Shotgun primers in military brass?

[brstevns]

Was not sure as to were to post this question, but I thought since it has to do with bredan primed brass (mostly military) I will try it here. Has anyone drilled out the primer pockets on military berdan primed brass to use shot gun shell primers/ If so how did it work out?

[richhodg66]

Haven't done it yet, been meaning to try it, I think it would be fairly easy to do with a drill press, but before you try that, read the thread on here lately about converting to boxer primed, really intersting stuff. I believe it's in the classics and stickies thread at the top of the page.

[plainsman456]

I have played with this 8X57 with 150 grain jacketed bullets.
You have to work out a system of re-priming the 209 primers but it was a hoot to realize it could be done.....Safely.

[hardy]

Hello to all you fellow Booliteers. I,ve been lurking seemingly forever but here goes.
The reason I convert Berdan to 209s is mainly the easier availability of the latter and secondly
I own a piece of junk drill press which I could not rely on to drill out the center of a berdan primer. I have had Good luck with cast loads at about 1650 fps[ bearing in mind 209s have an upper limit less than boxer/berdans] Thanx for all I,ve learned on this Wonderful Site. Hardy

[frnkeore]

I've done it on Russian and 30/30. But, you need to be careful about pressures. Both loads that I used were under 20,000. I don't know what the limit might be but, I don't think you'll be able to go above 30 - 35,000.

I did it two ways, first I bored the hole for a tight fit in making shot shell loads for the full length 45 Colt cylinder. The second way was to drill with a (make sure the drill is ground properly) #C drill to make a loose fit that I could push out with a pencil. In that case, I sealed the primer with a interference fit between the rim and breech block on the little primer flange.

One thing that you will find, is the shot gun primers aren't round and you have to allow for the primer flange, either by counter boring or chamfering.

Frank

[firefly1957]

There is a thread on converting brass to Berdan primers here if it helps http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=143958

I have fired one case in a Siamese Mauser with a shotgun primer the load was an intentional overload The shotgun primer held up pretty good BUT the case failed around the primer and destroyed the action. The gun was in bad shape when I bought it for under $20 and I did not know that the action was really quite strong but I picked it up for doing just what I did . It took a while to find a case that was close to the chamber the best fit was the Russian 7.62 X 54 I drilled a brass case and placed in a shotshell primer fired a few blanks (just primer) . Then I loaded a case with Bullseye, A 200 gr 32 caliber bullet and tied the gun to a bench backed off about 200 yds with my fishing line tied to the trigger . I loaded the gun went back to were fishing pole was and pulled and pulled and pulled 17 lb. monofiliment line has a lot of stretch anyway when it went off it blew the action up . The bolt held in place the receiver was split a piece of the top forearm shattered . All in all if the case did not stretch away from the shot gum primer I do believe the gun would have survived being loaded with Bullseye gunpowder! What I hope you get from this is that hole I drilled was a week spot and I had it as tight as I could get it and still get the primer in.
If I knew what I know now about the rifle it would have got a 45-70 barrel and new stock!

[Larry Gibson]

I also have done it with several different milsurp cartridges with limited success at very low pressures. Anything approacing my normal cast bullet loads in the 1600 + fps range with normal weight cast bullets for thecartridge and severe gas leakage around the primer occured. Hence I developed the method to convert Berdan primed cases to take SR boxer primers. There is a sticky on how to do that. So far it has proven reliable with my normal cast bullet loads.

Larry Gibson

[303Guy]

Has anyone drilled out the primer pockets on military berdan primed brass to use shot gun shell primers/ If so how did it work out?Yup, done that been there! I have a damaged firing pin to prove it. I didn't take into account the thinner primer cup and they punctured, marring the firing pin. Turns out one can simply turn out a new pocked inside of 303 Brit Berdan primers to take boxer LR primers.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/BerdantoBoxerprimer001.jpg
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/BerdantoBoxer001.jpg