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I bought some LC brass off the EE. The guy said to his knowledge the brass was once fired but couldn’t guarantee it. After I deprimed, tested all of them with primer pocket gauge. The go-gauge went in on every one that was marked 06. This is about 95% of them unfortunately. It’s wishful thinking, but maybe they experimented with a different crimping method in 06? The only thing that makes me think this is that you can still see the bullet cannelure marks in the brass. I typically only see this on factory rounds but maybe whoever shot it also did bullet crimps.

Also - I’ve heard people say it’s easy to tell if a case has been fired more than once? What are these signs? I can still see the crimp mark in the primer pocket. If it was removed, it was swaged.

They were still crimped, even though the primer pocket gauge went in with no issue.

Sometimes I can see additional extractor marks

Try to seat a new primer, if there is any resistance the crimp will need to be removed.

First off, having only identified the cases as Lake City 06, has nothing to do with whether or not the primer pockets have been crimped. The first Lake City 06 case pictured below has a crimped primer pocket.





The next Lake City 06 case does not have a crimped primer pocket.





Secondly, using commercially available primer pocket go/no-go gauges is in no way, shape or form a method to guarantee that a case has a primer pocket crimp, or that the primer pocket crimp has been properly removed.  The picture below shows a Lake City 06 case that has a primer pocket crimp.  The case was de-primed, but nothing was done to process the primer pocket crimp.  Using one of the popular primer pocket gauges, the go portion of the gauge easily fits in the primer pocket.



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Reloading For The AR-15:  Swaging Primer Pocket Crimps






In order to reload brass cases that have crimped primer pockets, the crimp must first be removed before a new primer can be seated. There are two basic methods used to achieve this; reaming or swaging.

With reaming, you’re removing material from the case head. With swaging, you’re simply pressing material back into its original position. Of the two methods, my personal preference is for swaging with the Dillon Super Swage 600. The Dillon Super Swage returns the primer pocket more closely to its original condition than any of the other stand-alone tools that I’ve seen used to remove the primer pocket crimp.

The pic below, with a cut-out 223 Remington case in the Super Swage, shows the swaging rod and the case positioning rod to give you an idea of just how the Super Swage works.





There’s no good reason for over-swaging cases.  If you’re swaging correctly, here’s what your cases should look like.


The first pic below shows the case head of a factory-loaded round that has a crimped primer.








Now, a deprimed case.







The case from the above pic that has had the primer pocket swaged with the Super Swage . . .







And a pic with the same case reprimed . . .







This last pic shows the factory-loaded round next to the reprimed case for easy comparison.










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Just because it's LC doesn't mean it has a crimp.

Example, I have  a couple cases of fedeal AE  .223 ( red box) , all LC brass and it was not crimped. I bet it's 15 years old at least. Super shiny brass as well

I'm assuming when federal ran the LC plant they also used LC brass for their commercial ammunition

Give us a decent photo of a row of these lined up.

It has the crimp ring still present. It’s very obvious.

You guys misunderstood me lol I know these were crimped at one time. It has the ring just like all other LC brass that’s crimped. I’ve been using the Dillon primer pocket swager for years. I’m just asking if sometimes (over the years) if they have had different levels of crimp. Sometimes removing the primer will allow the primer gauge to go in.

It looks like these still have sealant around the primer


Obvious crimp ring


Go gauge

I have a gauge that looks the same.

I can confirm that it will go into some primer pockets that are still crimped. Although if you get a good feel for it, you will feel some resistance vs a non crimped primer pocket.

FYI when using Dillon Super Swage be sure to sort your brass by head stamp as the rim thickness varies and will thus affect the quality of the your swaging