not.
 
Originally posted by Z-Michigan
Current production PMC .223, which is made in Korea, does have a crimp. Not sure if everyone knows this but PMC was bought up by a Korean company a year or two ago and is now basically a marketing name for the Korean co. I don't know whether old US-made PMC had crimps or not.
Click to expand...

Actually, PMC ammunition started out as Korean produced and most of the 5.56x45mm/.223 Rem. ammunition has always been Korean produced...

The original ammunition, headstamped PS and PSD, mostly M193 type, had a crimped primer.

Most of the stuff that I've seen with the PMC headstamp did not have a crimped primer...

That's been my experience. YMMV...

Forrest
 
Actually, I lied...

Checking back through my notes and looking through some cases, it looks like most of the PMC .223 cases that I have seen were crimped...

Sorry for the earlier misinformation...

Forrest
 
lol, not a lie, as it appears some have been, and some are not.

i have recently decided that i really dont like pmc brass that much anyway.

but thanks for the confirmation update.

it shows way more responsibility than finding out different and not saying anything at all. so thx again bud.
 
Ok, now I have a question. I have about a thousand .223 cases, all of it PMC and all of it with the crimp ring. I've cleaned and decapped the stuff and even set 12 Federal small rifle primers. I used a hand primer and they seemed a little tighter than my other stuff. Should I toss the PMC and start over? Or can I keep going ahead?
 
are you sure they are crimped? they might just have that red sealer on them.

if they are crimped, they will need the primer pocket swaged.

i think ive seen where folks just ream, or cut the crimp ring out with a chamfer tool but i think they need to be swaged.

im no expert on crimped primers though so i will be watching what the old pros here say.
 
Ok, now I have a question. I have about a thousand .223 cases, all of it PMC and all of it with the crimp ring. I've cleaned and decapped the stuff and even set 12 Federal small rifle primers. I used a hand primer and they seemed a little tighter than my other stuff. Should I toss the PMC and start over? Or can I keep going ahead?
Click to expand...

i have reloaded quite a few mil brass with crimped primers and never had a problem. you can swage the pocket but i gave up on it a while ago.

if i am wrong and in danger of blowing a finger off then someone please tell me. :)
 
The PMC I just finished loading did have a primer crimp. The primer pockets also seemed a bit shallower compared to LC, RORG, and R-P.
 
I reloaded some PMC .223 Rem about a month ago. It had a lot of "pock mark" dimples, but nothing that would compromise the case. I had some trouble priming it for the second loading since I probably didn't ream the crimp enough, but the third loading primed without incident.
 
I was at my local gun shop the other day to pick up some .223 they had on sale. I decided not to get it because it was crimped pmc figuring I would get the ppu for a couple pennies more (no crimp). When I said I wanted the one over the other the guy behind the counter said "it doesn't matter because the crimp pretty much blows out when you shoot anyway". That totally confused me, because we talk about reloading and he seems pretty knowledgable. They were pretty busy so I just smiled and continued on with my purchase.

I will say though that I have never had an issue setting a primer in .223 crimped brass, it is the crimped 9mm brass that gets me. I found that out the hard way with a bunch of crushed primers. I guess I should get a crimp swage.

Cheers,
Ed
 
I reloaded some Federal FC (American Eagle) .223 brass without realizing it had a crimp. I did not have any trouble getting the primers in, I didn't even notice any extra effort. (Was using a Sinclair handheld priming tool.)

No guarantee this will work with any other brass or tool, just FYI.
 
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