.223 Brass reloading quality of FC NT

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Safeside

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I have a quantity of brass that includes some .223 rem with the head stamp FC NT
Which I understand is Federal Cartridge Non Toxic.
I have read mixed reports about the reloading potential for this brass.
Some say it has a crimped primer. I was however able to deprime and reprime on a Dillion 650 without difficulty. I understand federal brass is considered soft, and less desirable for reloading.
I am thinking of:1) reloading it for plinking ammo
And 2) selling some of the brass.
And alternatively I could always scrap it.
I am looking for actual experience with reloading this brass. Has anyone tried it been successful, or had major problems? Last thing I want to do is sell junk to anyone or waist my time only to be disappointed.
Thank you in advance for you opinions.
 
I use lots of fc brass I pick up at range.. And I find I can reprime 95% of the time with the crimp which is different than other crimps I have seen seems to be good for reloading better than the Chinese 223 brass
 
Just trim out the primer hole. Some brass is tighter than others or crimped. It will shoot as good as any other brass.
 
I have a scrap brass bucket half full of Federal .223 brass dated from around 2005 and this brass wasn't that it was soft but how thick the flash hole web "was".
Meaning Federal later corrected this problem that caused the primer pockets to become over sized in very few reloadings.

Our American military 5.56 brass must be made of harder brass and have a thicker flash hole web to add radial strength to the base of the cases. This came about during the 1968 Congressional hearings on the M16 rifles jamming problem.

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The image below is from the book "The Black Rifle: M16 Retrospective".

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Below from AccurateShooter.com and if your thrifty like me I buy bulk once fired Lake City brass for a fraction of the cost of Lapua brass. And simply sort and prep the cases for cheaper and high quality .223/5.56 cases. The most uniform cases are used for quality reloads and the rest used as blasting ammo in my AR15 carbine.
imgur
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The photo below is from AR15.com and the reloading forums.

You make up a 2 inch steel rod and drill the bottom of the rod out cup shaped to fit "over" the flash hole and any burs or brass sticking up that can give a false reading.

You measure the .223/5.56 case as shown below with the Federal thin flash hole web.

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imgur

Below from M4Carbine.net

The various flash hole thicknesses and a idea which cases can withstand higher pressure.

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NOTE, I use the Federal cases with thin flash hole webs "BUT" load them to lower pressures to keep the primer pockets from becoming oversized. "BUT" I use pin gaugmpses .0005 smaller than the primer I'm using to check the primer pockets. If when seating a primer it feels loose when seating I use a Lee depriming tool to check the primer. If the primer moves with just finger pressure the case goes in the scrap brass bucket.

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imgur
A over gassed AR15 needs tight primer pockets, and if the primer pocket is loose and leaks your bolt face will look like the one below.

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Bottom line, I learned the hard way the first time I sized and prepped some Federal .223 cases and went to load them. Some of these factory loaded Federal cases had over sized primer pockets after the first firing. (never reloaded) But these cases were dated 2005 and later Federal cases were not such a problem. And using the 2 inch rod to check the flash hole web "BEFORE" sizing these case will save excess work and sore fingers, removing the primer crimp, uniforming the primer pockets, etc.
 
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Just remove the primer crimp and load up. I just sized 300 .223 this afternoon and can count on one hand how many didn't have a primer crimp
 
The NT brass is the same as other FC brass. Only the priming compound used is different. It doesn't contain lead styphnate. Get a primer pocket swager to deal with crimped pockets if you have a lot of them. I use FC brass all the time without any issues. If you are into best accuracy then sort by weight as, like all components, there is a variation.
 
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