Hell of Reloading : Steel cased and Berdan primed

pomelum

pomelum

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i will be shooting surplus ammo and i dont want to buy a crate every couple of weeks.
so i bought a set of dies, mold, sizer and all that was needed to reload my brass ehh... steel.

i am planning on:

-drilling (inside out) a flash hole
-removing the anvil
-installing a new boxer primer
-gluing it in place with nail polish

of course i will resize and the like.

what do you guys think about this, do you have better idea?
i researched quite alot, and its the best i could find.
 
I don't think steel cases will be very good for resizing dies, for the cost of the equipment you need to deal with steel berdan primed ammo, it might be cheaper to just buy that garbage in bulk. Or find some in brass that is non corrosive, and reload that.

Also, drilling out berdan primed brass is difficult enough, steel is going to be a slow and painful process.
 
if you plan to reload something in large quantities and shoot the way your describing, i'd choose something in different caliber that has commonly available components (including brass).
 
ive drilled out the primer pocket to .209 for some round ball loads (this will not work for full pressure loads) no resizing needed for this

but you etteroff buying some brass and reloading it and keeping the surplus for a rainy day
 
i'm assuming you want to reload for that SKS you just snagged. I bet surplus ammo is much cheaper then you can reload it for.
IMO you will not save money reloading for 7.62x39, even the norinco ammo canada ammo sells is $0.25 a round, good luck.
even if you had an abudant supply of 7.62x39 BRASS I doubt you'd be saving much of anything.

adding a .22lr to your arsenal would be a good idea.

have you priced out bullets, primers, and powder?

just my $0.02 i'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
 
There are berdan depriming tools, and budget shooter supply does sell berdan primers, prob a bit easier with the proper stuff than modifying to our standard!
 
Why would go through all this effort(scratching dies, gumming them up with lacquer, drilling out primer holes, gluing in boxer primers...) when you can buy the loaded ammunition cheaper than just the bullet alone will cost you?

If you buy bullets by the thousand you might end up at $0.20 per bullet...then add primer, powder, and time to that. Most bullets in the 0.311 caliber are in the $0.35-0.45 range. Surplus is about $0.20-0.25 per loaded round. Handloading is only cheaper when compared to factory ammunition. Military surplus is the cheapest you can get anywhere.
 
i normally pay:

5$/100 primer
30$/100lbs unclean WW about 75lbs clean (i cast my own boolits)
20-30$/1lbs of powder
25$/1000 gas check (dont know if i will use or not)
i dont count my time, its fun for me.
__________
after some math it come to 0.148 a round.
still cheaper than .25cent (1200 for 300$)
normally brass case one are 1$~ each.
 
is that a typo? $5/100 primers? if not that's expensive! i pay $32 tax in for 1000 cci.

the primer pocket is a different size for berdan vs boxer.

give it a shot i guess, but you would be better off buying 5 crates at a time or something bulk to get a deal vs reloading it.

it can be done, but unless you take the time to machine tools to speed things up, i will take forever.
 
This wii be a mammoth project. I am interested to hear how tight a steel case is when stuck in a re sizing die.
 
Spawn-Inc said:
is that a typo? $5/100 primers? if not that's expensive! i pay $32 tax in for 1000 cci.
Click to expand...

well, in my area there is no big sport store where i can buy bulk and cheap. i still have trouble getting them to order powder.
maybe someday i will order online to get a better price, but the hazmat fee will kill most of the deal (30$+shipping).


i will try to reload them, ill post picture and result here later. give me 1week and you'll have a comeback on that.
 
your price breakdown is pretty awesome, i'm keeping an eye on this to see what you can come up with on those cases.
once you have those cases drilled out and prepped for boxer primers you will be on your hands and knees looking for them like they're gold.
 
pomelum said:
i normally pay:

5$/100 primer
30$/100lbs unclean WW about 75lbs clean (i cast my own boolits)
20-30$/1lbs of powder
25$/1000 gas check (dont know if i will use or not)
i dont count my time, its fun for me.
__________
after some math it come to 0.148 a round.
still cheaper than .25cent (1200 for 300$)
normally brass case one are 1$~ each.
Click to expand...

Is it really 3 bills per crate in your area?
 
Don't you have to use a small bushing in a berdan primer pocket to use a boxer? I believe that's why they drill them out and leave the outside of the berdan in the casing.
 
$270 for 1440 rounds of Chinese surplus.
In order to reload that many it will cost $120 for the powder of your choice, $300 for the 123gr FMJ bullets, $50 for the primers. That comes out to $470 just for the components alone. Now factor in a few hundred for the reloading equipment as well.

The only reason I reload this particular chambering is because I had 1500 FMJ Hornady bullets and over 500 live rounds (the brass casings were boxer primed and reloadable) given to me when I bought my CZ527 bolt gun.
I'd never consider reloading this round if all I had was my SKS.
 
Just out of habit, I generally buy a set of dies for every new calibre gun i buy.
Its been a while since I bought my x39 dies and I dont think I've used them yet!
 
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