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Reloading Berdan cases

magneticanomaly

Titanium
Joined
Mar 22, 2007
Location
On Elk Mountain, West Virginia, USA
Seems to me that if I put a fired Berdan case in a full-length resizing die over a block with a primer-sized hole I could hydraulically punch out the spent primer.

If I reamed a soft lathe collet with a chambering reamer, I could hold the case concentrically, and cut the "anvil" out of the primer pocket with a center-cutting end mill or flat-bottom drill, then drill a central flash-hole. I do not know how the diameters of the Berdan primers compare to those of Boxers for similar loads, but enlarging the pocket if needed would be easy in the same set-up. Making it smaller (.217 to .210"?) could perhaps be done by cold-forging the base around the pocket axially between two pins...I do not know if this would disturb the outside dimensions

Of course current ammo and labor costs do not favor this idea, but what technical problems should be expected?
 
You can find out more than anyone cares to know on any of various reloading/ gunning forums.

If you have the time, go for it. at 23 cents a round, I won't be bothered. Spend 60 cents and get boxer primed brass.
 
When the stars align, Berdan primers can be bought (they are larger OD than boxers)

There are even Berdan primer removing tools, they look like small can openers. But most people just drive a plunger into a water filled empty to drive out the spent primer.

Messy, but fun on a hot summer's day.
 
i used to put them in a full sizing die, then fill with water and drive a alum rod down the neck of the case ( the rod was a close fit to the case in the die) they pop out rather easy.

you need to clean and oil your gear afterwards so it does not rust.

Obviously you need to have space under the case holder for them to pop out...no space they won't move.. i suppose you could try to do it without putting it in the die..suck and see if it works..again need clearance space for the primer don't forget that.

then just buy the berdan primers and refit once you have dried the cases and done the other steps like shortening the neck a little.

Its no big deal to do it this way and dry the cases, works well done many cases, old military brass can get hard on the neck and crack so you can also anneal just the neck if you like as well.
 
I believe Boxer and Berdan primers were different sizes on purpose so they didn't get mixed up at arsenals making both styles of ammunition.

You can use a loose shell holder sitting on a table to hold the case when you deprime to let the primer have a place to go. A friend had an old drilling in some very odd ball caliber he used to reload. He only had four cases and no dies so he "seated" the bullets with his thumb.
 
If your gonna do this take the hour or so to make this tool. It is the easiest and cleanest way to decap Berdan . Also remember to use soap and water to clean your brass as a lot of Berdan ammo is corrosive primed and the salts are in the brass from the first firing.
 
I tried this hydraulic method once during the "primer shortage" in the '90's. I picked up a nearly new lot of fired Berdan brass in 7.62 Nato at the range for nothing. I got the correct primers from Huntington, but they were a bit pricey. The diameter ran about .217 as I recall. I wound up with water all over my bench and myself, and not one primer budged. My answer came from Earl Narramore's book on reloading, a tome so old it was virtually falling apart. Mother was a librarian, and she rebound the book for me to a usable state. I wound up mounting a .308 Win file trim die upside down in my press and I modified the head of a big long nail to fit the case holder. I then dropped the cases into the die from the top, seated them with a soft hammer tap. The nail extended up into the case in the trim die to serve as a knock out. I then modified a medium sized screwdiver to Mr. Narramore's instructions. It was shaped like a gouge with a small sharp square point a bit smaller than the dent in a fired primer. The bottom under the point was radiused to provide some lifting leverage. Then I just lightly punched through one side of the firing pin dent, and levered the primers out. Worked very well and no mess or damage to the Berdan anvil. I bought Richard Lee's top press mounted priming tool and got the .217 primers to feed through the large primer feed tray okay, but I had to help them along occasionally with a small wooden stick. Then I removed the decap pin from my .308 Win die set and reloaded as normal. It was beautiful brass by FMC as I remember and it performed as accurately and dependably in my homemade M98 Mauser target gun as you could ask for.
 
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I did some experimenting a few years back on some Berdan primed surplus Greek .303 cases.

I tried wooden dowels, aluminum punch with O-ring, and either pressing or hammering the plunger.

I also tried water, oil, and grease as the hydraulic medium.

Water gave inconsistent results, often failing, until I added another step.

Oil gave the best results but was messier, and the choice of oil(s) affected results.

Grease didn't work well, likely because it didn't enter the primer cup through the flash holes. And that seemed to be the secret, besides a tight-fitting punch and supporting the neck. What I think happened with the failures was air trapped in the primer cup, which compressed rather than transmitting the force.

With both water and oil I got better results with a "prefill" of thinner, more penetrating fluid to insure penetration of the primer cup. With the water i tried water/dish detergent and also Isopropyl alcohol. With oil I put a small amount of penetrating oil in first before adding the thicker oil. I even had some success with grease by using a prefill of oil, just enough to penetrate the primer. Tapping the prefilled cases on a steel plate to remove bubbles is a good idea also.

In the end I threw the cases out, never bothering to buy the Berdan primers which could still be had reasonably in those days. To much F'in effort compared to reloading boxers. The knowledge gained however was quite valuable in case Berdan primed cases are ever the only choice in future for some of the more odd calibers.

PS: I wonder if anyone has successfully (and safely) converted Berdan cases by soldering in a new primer pocket?
 
Yes. Earl Narramore also covered this. He turned the boxer pockets out of existing brass, probably military '06. He then bored out the Berdan pocket to a net fit with the turned diameter, He pressed them in, and soft soldered them. He did not worry about the Berdan flash holes, he figured the solder would take care of them alright. He said they worked very satisfactorily, and then he stated, and I quote "If you can convince anyone to do these for less then $1 apiece, then his time is worth nothing" This in about 1942 or so.
 
Yes. Earl Narramore also covered this. He turned the boxer pockets out of existing brass, probably military '06. He then bored out the Berdan pocket to a net fit with the turned diameter, He pressed them in, and soft soldered them. He did not worry about the Berdan flash holes, he figured the solder would take care of them alright. He said they worked very satisfactorily, and then he stated, and I quote "If you can convince anyone to do these for less then $1 apiece, then his time is worth nothing" This in about 1942 or so.

Thanks for sharing. This wouldn't be for economy, just to keep shooting guns that otherwise would be wall hangers. I haven't seen Berdan primers for sale in years, at least not at affordable prices.
 
That is bad news indeed, I, myself have not tried to purchase Berdan primers for a long while. I am in complete agreement with the late George C. Nonte in his book "Modern Handloading". The boxer primer is king of the hill in America, a land of reloaders, but as for performance, even ignition etc. I think the Berdan system may likely have the edge.
 
Ive reloaded thousands of berdan primed 303 cases ,back in the day.....but a while ago ,I thought Id have a go ,and it was a near failure.......Thought I must be getting old .......But ,the cases were RG 55s,and so I got out some Australian made 303 brass,MF,and lo ...the primers just popped out ,like all those years ago.....As mentioned ,no point going to the trouble without the primers,but I do have hundreds of Kynoch 303 Berdan primers (1/4"dia).....Incidentally ,the common CBC (Brazil) Berdan cases use a slightly larger primer ---.254 " dia.....some claim its the old "Express rifle" Berdan size ,but it isnt,the sizes are different in the RWS list...6.35mm vs 6.45mm........As to reloading ,on the North West Frontier ,the tribes used to not only reload fired cases ,but remove the Berdan primers and reuse them with new compound .
 
Its been a long time but i think the supplier was RWS for the primers.
If the alum dowel is a very close fit to the neck and the case full of water,( in the FL die) just put a rag around the dowel to stop spray and give the dowel a swift wack with a steel hammer.
They pop rather easy, i have done a lot of them. albeit a long while ago.

I have seen the hook tool as well but have not used it.
 
Thanks for sharing. This wouldn't be for economy, just to keep shooting guns that otherwise would be wall hangers. I haven't seen Berdan primers for sale in years, at least not at affordable prices.

Call me dumb as a box of rocks, but WTF is so WRONG with a few "wall hangers"?
Can't save 'em all, and prolly SHOULD NOT.

If I don't have safe, low-risk, low-hassle ammo? I just go and use some other firearm that has no such challenge.

Not as if there was any sort of shortage of 'em on THIS planet.
Or even under me own roof..

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By this late stage of history, there aren't a HUGE number of cases left as some other case cannot be re-formed to replace. I'd rather do that, be over to Boxer-primed. Hundred good cases? Perhaps even less, and no more problem.

I still have a hundred virgin Norma's for the 8 X 57 JR my Dreilling eats. Bought with a full set of dies around 1959. Haven't yet used-up the OTHER hundred we went ahead and loaded that same year! Guess it just ain't my first choice as a plinker?

Sure would f**k-up some "home invader" as figured body-armor would stop a shot charge, yah flipped the sights up outta the hidey-hole and the front set-trigger goes hot to the underbarrel, wuddn' it!

:(
 
Why hell yes. Let us just stick to the firearms we can get ammo for easily. No point trying anything new or attempting to learn something. Then we can flip on the boob tube and catch some liberal speaking from no experience, and just do what they say and not think about these silly guns at all. Experimentation at the reloading bench is fascinating, interesting, and as safe as you care to make your research. All old guns have their charm, and a guy cannot be exposed to too many of them. Home invaders seem rare, at least in my part of the country, but I do keep a 4 3/4" SAA .45 in the nightstand.
 
Commercially ,Berdan cases were reloaded in machines that deprimed with soapy water which served the purpose of washing the cases out....In this country Berdan reloads were very common ,as the military used both 303 and 7.62 with berdan primers ,and so the fired cases could be reformed to 303/25,303/270 ,7.7x54,and the 7.62s were reformed to 243 W. ....Incidentally ,7.7x54 had nothing to do with the Rusky guns,which were quite rare in those days anyway.
 
Commercially ,Berdan cases were reloaded in machines that deprimed with soapy water which served the purpose of washing the cases out....In this country Berdan reloads were very common ,as the military used both 303 and 7.62 with berdan primers ,and so the fired cases could be reformed to 303/25,303/270 ,7.7x54,and the 7.62s were reformed to 243 W. ....Incidentally ,7.7x54 had nothing to do with the Rusky guns,which were quite rare in those days anyway.

"Surplus", read "confiscated and sold-off by the winning side", Steyr-Mannlicher Model of 1895 "straight pull" ex Austro-Hungarian War One (and "garrison-duty", War Two?) use were not rare ENOUGH, my teen years. ISTR Dad had mail-ordered the pair of mine for ten bucks each?

Berdan's mercurous primed ammo, military-issue - was common and cheap as well. From the very good condition of it, our stash was more likely to have been War Two production than War One or inter-war. Thankfully.

"Someone" had published an article wherein a specific IC engine exhaust valve stem happened to be a near-as-dammit perfect fit to the case mouth. One of my best bud's Dad owned an auto-wrecking yard which also donated the re-purposed hydraulic brake manifold. Stripped of fittings, a hole positioned under the base of the cartridge casing provided a neat place for the spent primer to escape into. Dishwashing detergent laced water, a smart rap on the head of the exhaust valve with a plastic-faced deadish-blow hammer, and I was "in business".

For the dozen or so cases - all I had fired out of two hundred bought?

Plan "A" was to twist the insanely loooooong military ball projectile out with vise grips with the intent of salvaging the case - primer UNFIRED - dumping the aged Austrian arsenal powder charge, replacing with a published charge of IMR, and the same neat boat-tails Dad was hand-loading to such good effect for his Mauser 98 collection.

Never got there, Dad being a tad paranoid after the home-made Tri-nitro-Phenol incident. We owned books, not colour TV. Shit like that was a regular occurence.

Anywhoo.. his disposal of the Mannlichers I was converting to ambidextrous by a mere bolt-swap, cut in the opposite sidewall for a safety to engage, bolt handle welded to the opposite side, safety swapped for a hand-made mirror-image.. not much more to it.. worried him as to welding onto a dodgy bolt of uncertain characteristics, etc.. but ... had a grandly better outcome.

Orren Bellows handing me, summer of 1961 - the .300 Savage he had mounted the Balvar 8 to, but had flat-out-REFUSED to re-chamber to .308 as asked. His test firing revealed an "accidental" 1/4 MOA shooter off a fifty-dollar 1940's Savage 99DL, bought used out of a pawn shop!

And there ended any interest in Berdan's primers. All else I ever owned as used them at all being even more readily supplied, "stateside" with Boxer primed. Also not worth the bother of reloading anyway. German-origin goods, but dirt-common, either primer, and in any of many loadings and projectiles.

"Too many women, too little time" was just getting started for me, back in my 16 year-old 1961.

But the same applies to firearms, still yet, today!

Loooong after yer "little head" brain has forgotten what all that outragous "wetware" expense was even about, yah can still enjoy messing with hard metal! So long as yah don't get overly hung-up on rear-view mirrors and cease sniffing for NEW challenges anyway!

Essayons!

:)
 
I have hydraulically deprimed Berdan cases and reloaded them for shooting. Notably, for a Remington Rolling Block, 1879 Argentine contract in .43 Spanish.
Others don't care to do this.
And men like Thermite will insult you for enjoying something few people will do.
For them I say, drive your Toyota and enjoy your McDonalds but please do not criticize those of us that want more out of life.

Rolling block.jpg
 








 
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