Trent,
Thanks for the duct/duck tape fix......always looking for another use for the stuff that holds the universe together.
HK case dings are a mater of opinion, as I wrote earlier I reloaded most but some were just sharp enough I did not want to trust them not rupturing. Others seem to have had good luck with them but if I saw a hard bend and moved brass the cases went in the trash. Most, dispite the ejection ding, went into the case tumbler for a visit to the reloading bench.
Yeah I can't speak for the H&K 93 personally. I've shot some full auto 223 H&K's at knob creeck, including a 53 and a SAW, but didn't inspect the brass afterwards. (Unfortunately all I could accomplish for the next 15 minutes was giggle and smile uncontrollably...)
I own an FA91 (aluminum receiver built 91, it sort of sucks, the barrel they used was shot out when the kit it was built on was imported so it shoots about 10" groups at 100 yards, replacing the barrel assy on those is non-trivial). It mangles brass horrible.
I own a CETME (same design), great build by Century (I don't say that often), and it also mangles brass with much attitude.
I own an SL-8 (my only 223 H&K design) and it's VERY gentle on brass. It's somewhat ugly and blocky and doesn't feel comfortable, and the 10 round capacity sucks (not forking over the money for a STANAG mag conversion), but it's *exceptionally* well balanced and shoots extremely accurately. I used it in a sporting rifle match this year and took 1st.
If the HK93's (or other H&K 223 rifles which take STANAG) hit the market at anywhere near $2k, it'll be high on my want list simply due to the balance and the accuracy I've got on that SL-8.
I'm more prone to bashing gun designs than I am praising them - I like to complain about things - but that SL-8 really won my heart. I didn't *WANT* it too. I let it gather dust for 6 years after I bought it before I finally shot it. But it only took once. (I picked it up when I had my gun shop, for $1100.... but couldn't part with it for some reason, it was a love/hate thing.)
As far as reloading brass that's been beat up.. man, I've reloaded some really questionable stuff before. Last winter I shot my Yugo M76 from a heated shoot house out to 300 yards, and the brass had shoulders that were flattened TWICE - once from impacting the receiver, and once from impacting the wall that was 6 feet away. Some of the mouths were crimped together so bad the opposite sides were touching. I carefully pried them apart with needle nose, then put the needle nose in the hole and twisted to "somewhat make them round again."
They all worked perfectly when I shot them. Excepting for the rare "jam on feed" issue with flattened shoulders on *some* firearms designs (not all use a shoulder as a contact/indexing point on feeding), it's no big deal, the shoulders fireform out. Doesn't seem to bother the pressure by losing a tiny bit of case capacity; brass is so malleable that the shoulder pops out and completes the "volume" properly before the bullet even gets moving.