Federal 5.56x45 FMJ: Why are some primers crimped and others not?

[Bret]

I bought 3,000rds of Federal 5.56x45 55gr FMJ. The cases are headstamped LC, 17 with the NATO cross. It came in these boxes.

I was cutting the UPC's off of the boxes to get the $0.05/rd rebate and noticed that some of the primers in the same boxes are crimped and others are not. The same lot number is on every 20rd box.

Any idea why some primers would be crimped and others wouldn't be?

[vicious_cb]

Because federal is literally shit ammo. After shooting thousands of rounds of different mfgs version of M193 like Federal, PMC, PPU, CBC ect, federal is by far the worst. Ive had more dead primers with federal XMbullshit than all the other brands combined. Im not even going to mention the problems with federal independence ammo, though I hear its a good way to HPT your bolt...

[MegademiC]

Haha "military grade".
Honestly I've always had good experience with the black box stuff, and federal makes some of the best defensive ammo out there. It's disappointing to see that on their low end stuff.

[ST911]

Various rounds that didn't meet a spec, so they were gathered and packaged thusly.

Give Federal a call, too.

https://www.federalpremium.com/company/faq.aspx

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[MQ105]

From your picture it looks like some rounds have a traditional primer crimp and the others have four stake marks - as a crimp? I've never seen that on 5.56 before, but that appears to be what it is. Can you examine and take a picture or two of fired cases?

[ace4059]

In that picture all the primers are crimped. Two different crimp styles.

Now as for why in the same box much less the same lot, I don't know.

[Bret]

Can you examine and take a picture or two of fired cases?

I'm not going to fire any yet. I have some older .56x45 to work though. I just bought this because of the rebate. It ended up being $246.30 per 1000rds after the rebate, so I couldn't pass it up.

[twm134]

All primers in that picture are crimped. I don't know why two different crimps would be used in the same case of ammo. I also agree that there are several better manufacturers of m193 ammo than Federal. CBC, Magtech, Prvi, MEN come to mind.

[davidjinks]

The current method is a 4 way stake on the primers.

From all the ammo that we have used/tested (Excluding legacy M855), this is the current method of "crimping" primers.