I need some advice. Recently I was reloading some rifle ammo (.303 BR) , and found that I had accidently bought berdan primers instead of boxer. Didn't notice the error until I had about 30 rounds loaded. Are these rounds ok to shoot? Especially interested to hear from anyone with practical experience with this.
reloaded w/wrong primers
- Thread starter plinker50
- Start date
Probably won’t go off.
Really, right? It must have been the only box in the ammo shop, and it was mixed in with the others. That's why I never noticed it.
garandman
Bolt Gun Bodacious
I think he said these are loaded rounds, which means he'd hafta pull 30 bullits.
I hate pullin' bullits.
What would be the best way to de-prime them?
I bought a new tool at the gun show that speeds it up. It looks sorta like a pair of wire stripping pliers , but with various rounded notches for different calibers. So you put a shell holder in your press, load a round into it, then grab hold of the bullet with the plier tool, resting the plier on top of the press. Then you raise the press handle, and out comes the bullet. A lot less fiddling around than with the inertia pullers.
tmwinds
Gold $$ Contributor
After you pull the bullets and dump the powder de-prime with a de-priming die.
WEAR PROTECTIVE GOGGLES
Thanks.
garandman
Bolt Gun Bodacious
Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
I'm actually impressed that you were able to shove a Berdan primer in a Boxer-primed case. There are several sizes of Berdan primers and the closest one to the .212inch of a large rifle Boxer-type primer is .217inch. You must have used a press to shove that one in. Interestingly enough, the .217 Berdan primer was used for the Berdan-primed .303 British.
Also, the height of the cup of that Berdan primer (5608) is .110 inch and the 5620 is .100 inch. The height of the cup of a Boxer Large Rifle Primer is .128. That's probably why you were actually able to stuff the wider but shorter Berdan primer in the Boxer large rifle primer hole.
Fast14riot
Gold $$ Contributor
Turbulent Turtle
F-TR competitor
No, Garandman is NOT wrong. If the OP did indeed somehow manage to stuff Berdan primers in a Boxer-primed case, then using the regular decapping method for Boxer primers will work just fine to remove these Berdan primers from the Boxer-primed case. Do it slowly.
Hydraulic pressure is only needed to remove Berdan primers from a Berdan-primed case because the flash holes are not in the center of the head. There is also a tool that you can get to remove Berdan primers that yanks them out.
Also, I believe that the CCI Blazer aluminum-cased ammo is loaded with Berdan primers to further dissuade shooters from reloading those cases.
Funny how everybody that is saying do it don't disclaim they made the same mistake as the OP. Safety is free.
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