9mm primer pocket problem? primer comes out!

[Robert357]

I was at the range yesterday working up some 9mm handload and shooting them out of two FEG High Power clones I have.  I wanted to check power and action cycling on both for various OAL and powder amounts.

After I got through with my load work-up, I ran some old 9x19mm loads through them.  I have three such loads where when I picked up the brass, there were no primers in the brass.  Hmm, overpressure?  I looked more carefully and found a slight bulge where the feed ramp was, which is a sign of over pressure.  That got my attention.  Then later when shooting more of that reload batch, two (in different magazines) I had failures to fire and when I pulled them out, the primer was missing (sign of expanded primer pocket), but there was powder in them dripping out and a bullet taper crimed to the brass.  Because I store my reloaded brass in plastic reloading boxes, primer side up, I am certain I would have spotted a missing primer when I was loading the magazines.

Now for the intersting part, all five of the brass have the same headstamp

          9x19
       L          Y
            92

I have no idea who is the manufacturer. 

I am wondering if this is particularly "thin" brass or brass with a large primer pocket?

Anyone else have experience with this brass or similar experience?  Obviously, I am not reloading any of this brass and am going to look over my reloads to see if there are any more such headstamps among my 9mm reloads.  If I find them, they will be pulled for components.

Never had anything like this happen before.


PS

I did a little more research and found that  "L  Y" is the head stamp for......
China North Industries Corp., (NORINCO), 7A Yue Tan Nan Jie, Beijing, Peoples Republic of China

http://www.cartridgecollectors.org/headstampcodes.htm

I think that explains quite a bit...."1992 Chi-Com QA"

I guess I will stick to reloading only "name brand brass."  Has this happened to anyone else?

[calvon]

You answered your own question. Picking up range brass is dicey to begin with because you have no idea how many times it has been fired. Stay with American made brass and avoid such problems. Buy it new and keep track of how many times you reload it. Trash it when it begins to show signs of age, mainly split necks.

[fredster22]

        Back in the 90's I bought a case of the Chicom ammo as I was doing a lot of shooting at the time with a Marlin Camp Nine &
 a couple S&W autos. It wasn't long before I had a couple jams with the Marlin and in clearing the action found that there were
 primers stuck in the action. After picking up the spent brass afterwards noticed several with empty primer pockets and needless to
 say never attempted to load any of that lot. Didn't seem to have any effect on any of the weapons with the exception of the Marlin.
 Guess it shows the truth in Buy American and did hear similar stories afterwards.

[LaOtto222]

More than likely it is soft brass - not heat treated correctly - If you did not notice any problems with the primers to start with. If you did notice a problem, then the brass was loaded too hot or a lot. When I get enlarged primer pockets, I notice the resistance is very little or non-existent - they get culled or the whole lot thrown out depending on how many I get. I load all of mine one at a time; I do not use a progressive and I prime as a separate operation. It gives me more time to evaluate the quality of the brass. But I am not a high volume loader - If I was; I would be using a Dillon or some sort of progressive, but you loose that intimate touch with the brass. Good Luck and Good Shooting

[Autorim]

I only buy and load new name brand brass. I do have some once fired Lake City match brass that I have had for many years and never loaded, but all of my other brass is Rem, WW, Starline or other major domestic brand. IMHO you should never use range brass and never shoot reloads that you did not load.

[Savage]

Autorim has some good advice on that dangerous range brass! The proper way to handle it is to pick it up so that it will not be a trip hazard. Then box it up and contact me for shipping instructions. I promise to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.
Savage