Federal Field and Target 12 Ga - Possible problem.

I was cutting apart a 12 ga shell to explain to one of my sons about how the shotgun shell works.  I was explaining about how the shot cup, power piston and gas wad worked to propel the shot load to the target.

Well, something happened while I was doing that.

 I was using the Federal Field and Target - Multipurpose Load in 12 gauge, which is 3 Dram 1 1/8th ounce of #7.5  shot.

 Here is a case before cutting

 Here is what happened after cutting.  The power piston, the thing sticking up, is supposed to be attached/plastic welded to the shot cup.  As you can see it is not.  I didn't cut the power piston as you can see, the piston just came free from the shotcup.

 I did this to 3 different shells and all three did the same thing. 

From looking at the shot cup you can barely see the indention where the shotcup and the power piston are supposed to be mated together.

Now I don't know if this is a manufacturing defect, a defect due to the age of the shells, which isn't that old I bought this box about a year ago in a 100 round case from Wallyworld.  I've checked my Remington and my Winchester ammo which are basically the same load however they use a completely different type of Wad/Piston/Shotcup arrangement.

I've still got about 260 of these Federal Shells and I've never had any issues with them before.  However looking at this, I'd like to know if this would affect the shells performance or possibly damage my shotguns.

And for the record my intention was to cut around the shell and to strip the casing off to show my son how a shell works. I've done this before to other shells by other manufacturers and not had any problems.

As for use, I know Hickok45 gets most of his ammo from Federal, and if he has any problems with it, I know he would post it.  A few days ago he just uploaded a new video where he was using Federal Ammo in a Short barreled SXS 12 and it looked like he was having no problems with it.

But for me, I'm going to restrict my usage of Federal Ammo to the NEF Single barrel unless maybe someone from Federal can tell me this ammo is ok.