Berdan primer to boxer

[beechbum444]

Afternoon y’all:

I’m trying out a drill kit that drills out berdan primed brass to boxer primer holes and wanted to get some thoughts on it. The brass ones are FN 308 and the metal ones are steel Russian 308, also doing 7.62 x 54 and x 39....yes the Russian primers are a lot bigger , I’m swaging in 1/4 inch copper line are a crimp before putting in primers...... anyone try anything like this before ..... thoughts , ideas , concerns ......

[pworley1]

Larry Gibson has a great write up on here on converting them to shotgun primers that is simple and works great. The process you are using looks interesting as well.

[farmbif]

first thought off top of my head is might want to cut one lengthwise and see how much thickness left in the shell compared to a run of the mill boxer primed 308 case. when I 308 with jacketed bullets they sure are no powder puff loads even at a couple grains below load book max. maybe just me but I always practice safety first after getting 1/2 crippled in a accident I had no control over.

[Conditor22]

I would stay away from metal cases unless you have no other option, they are hard on you reloading gear.

[Drm50]

I can’t see going to all that trouble for 308 brass as common as it is. I never do conversion unless I can’t buy reasonable. I made my own centering starter and use RCBS berdan decapper.

[beechbum444]

Good points, this is more of a proof of concept project , never know what the future holds

[tankgunner59]

I did this with 7.62X54R steel cases a while back. I had a couple of 2"
X4"blocks I drilled out on my drill press to hold the cases securely. I don't recall the bit size I used, but I drilled the cases anvil till I had a boxer style primer pocket. Then inserted a 1/4" thin walled copper tubing cut it off with my Dremel tool, ground it off to the surface of the case head and swaged it to boxer LRP size. When I seated the primer it needed no crimping, but if it had I would have used nail polish to keep it in the primer pocket. My rounds fired fine with this proccess. I wasn't crazy about hydraulic depriming but I just wante to test so I didn't buy the berdan depriming tool.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Everything said so far is true. Mr. Gibson did do quite a write up, and it can be found with a search of the website. I have seen other methods a bit different than his (probably on u-tube) and most look very "do-able". I guess it's kind of impractical if not demanded by necessity, but looks like a lot of fun to tinker with. I like the way your brass looks. You mentioned a drill kit, and I'd like some more information and maybe a photo of that. There is so much nice Berdan brass that just goes to waste. I started saving mine, but have never yet gone the conversion route.

[uscra112]

I have converted 7.5x55 Swiss. Most easily done if you have a lathe so you can accurately drill the Berdan anvil out using a 1/8" spotting drill before adding the new flash hole. This process also cuts the crown off the Berdan primer. Swage the remainder with a small primer crimp removal tool. From then on a small rifle primer fits fine. I no longer recall how many firings I got from this, but it was more than half a dozen. Loads were for cast bullets, not full pressure as for military jacketed.

[Larry Gibson]

My method is a sticky on this sub-forum [a few lines up from this thread] or http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ckets-to-Boxer

[EDG]

With full pressure jword bullets you are asking for a giant gas leak.

[uscra112]

Reading Larry's method reminds me of where I learned it, and also that I used his #18 drill to clean off the crown of the Berdan primer after establishing a guide hole on-center with the spotting drill. Using the lathe/spotter method you'll never spoil one.

[djryan13]

I have not tried this but it appears to be a better conversion process IMO...

https://sharpshooter-22lr-reloader.m...reign-domestic

I tried the method in the other post. The primers end up off center some of the time. If I was to try again, I would buy the tool above. Seems like a better chance at centered primers. You have to buy their sleeves too...

[beechbum444]

That's the tool I've been using from their website. Works great

[Omega]

Here is what I do with my Berdan primed 308s...lost three decapping pins to this lot.

[fiberoptik]

Whistles?? I lost a decapping pin doing 30-06 brass.


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[Omega]

Whistles?? I lost a decapping pin doing 30-06 brass.


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No, bottle openers. I made a few and gave them out to friends and acquaintances, I set a silver (nickel/steel?) bullet in them to complete the look. Yea, I was using a Lee universal decapping die, I'd get on a roll then bam, one would sneak in. I had to inspect the whole batch again, ended up with what you see. Must have been mixed in with some I traded for, probably when I wet tumbled my LC brass.

[Larry Gibson]

With full pressure jword bullets you are asking for a giant gas leak.

Only if the conversion was sloppily done. With correctly center flash holes I've loaded some converted 7.62x54R and 303 cases several times with top end loads of 4895 under 150 gr Hornady .312 bullets.

[ddixie884]

Cool................

[EDG]

I disagree. How on Earth is anyone going to be able to verify what is sloppy and what is not sloppy?
No one can be 100% sure of such a conversion not leaking a lot of gas back into some 100 year old action that does not handle gas well.

What is loaded several times and what is top end loads - that is what was the pressure?
If I use your process on 30-06 cases formed and used for loading a .25-06 at max pressure do you think your process would be OK?
OK for how many reloads?

If you are saying you have 6 Sigma statistics proving your process works I would say show me the statistics but we both know you do not have a process that good nor the statistics on what you do have.

Only if the conversion was sloppily done. With correctly center flash holes I've loaded some converted 7.62x54R and 303 cases several times with top end loads of 4895 under 150 gr Hornady .312 bullets.