Hi all,
Was range officer for a 100 yard civilian marksmanship practice shoot and sat on bench 10 watching this guy back at bench 1 go through 10 semi auto rifles all shooting 223. He was not part of the shoot!

I mean the guy shot over 1000 rounds....about 100 in each rifle...
When he left, he needed to use the broom to collect all the 223 cases and dumped them all in the brass bucket.
So here is where I came in....
Took the bucket, removed the brass, took it home and am now trying to make sense of what I find.
Headstamps are (thanks to internet) from a soviet satelite country. All this brass and it all looks cherry. have heard that most 30-06 mulitary surplus has corosive primers and should not be reloaded.
Should I reload this stuff or sell it to the brass recycler with my crushed and split cases?

any help appreciated....

As long as it's brass (not steel) cases and not Berdan primed you should be good to go. There are some steel cased 223's out there. I think Wolf makes some. Some of the european cases are Berdan primed as well. Not impossible to load if you can find the primers and depriming tools, but not worth the trouble in my opinion.

Ref brass fired with corrosive primers, it's only a problem if the primer used a MURCURY based compound (the Mercury contaminates the brass and makes it very brittle).
Note that Murcury based primers went out of use in the 1920's/30's.
What most people think of as "corossive" today are the Potasium Clorate based primers (mostly phased out in the 1950's) and the only "problem" with those is the salts that are left in the barrel after firing.
IOW if the brass you found is Boxer primed, and otherwise looks good, than process the same as you would Rem/Fed/Win/LC brass

I'm in the same sort of situation. I am going to sell off what I don't need for cheap and keep the rest to reload. I will keep the Remington Top Brass and sell off the military that I would have to deal with the primer pockets on. The headstamp on the military is A P, so I don't know what it is. I will most likely also sell off the LC brass.

I have about 2500 9mm cases the same way.

If you do decide to reload the brass, don't forget that you will likely have to decrimp your primer pockets.

- mike

What is the best way to remove the crimp?

quote:

Originally posted by James Kain:
What is the best way to remove the crimp?

In my opinion, the RCBS primer pocket swager is the best and fastest way to go. It's also possible to use a primer pocket uniformer.

quote:

Originally posted by Grumulkin:

quote:

Originally posted by James Kain:
What is the best way to remove the crimp?

In my opinion, the RCBS primer pocket swager is the best and fastest way to go. It's also possible to use a primer pocket uniformer.

I used the pocket uniformer as you would use for any brass. Never hand any issues but I just wanted to double check before I made my self sound like a idiot.....
Brass used was mil-sup from 74.
Thanks

Head stamped "PS" Where was that made?

quote:

Originally posted by James Kain:
Head stamped "PS" Where was that made?

Several choices for the PS headstamp

Giulio Fiocchi S.p.A., Lecco, Italy

Pirotecnia Militar de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain

Poongsan Metal Manufacturing Company Ltd., Seoul, Republic of Korea (probably at the Angang Ammunition Plant)

Povázské Strojárne, Povázská Bystrica, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia)

Considering that the OP stated

quote:

Headstamps are (thanks to internet) from a soviet satelite country

, the last one seems most likely to be the actual source