I found some military surplus ammo very cheap and wonder of wonders it has brass cases instead of steel. The only problem is it has Berdan primers. How hard would it be to put boxer primers in? and how?

The diameter and depth of the pocket is different.
The anvil would need to be removed/flatened and a flash hole would most likely need to be drilled (depending on origional construction methiod).

The above assumes that you have a good way to remove the origional Berdan primer in the first place.

IOW for any common case, or a case that can be reformed from a common case, the amount of work is not worth the savings. If your working with a rare case, than it's usually easier to obtain berdan primers to reload with.

Yep, the boxer is a little to small for a berdan pocket. The risk of gas blowback is not worth the risk or trouble of converson. Sometime Grafs and Sons sells berdan primers:

http://www.grafs.com/retail/ca...gory/categoryId/3986

If you are really interested in the converson:

http://www.surplusrifleforum.c...pic.php?f=78&t=90109

It ain't worth the trouble. It would be easier to set to reprime with Berdan primers which also isn't worth the trouble.

If you can find the primers, like Grafs has, then I believe RCBS still makes a depriming tool for the old Berdan primers. With the price of brass htese days, it may well be worth it.

One of my old shooting partners, who is partial to the old rolling blocks in the obscure calibers, told me that he fills the case with water, inserts a wooden dowl that fits the case mouth pretty tightly, and gives it a good rap. The water preasure will blow the primer out.

After allowing the case to dry completely, he reprimes and loads as normal.

quote:

Originally posted by riverman1:
One of my old shooting partners, who is partial to the old rolling blocks in the obscure calibers, told me that he fills the case with water, inserts a wooden dowel that fits the case mouth pretty tightly, and gives it a good rap. The water pressure will blow the primer out.

After allowing the case to dry completely, he reprimes and loads as normal.

It's gotta fit tight and the rap has to be large and near-instantaneous to generate sufficient pressure great enough and fast enough to punch out the primer. Maybe you can have a steel dowel turned up that exactly fits a sized case. That should do it quite nicely...

You also have to watch out for primer sizes. Some of the brass/primer combinations are made in the same factory and there may not be a "standard" primer size for it. I haven't lookad at this idea for several years. The best conversion idea is to cut a shell for a large rifle primer.

I'd save them all up in a sack, then sell them on to your local scrap merchant once you've got enough weight. I agree it's a waste but it's a total ball ache to work with unless it's some calibre you can't find with boxer primer holes. It really isn't worth the effort mate!

quote:

Originally posted by riverman1:
One of my old shooting partners, who is partial to the old rolling blocks in the obscure calibers, told me that he fills the case with water, inserts a wooden dowl that fits the case mouth pretty tightly, and gives it a good rap. The water preasure will blow the primer out.

After allowing the case to dry completely, he reprimes and loads as normal.

Been there tried that, maybe 1 out of 10 cases popped the primer on the first rap. If a person decides on trying this method I would suggest rain gear and dive goggles.

Not all Berdan "large rifle" primers are the same size either...

http://www.dave-cushman.net/sh...lies_dimensions.html

Unless the cases are for a hard to find calibre or one of the larger nitro expresses, it is not worth the trouble to reuse Berdan primed cases. The hydraulic method of de-capping Berdan primed brass does not work that well and in fact leads to bulged cases much of the time.

Military brass quite often has crimped primers which makes it even harder to de-cap cases and the hydraulic or most other methods just won't cope.

I reuse my Berdan primed 404 cases using .217" Kynoch primers, de-capping using a small chainsaw file with a fine pin ground on the 'handle' end. Works very well through one of the small flash holes in the case. Tried other methods but none worked as well as this.

Take a sharp punch (ice pick)Drive through the
primer at an angle to miss the anvil. A twist and it's out. Faster than it took to evplain.
The "hydraulic method' may work for some prople
for straight cases, you get wet, the bench gets wet, and if you hit it hard the ceiling gets wet. I'm not going say how I know this.
Good luck!

After looking at all of that I think I'll take a ballpeen hammer and beat the empty cases into a nice paper weight. Thanks for the info guys.

http://www.flame.murom.ru/en/Htmls/primers.htm

For most calibers (7.62x39 x51, 8mm, 6.5x55, 7.5x55) you can use the PMC .217" LRBs (made by Murom). Most 7.62x54R and 303 Brit use the larger large primer (6.47mm).

Water works easily on Ruag GP-11; all other stubborn cases can usually get decapped with the RCBS Berdan Decapping Tool although it's not 100%.

Availability of berdan primers seems to be more problematic than decapping.

Good luck!