HST primer sealant

[Moonshot]

I've been buying Federal's 9mm HST for some time now. I began with the P9HST1 and when that was all use up in training, I moved to the P9HST2. Between reliability testing, training and attrition, I've gone through a fair amount.

I had read that the HST was sealed at the case mouth with black tar-like sealant (similar to what's used on the XM193) and the primers were sealed with a blue lacquer sealant, although none of the rounds I have ever bought (many, many boxes worth over the years) ever showed the presence of any primer sealant. I never pulled a round looking for case mouth sealant, but the primers all looked untouched. If there was primer sealant, it was clear.

No big deal, but the last several boxes of P9HST2 I just picked up had very visible red primer sealant on all rounds, and it looked like there was the same red sealant around the bulled at the case mouth. Hard to tell, but it did have a faint red ring.

Is this something new to the line? If so, why? Were they not sealed in the past? Were they sealed differently? Was this a special run for someone who required it (all the boxes I saw with the red sealant were from the same lot #).

Just curious.

[JBP55]

I looked at some older 124+P and 147+P and did not see any color.
I looked at some 147 I received this month and it has the Red Color on both ends.