Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

I was doing a little browsing and came across this at GRAFS they have TULA large rifle Berdan primer's for 25.99 /1K or 123.59/ 5K. I figured iwould pass this along in case someone out there was lookin for them to dust off a foriegn/ vintage milsurp.

http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/pro ... ctId/22284

Holy crap.

I think this is the first time I've seen Berdan primers for sale in ... at least five years. Probably more.

Looks like I need to start saving that South African .303 brass now. And figure out how to make a hydraulic decapper...

Diomed wrote:Holy crap.

I think this is the first time I've seen Berdan primers for sale in ... at least five years. Probably more.

Looks like I need to start saving that South African .303 brass now. And figure out how to make a hydraulic decapper...

A thick tube with a chamber cut out of it. Both ends are screw on. Put the brass into the tube, screw the base cap on (which has a primer sized hole in it, but otherwise supports the brass). A very small amount of pistol powder and a fuse, screw the other cap on. Presto decapped! It is just like fire-forming brass.

/jk


It if am not mistaken, Berdin primers don't work in boxer brass? The way the brass supports the cup is wrong so they don't always go off?

gunderwood wrote:A thick tube with a chamber cut out of it. Both ends are screw on. Put the brass into the tube, screw the base cap on (which has a primer sized hole in it, but otherwise supports the brass). A very small amount of pistol powder and a fuse, screw the other cap on. Presto decapped! It is just like fire-forming brass.

I want to live through the process!

There's a way to pop the expended primers off with water pressure, I've seen the method described but it was years ago. Never bothered to save it since I didn't think Berdan primers would ever get imported again.

It if am not mistaken, Berdin primers don't work in boxer brass? The way the brass supports the cup is wrong so they don't always go off?

Correct. Boxer primers contain the anvil, while with Berdan, the anvil is part of the case. Where there would be the flash-hole on a Boxer case, there's the anvil on a Berdan, with (usually) two flash-holes beside it. A Boxer primer can't be placed into a Berdan pocket, unless you ram it in - which would set it off. So, you need either a two-pronged decapper, which can still break sometimes, or a hydraulic decapper.

If you're really handy (and bored), it's possible to convert Berdan brass to Boxer by boring out the anvil. Unless it's a caliber with hard-to-come-by brass, that's usually more trouble than it's worth.

Besides the tool RCBS makes there is a way to do it using water, kinda messy but it looks like it works.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQNDgjcgofY

Another guy tried that RCBS tool, and it looks like it can be kind of a pain. Might be just as well to convert it to Boxer or shotgun primers.

Two old Ballard cases, 40-63. The one on the left is "conventional" boxer primed, the one on the right is Berdan primed, but it is unusual in that it has a central flash hole. These are about 130 years old.



Resp'y,
Bob S.

I keep my brass (berdan and boxer) so I bought some of these primers.

I bought an old RCBS berdan depriming tool several years ago in the hopes I'd run across some berdan primers some day. It worked for awhile (100 cases or so) then the tip broke off. I ordered 2 new tips and they don't fit quite right (slightly smaller diameter makes them loose in the tool). There's a trick to adusting the length of the pin and the placement on the primer in order to "hook" the primer and remove it without damaging the post in the center of the primer pocket.

I started seating new berdan primers with my Lee hand primer tool and found the berdan primers are seated too deep. I have two Lee priming tools so I'll have to "grind" the tip down on one a little so it seats primers to the correct depth at full stroke.

Just got into so much other stuff in the last couple of months I haven't had time to get back to working out the kinks.

I'm going to try the water depriming method next to see how it works.