Berdan in what calibers? What to do with Berdan brass?

Boolit Mold Join DateMar 2013Posts11

What calibers have you seen berdan primers come in? I have been picking up brass as a way to build my stocks on a shoestring budget, and have traded away some of the calibers that I won?t reload. Doing this has brought me into the world of dealing with berdan, but is there a list of calibers that it is common in? Or is it that I have to check every single one?

Also, I?ve read a bunch on this forum (and have a bunch more to do), but is there a market for berdan primed brass, or is it a hassle and should go to the scrap yard? From the reading of multiple threads on here I know that it is possible to reload, but it sounds like a heck of a lot of work/hassle. If there is a market for it, how does the price compare to the boxer primed brass?

Thanks for reading this and for any help you can give me in understanding this.
Dave

You will only see it in European brass!
And then only in military brass.

It's a thing of the past and started it's life when Berdan supplied rifles and cartridges to the Russians in 1868.
The Mauser brothers copied it and then it was used in The German states. From there it florished and a bad thing stuck. Much like your Imperial measuring system.

Where there is a will, there is a won't

Hey Dave. Most people just discard it, honestly. It's a pain to deal with and can be a little nerve-wracking to try and reload (although it can be done). I've seen it in a lot of surplus military cartriges, like 7.62x39, 7.62x54r, 8mm, .303 Brit, ect. I've also seen it in .223 before, as well as some common handgun calibers.

If you have some, especially in the above calibers, PM me and i'd take it off your hands, any quantity. Cash, or I can trade brass you might want. Problem with berdan primed is that it's not worth a whole lot as scrap, but i'm experimenting with loading it... Let me know!

Boolit Mold Join DateMar 2013Posts11

Thanks for the information guys.

Personally, I've only checked and found it in 7.62x39 and 7.62x51 (.308), but that is only because I knew to check those before I traded them. I guess I'm going to have to go through some others just to make sure.

I would prefer to trade/sell them to someone once I have large enough numbers, rather than to scrapping it. Unfortunately, I’ve only dealt with people that don’t know what berdan primers are. Just yesterday I traded brass/dies with a guy that wanted “every” 7.62x39 and .308 (7.62x51) that I had. When I brought up the subject of the berdan primed ones, he didn’t know anything about them and thought that he could just pop out the primer with his “deluxe” and stronger die set. I must need to work on my explaining skills, because it took 20-30 minutes before he finally understood (sort of) what I was talking about. For the first half of the time he thought I was talking about crimped primers and the other half was explaining why he couldn’t “just muscle it out.” He claimed to have reloaded those calibers for “several years” and had never heard of such a thing.

Boolit Master Join DateOct 2007Locationsan josie califPosts380

As others have said, Berdan brass is not too useful to the average reloader -
One problem is the number of different berdan primer sizes.
Boxer primers are essentially 4 sizes today -- Berdan has at least 10 sizes -- different diameters and several heigths (sp) for the same diameter.
Most modern european military rifle calibers use a .217 diameter of some sort. Berdan pistol ammo is another whole world.
One notable exception is the 6.5 and 7.35 carcano, they use a smaller diameter primer that can be reworked to use boxer primers -- Still, a lot of work and requires some tooling ---

Older 303 br brass used a .254 dia berdan and older black powder rounds like 11mm mauser used a 6.45 mm primer --
Many moons ago when surplus ammo for these old weapons ran out and the primers were also not obtainable I converted some to use shotshell primers - This works fine for older original black powder and early smokeless weapons.
Still a pain though --
my tuppence

Boolit Master Join DateJan 2013Posts268

A lot of common calibers have a berdan variant. Easy to spot if you don't recognize the head stamp. Or the cases just look funny. I've been collecting scrap brass and handled thousands of pounds a few get by me once in a while .But I keep all brass and steel now. Some people can use them to swage jacket . but if scrap brass price is good around you might be better off selling for scrap

Boolit Mold Join DateMar 2013Posts11

I guess I need to become more "at one" with the brass. Either that or go cross-eyed until I handle it some more.

I wouldn't say that the brass scrap price is bad here, but I would prefer to keep the brass in the reloading world, as long as it makes sense.

Boolit Buddy Join DateNov 2012LocationYonkers, new yorkPosts70

i load berdan primers in size .254(6.45MM) only . 43 spanish 11x59 r french 11mm werndl , 500 nitro express, 577 nitro 2.75 ". I try only use original brass. i also have boxer primers in this large size . and i have adapted them to the above calibers. these primers i find a local Gun shows . Most people don't know what to do with them.
sal

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