Does anyone reload Berdan cases ?

The problem with Berdan cases is re-priming them. You won't find berdan primers on the market and even if you did, they don't use standard sizes like boxer. So a .303 case from one manufacturer may have different size primer than another. And neither of those may be the size of a standard boxer type large rifle primer. So even if you popped out the primer and drilled out the anvil to make a center hole for a boxer primer, that primer may not fit.

That is (sadly) the case with all the GP11 ammo on the market lately. Kills me to throw away the brass but the primer pockets are too big for standard primers.

I have converted some 9mm largo pistol cases from berdan to boxer, but I have never had luck with larger cartridges.
 
I reload berdan primers. With the right tools no issues. I try to keep a few berdan primers around for odd ball rounds. I don’t waste on common calibers. 303 Brit is very common so my any berdan brass gets thrown in the scrap bucket. As a side note I have berdan primers that fit 7.5x55 Swiss.
 
A lot of .303 ammunition was primed with .250" diameter copper Berdan primers. I've reloaded these cases; still have some of the primers in the cabinet. As such things go, the 1/4" primers are easy to remove.
 
I reloaded 7.62 x 45 military cases with berdan primers, once you have the proper tools they are fairly simple to de prime (RCBS makes one). I got my primers from Germany I do believe? (was a few years ago) they worked just fine and the gun ran like a champ on the reloads.
 
I reload the berdan gp11 brass. I use the rcbs decapper tool. Have used the water decap method with mixed results. The primers were bought from Rainer shine gun works in Lancer , Sask. As others said berdan primers pretty well imposible to find now. As they were Russian made too , I dont think we will see any soon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom