Lake City 223 new style crimp

[guzzi]

Found some brass while at the range the other day, and the crimp is not like any I have seen before.

As always, my first steps are sort then clean then evaluate any picked up brass. It was the evaluation part where I noticed the unusual crimp. Next step was to run a few of these through the Dillon swager. That's when the problem was noted with this type of primer crimp. The crimp seems to effect the pocket all the way to the bottom of the pocket. This isn't a crimp that a chamfer tool or a drill bit can overcome.

I'm interested in knowing if any of you have seen this.

 

[JohnM]

Whew, that's a wild looking thing.

 

[cfullgraf]

Might be a dirty commie plot to make brass unusable to reloaders.

I have not seen those before and would have to see one with the primer removed. I can't see that the crimp would affect anything deeper than the surface of the case base. But...

 

[MtnCreek]

Are the areas beneath the crimp buldged out toward the primer (inside the pocket)?

 

[HOWARD J]

What happens when you try to install a new primer ??????????????

 

[average_shooter]

I thought I read in one of the articles about the "new and improved" 5.56 ball round (bronze penetrator) that they were updating the crimp to that three or four prong style.

For what it's worth, I've got a can of XM855 LC '11 that has the standard crimp. Interesting...

 

[Hogpauls]

That's bizarre! I scrounged some '11 LC brass a couple weeks ago that had the standard ring crimp. Hopefully yours is a failed early '11 design and they went back to the standard crimp.

 

[Bovice]

Crap. I found a similar post on TFL and it's recent. October 2011. I hope this isn't a new trend with LC brass.

 

[rcmodel]

It is from the new ATK 5.56 M855A1 EPR (Enhanced Performance Round)
The new "green" ammo.

http://www.atk.com/Products/documents/107811_02_ds.pdf

One of the new specs is a change to a four prong primer crimp, for whatever reason.
Probably has to do with keeping the lead-free primer in place as they tend to want to blow out.

The ones in the photo do appear to be crimped very excessively though.

Maybe that is why the newest round in the military inventory, and just made this year even, was apparently surplussed and being found on a civilian range???
Maybe it didn't pass the mil-spec acceptance inspection when they saw the deformed primer pockets?

I'd be curious if the flash hole in the case is larger then normal too??

rc

 

[guzzi]

new LC crimp

The flash hole measures (as best I can) the same as other 223/556 brass I have.

My Dillon swager has a problem with these. But, the old method of using a chamfer tool to cut out the crimp then a pocket uniformer to true it up works fine, but slow.

The Dillon tool has to be adjusted so that the case locator rod presses the case hard against the swage rod. This requires an increase in operating lever force. This causes the crimp to go away, but the shell sticks to the locator rod.

I think I will throw these in the scrap box.

 

[rcmodel]

Try a dab of sizing lube on the Dillon tool rod & swage pin before you give up.
Or a spritz of spray lube in the primer pockets.

Swaging crimps is just like resizing brass.
You are trying to make it go somewhere it doesn't want to go.
Sizing lube helps a bunch.

rc

 

[gennro]

Use a hole chamfer bit in a drill. Makes it real easy and very fast to remove crimps and puts a nice chamfer on the primer hole which makes it for easy primer seating.

The bit I use is 1/2 and will do large and small holes.

 

[rcmodel]

But will it do those Square holes the OP ask about and posted the photo link too?

rc

 

[rondog]

I'm in the middle of processing a bunch of .223/5.56 brass, and there's a boatload of those in that mix. I use a Hornady crimp cutter in a cordless drill, and it cleans that crimp right up. I like using the Hornady cutters because they'll only cut so far, once they bottom in the pocket the cutting stops, leaving a nice even little bevel, no overcutting. This cutter here.....I put it in a drill that I have clamped flat to my benchtop, and a string around the drill trigger. Acts kinda like a small lathe or mill, I just put the cases on the cutter and it cuts the crimp out in a couple of seconds. I can do several hundred quite fast this way.

 

[243winxb]

M855a1 EPR

M855A1-Data showing powder type, bullet, 4 stab crimp, more > http://www.aschq.army.mil/ac/aais/ioc/LCAAP/Industry_Day/634272332137343750.pdf

 

[Strykervet]

I saw this stuff in the army for the first time in '04. The cases said "lead free". Not sure but I think the primer is lead free too. I never saw a primer blow out of any round in the military, and I fired quite a few. The reason they adopted this has to do with a report that said battlegrounds were becoming lead poisoned after the fighting is over, and the fact that our military ranges are so lead polluted it is absurd. So they want to mitigate the lead exposure to the enviornment.

As to the primer crimp... The army sells this brass off as scrap metal, they don't care if it can be reused. It just so happens that it can be, and so the scrap gets bought with this in mind. So if the new crimp is better or just as good and cheaper, they'll go with that instead. They'll still get the same amount of money for the scrap no matter how they crimp it.

But I'd be willing to bet you can still get it from LC the regular way. You can even get it new with no primer, and thus no crimp. Also keep in mind that the lead free isn't (as far as I know) the only thing in inventory and may constitute a small amount of it, at least for now anyway.

Biggest concern is that new bullet. It may not be commercially available like the SS109. Time to stock up on those I guess, I tend to shoot a lot them anyway.

 

[kludge]

Might be a dirty commie plot to make brass unusable to reloaders.

That was my very first thought.

No smiley.

They'll still get the same amount of money for the scrap no matter how they crimp it.

I bet not.

 

[medalguy]

Brass is brass is brass. The crimp doesn't make any difference to smelters. Now it's possible some reloaders may pay more for cartridge brass than a smelter, but the really large lots go to the smelters. I don't believe the government is worried about whether a small lot of 500 pounds might sell for more than the actual scrap brass. It's the half million pound lots that go to the smelters and that's where the big bucks are.