berdan tokarev reloading question

D

dr.zorba

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hey there.

I have been playing with milsurp berdan primed tok ammo. I took a piece of 1/2 inch iron drilled a 7/16 hole half way thru, then drilled a 1/4 inch hole the whole way thru.the empty sits tightly held this way with the primer unsupported.
next i took a 5/16 bolt cut the threads off to make a ram. the next step is to fill the case with water and insert the rod and give it a good smack with a hammer, presto berdan primer removed.
this leaves me looking down at the anvil in the empty.
Now for the question could i drill out the anvil and insert a regular boxer primer ? is the primer pocket the right size for small pistol ,or rifle primer.
I am starting to get into reloading and it seemed a shame to waste all those milsurp empties. the salts in the primer so that should fix the corrosive problem. will regular dies form these empties or will it screw them up?
this method is supposed to work on sks berdan primed to but i cant make it work on range empties maybe they were rusted and i need freshies i dont knowthe drill sizes are 29/64 for the big hole and m or.295 for the through hole if anyone is interestedin trying for sks.
Any follow up#info would be appreciated. i think zippy and mdobo( not real sure of the names ..sorry bout that,) had a 223 to tokarev thread here but i lost it (way to go dumbass!)
All suggestions tokarev or sks are greatly appreciated, please no "go buy starline " post im just playing, not stupid(well not REAL stupid..lol)
for the you tubers a guy called maine junker has a cool make boxer sks vid a little complicated for me but still cool

Go Easy
J
 
If you want to reload Berdan cases, the "easy" way is to buy some Berdan primers. After de-priming, size the cases and seat a fresh Berdan primer. I do this on calibers for which no boxer brass is available.

There are brass Berdan cases in 7.62 and also steel cases. You should find out if the steel cases re-size ok. I know brass cases are easy to resize. I re-size the Starline cases all the time. No reason to think brass Berdan cases would be any different.

I suggest you make sure a steel case is well-lubed and then see if it resizes ok. If it does not, the next question is "Do you have brass Berdan cases to play with?" They are less common.

I reload 7.62x25 with plated Berry's 110g bullet intended for the M1 carbine. They shoot well in my 1911 but not my Tokerev. I suspect the Tok has a slower twist. A higher velocity might solve this problem, but I have not tried it, since my Toks shoot the surplus so well there is no desire to handload for them.
 
I have found that the primer pockets in South African milsurp cases were slightly bigger than Boxer pockets. I tried reloading them with boxer primers and a punched central flashole but got fed up with poor results as well as loose primers rattling around in my BHP.

Berdan primers can be challenging to find as well. Unless you are dealing with a rare caliber where cases cannot be readily converted from commercial Boxer primed brass I would find little satisfaction in reloading Berdan cases. And if you already have 50000 once fired berdan cases for your Tok on hand? Take 'em to the scrap metal dealer and use the cash to buy some Starline brass :)
 
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Yep, berdan primers are a fraction larger. I've peened pockets in with ball bearings and tried to 'stake' them narrower with masonry bits as a chisel. It works to hold the primers in place but there is always gas leakage through the pockets.....good luck and be careful.
 
honestly I don't reload those.
They are so cheap in 2280 round cases that they are even cheaper than what it costs me to reload 9mm. Not worth it. I just toss in the recycle bin.
 
Many indoor ranges do not allow military 7.62 x25 so I reload. I reload both the steel and brass cases. So far I have only reloaded cases 5 times, all brass cases and most of the steel are ready for another reload. I bore the anvil almost all the way through and then decap case with a Lee decaping die. I then use a RCBS small primer military crimp swage to swage the primer pockets down to fit a small pistol primer. I then load the same as boxer cases. I find that the steel cases often size easier than the brass cases. I use 32 acp slugs,71 gr. fmj and 85 gr. rn hard cast. These reloads seem to shoot fine in my tok.
 
I use a 5/64 drill bit to bore the berdan anvil. I use a RCBS small primer pocket swager in a RCBS rockchuker reloading press but I think any primer pocket swager would do. My powder charge is 5.0 grs. of Dupont # 6,my tok throws the fired cases about 18" from my handgun. I reload my ammo on a Lee auto index press.
 
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