"re-man" and "factory re-man" are terms that we use that are not necessarily rigidly defined, but basically mean that some for-profit outfit that isn't a top-tier known ammo production business such as Federal, CCI, Remington, UMC, Winchester/Olin, Hornady or any of a dozen other known ammunition businesses has taken used brass, once or many times fired, and handloaded or reloaded that brass, packaged it up and offered it for sale.
Freedom Munitions is one of the best known of these factory re-man outfits. Perhaps one of the biggest and most successful would best be called a former re-man outfit: Black Hills Ammunition. Black Hills started decades ago offering "factory reloads" and I first ran in to them in the late 80's, I bought .38, .357 and 10mm ammo from them, loose packed in to 50-rd cube shaped boxes, mixed headstamps. It would not be accurate to call Black Hills a re-man outfit these days, because they parlayed their early success in to a top-tier "boutique" outfit, yet another term we use.
Boutique ammo manufacturers tend to offer very specific certain items and are usually smaller in scale to the big boys. Think Black Hills, Underwood, Buffalo Bore, Double Tap and the like.
The big dogs, the boutique guys and the factory re-man outfits all have one thing in common -- they are licensed to manufacture and sell ammunition. As far as I know, that does NOT hold them to any particular standard, but it does make them legal. Only some of them actually work with SAAMI, who guards the actual industry standards. I don't know much about any of the known ammo manufacturer's relationships with SAAMI, but I can tell you from personal experience (and my obvious personal opinion) that Buffalo Bore in particular seems to throw a middle finger to SAAMI constantly, and I find that absurd. But if I have to say something nice... Buffalo Bore is good enough to be very much up front with that position.
Freedom Munitions came to be after the massive success of X-Treme plated bullets, and it's been my opinion and many others that they got caught up in the ammo and component panic following the Sandy Hook tragedy and they grew too fast and shipped too much ammo and their QC fell drastically. Freedom started out utilizing used brass and then shortly moved to new production brass... and we have seen quality problems with their new production brass. Freedom Munitions in new brass with a F-M headstamp would likely NOT be properly defined or labeled "factory re-man", as the brass is new. However the ammo is still suspect.
I wouldn't shoot any Freedom Munitions given to me. I would have serious personal reservations selling it to others without full disclosure. I have no problem whatsoever admitting that I carry a large personal bias against Freedom Munitions ammo, and I freely admit that I have never spent one dime of my own money on it.
If I had more free time on my hands, I would love to compile the mounting evidence that their product is suspect, but doing so would start to look like some kind of a personal vendetta. I can also admit that the same amount of web searching can show you tens of dozens of happy customers, all of which can report their experience being 5 boxes to 12 cases with no failures or problems in their experience.
I have spent countless hours participating in active forums all over the web and I've seen way, way, WAY too many first hand accounts of BAD Freedom Munitions ammo. I can say that I haven't heard any cases were Freedom Munitions turned their back on anyone who registered a complaint with their ammo, but my guns, my fingers, my face and my friends and family are far more important to me than the success of Freedom Munitions.
Freedom Munitions and/or X-Treme Bullets have spent the last year or more than a year going through different forms of bankruptcy. I have had less than stellar transactions with X-Treme over the last two years. I continue to really love X-Treme plated bullets, but I believe their business is going in to the toilet.
And I won't shoot Freedom Munitions at any cost. If someone gave it to me for free, I would offer it to someone else with full disclosure, but it would never go to anyone close to me.