Q 1: Does a military crimp/primer combo, even when properly removed, widen the primer pocket to the point it becomes unsafe to reload?

Q 2: Any idea what might be fattening up the base of the brass (by the primer) so it barely fits in the brass holder of the Lee Auto Primer?

Background:

1. About half my once fired military brass is giving almost no resistance on primer seating with the Lee Auto Primer. The crimps removed by the remanufacturer and the ammo fired fine in my DPMS AR-15.
--The brands are Black Hills (blue box) and Ultramax (red, white, and blue box)--all originally from Lake City, but mixed between BH and UM so I can’t tell which are which.
2. The bases of a number of these cartridges are extremely difficult to get into the hand primer and just as difficult to extract as the very bottom is a too fat for the Lee Auto Prime shell holder. Along those lines, some of the LC primers are flat (though I’ve seen worse) to a degree so they may be slightly hot loads.
3. Fiocci ammo works well--originally 40 g V-max, which was virgin brass and now fired once (by me) gives the same resistance when seating the primer as new Remington and Lapua brass--just the result I was seeking.
4. Some of the brass in 1 and 2 also goes smoothly into the shell holder and resist slightly upon primer seating just like the Lapua, Fiocci, and Remington—also good.

I have to have a little rehashing here to make sure I get all the facts--sorry if I repeat myself:
All the rounds above have fired well in my AR but now that I am reloading them, I am wondering how safe they are in the first place. On the plus side, I should have perhaps seen a protruding primer or two but I didn't. On the negative, I’m seeing a few primers flattened but only slightly. Although none are flattened to the point the brass shows outward signs of stress, might this be why the base of the brass is sometimes too fat?
Brass is trimmed to 1.75" from an average of about 1.752". Lapua doesn't need any work prior to firing--it seems perfect out of the box. Remington is really good too.
The difference I'm finding is when I try to seat the primers. Both the Black Hills and Ultramax are Lake City brass with the mil crimps removed. Unfortunately, I mixed the two so I can't tell which remanufacturer reloaded the ammo post-military--just the year of make at LC. While some of these primers give the reasonable resistance I like to feel while seating them, a lot are going in as though there's no primer at all. The few IVI’s I have seem the same as the LC, but too few to draw a good sample.
The Fiocci brass (had 40g V-Max) seats really tight, even tighter than the unfired Lapua brass I've purchased and with slightly more resistance than Remington.

I should note that I got these average widths with my dial caliper on the following primer pockets:
Lake City .172
IVI .172
Fiocci .169
Remington .171
Lapua .171

The Lake City and IVI are the loosest ones, but oddly the SAAMI specs say even a wider pocket is okay (see link) so it may be operator error on the caliper measurements. Either way, the loosest ones are measuring that way.

http://www.accurateshooter.com....php?topic=1808632.0

I'm not sure about the problem with the shell holders. Do you have any burrs or ejector marks on the bases?

For the primer seating. It could be that they are over swaging or overtrimming the crimps which lossens up the primer pockets. The flat primers can be an indication of loose pockets. My first few were like that when I started deswagging. Are the crimps cut or swagged to remove? Have you had any probles with shell holders on any other brass?

I haven't had any problems on other brass; some of course are tighter than others but only this military stuff is making me worry. I'm not sure on the cut or swaged question as they're doing it at the factory. There appears to be a bevel on the outside rim if that helps. I'm guessing they're reaming them too much. This really kills the savings you think you're getting when you can't even reload it once. It's too bad as I've heard LC brass is very good. Thanks, by the way.

A primer pocket is to loose when you can put the primer on the bench, put the case on top and it seats by hand. Or the primers fall out on firing. Not fitting the shell holders-This can be a sign the web area near the head has expanded from to hot of a powder charge. The web area should never expand. As the web area expands, so does the primer pockets. If the rounds chamber in your firearm, and the primer stays in place, you dont have a problem.

quote:

Originally posted by 243winxb:
A primer pocket is to loose when you can put the primer on the bench, put the case on top and it seats by hand. Or the primers fall out on firing. Not fitting the shell holders-This can be a sign the web area near the head has expanded from to hot of a powder charge. The web area should never expand. As the web area expands, so does the primer pockets. If the rounds chamber in your firearm, and the primer stays in place, you dont have a problem.

How many sets of undies did you use to make those display cases? BTW thanks the display is very enlightening.

I use military cases for my 30-06 and I haven't had any problems with the brass not fitting properly in my Lee or RCBS shell holders.

Also, I haven't had a problem with the primers being too loose, except occasionally, but that will happen from time to time with other brass, too.

To test if the primer is too loose (when I notice that a case has very little resistance to the priming stroke), I tap the primed case on its edge against the top of my bench. If the primer backs out any at all, I discard the case.