Norinco 5.56 - how was the brass?

[thebaron]

A few years ago some of us bought those 1600rnd crates of Norinco 5.56.

Have any of you loaded the brass much? How has it held up for reloads?

Was the primer pocket crimped in your batch?

Thanks!

 

[theycallmeike]

I've reloaded thousands of them... They are not crimped and they seem to be holding up well after a few reloads.

 

[redryder]

I've also loaded thousands of them. Love them, no crimped primer pockets, seem to be holding up well. I first loaded a batch of 5 and shot and reloaded them 6 times. They still look fine. Trimmed once

 

[Cranberry]

I've only reloaded mine once but they seem to be holding up just fine. Even the cases that get banged up by my Tavor resize nicely. Primer removal was non-eventful on a Lee LM.

 

[Ganderite]

I shoot only range pick up brass in my ARs. Half of it is Norinco. No problems with it at all.

 

[Pr589]

I prefer them since almost all of the manufacturers started to crimp their primer pockets.

 

[Phat Eagle]

Easy to use as it isn't crimped. A little brittle, but certainly a good deal for the price. Wish more of it was around!!

 

[M&P 40]

No issues at all

 

[Mr.Crumbz]

My favourite brass! Hold up well; the only failures I've had so far were in the initial firing and after 3x reloads no new failures. Out of 560 rounds I think I lost less the 10 on the first firing. They are long and need to be trimmed after first firing.

 

[bearhunter]

I have also reloaded at least a thousand of them. The brass is a bit thicker than North American commercial brass but that isn't an issue, just load accordingly. I have had one recurring issue with the lot I have been working on. I need to check the flash hole for being centered. I have found about a dozen out of 500 rounds where the flash holes are enough off center that they would break a decapping pin on a progressive press or even a single stage press if I wasn't careful. I had to find that out the hard way of course. Other than that they are some of the nicest cases to reload.

 

[thebaron]

Thanks fellas. I'm about to break into a large batch I've sorted out and put aside. Your feedback is encouraging.

 

[diananike]

I'm at around 4 firings on some norinco brass.
The primer pockets seem a little loose. That being said I haven't thrown one out when firing and cycling yet so maybe it's not that big an issue.

 

[FoxAlpha]

I've yet to begin reloading, but I did encounter a batch that did in fact have crimped primers all stamped CJ 0 as opposed to the typical CJ 95. That being said I have yet to hear of anyone else coming across a crimped batch with the CJ 0 head stamp.

 

[saskcop]

Loaded buckets of the stuff with nary a problem.