RELOADING BERDAN PRIMED CASES

[Karl/PA]

Someone finally figured how to do it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQNDg...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJMLw...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKZ03...layer_embedded

[Dave_n]

Many ways including hydraulic extraction but Berdan primers are almost as rare as "Hen's Teeth". RWS used to make them for import into the US quite a few years ago, but now days!!!! Ironic that Berdan was American and his method is generally used in Europe, Boxer was British and the US uses mainly Boxer. Dave_n

[Grumpa72]

Not sure why one would go to all of the effort. Is this brass rare?

[max384]

I've heard of people trying to... but I'm with Grumpa72.... I don't know why anyone would want to. I guess if you simply can not find a certain type of brass that is boxer primed, you may want to go that route... of course you'd be loading a pretty obscure caliber to run into that problem, I'd assume. There's always the personal satisfaction with doing something that we are traditionally told can't be done. Maybe that motivates some?

[ericc40]

interesting... never knew this can be done!

the only time i saw this ammo is from sportman's guide... some sorta pakistani machine gun 9mm.

[Flash]

Just try to find Berdan primers in the USofA. "Hens' teeth" does not do the search justice. I hear that they are available in Australia. I think one of the threads on this board a while back had someone posting from there about that. And of course, trying to import them must be a real bag of snakes.

Flash

[PA Rifleman]

Not sure why one would go to all of the effort. Is this brass rare?

7.62x54R and 7.62x39 wasn't always easy to get, making reloading a necessity. Prior to 1950, it was loaded commercially but domestic production ceased sometime in the 50s or early 60s. When I was playing with Com Bloc guns (early 70s & onward), the ammunition was extremely hard to find. Occasionally I'd find Norma, which was $1 per round on sale, but was boxer primed. Bear in mind the $1 per round price was in 1974-75, not today.

After military surplus ammunition started washing up on our shores, we still needed special loads once in a while.

I think I still have some berdan primers. I reloaded a *lot* of com bloc ammo in the pre-import (1985-ish) days. Back then, owning a Mosin, SVT, SKS or AK was a logistic nightmare. No one sold brass, finding .311" dia 125 grain bullets was a pain (Varmint loads for my Enfield or Arisaka, I'd tell them). Walking into a gun shop asking for ammunition for an Eastern Euro gun during the Cold War also generated mixed reactions. Apparently the OPFOR concept hadn't dawned on many people.

With military surplus ammunition readily available, there isn't much demand for reloading berdan with the exception of 7.62 Nagant revolver.

[stephpd]

After breaking the pin on the Lee deprimer it occurred to me that some of the 30-06 brass I had was Berdan primed. I used the hydraulic method of removing the primers but like others I couldn't find primers in the USA.

Kind of a shame that it's so cost prohibitive to get the primers. I saved the brass but doubt I'll ever use it.

[762xIan]

I've heard of people trying to... but I'm with Grumpa72.... I don't know why anyone would want to. I guess if you simply can not find a certain type of brass that is boxer primed,

Well, when you have 3 FAL rifles and a 1919 belt fed and about 10,000 or so pieces of once fired brass that are beautifully annealed (like Radway Green, FMN and ADI) you look into reloading berdan brass. Not to mention a lot of the oddball European calibers for some of the milsurp rifles, the boxer brass is very expensive, and if berdan primers were available it would be cost effective for folks to reload berdan.

Brass for the most part is the most expensive item in reloading, shame to send all that brass to the scrapper. But I haven't seen Berdan Primers for sale in like 5 years though. Don't know why nobody makes or imports them.

[GeorgeF]

Yes, anyone who has older milsurp guns knows what a pain it can be to get good ammo. I have lots of .303, 7.5 French, 7.5 Swiss and 8mm Lebel ammo - all Berdan primed. And you can buy surplus .308 reasonably as well, again all Berdan primed.

Its a darn shame to not be able to re-use all that brass, especially since the 7.5 French and 7.5 Swiss use the same bullets as the 30-06 and .308. Talk about ease of maintaining supplies for reloading! But the Berdan primer issue is such a pain. I'm kind of surprised no one has set up local operation in USA to manufacture Berdan primers. I wonder what the cost of setting up the machinery would be - prob also th efear of lawsuits from idiots who dont know how to read a box and try loading Berdan into Boxer cases.

Oh well.