GrumpyOne Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 I got to thinking on the long drive home from work today, if Boxer primed cases are the bomb, why is Berdan still used/made? What are the advantages to having a Berdan primed case as far as ignition, reliability, etc. I think we all know what the disadvantages are in reloading... Opinions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merlin Orr Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 For the sole reason to piss me off while I reload..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyOne Posted December 2, 2011 Author Share Posted December 2, 2011 For the sole reason to piss me off while I reload..... Find one person that it doesn't! Seriously, why is it still around? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 Cheaper maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyOne Posted December 2, 2011 Author Share Posted December 2, 2011 Cheaper maybe? The primers maybe, but the brass would be much more difficult to produce, with the 2 holes and anvil, thereby making any savings gained by the primer lost and them some on the brass... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skydiver Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 I was under the impression that Berdan primed brass had higher reliability and that's why military brass tends to go this route. Please help me correct this impression if it's completely wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 Good read: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=berdan%20primer&source=web&cd=20&ved=0CHYQFjAJOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.allaboutguns.net%2FBerdan-Primers.html&ei=CzLYTpnNFKbs2gXSlM2xDg&usg=AFQjCNEpf92xuFBwI80jnkXJMBp7nRFTkQ&sig2=7-t2Uz5judFKSzpUCkGbjw Discusses cost and reliability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anachronism Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 Berdan brass is still made as part of the Presidents economic stimulus package. A liberal sprinkling of berdan brass at key ranges accross the country keep the plants that manufacture decapping pins running around the clock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merlin Orr Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 Berdan brass is still made as part of the Presidents economic stimulus package. A liberal sprinkling of berdan brass at key ranges accross the country keep the plants that manufacture decapping pins running around the clock. Ahhh. I see a darker explanation. Ranges are seeded with Berdan brass and the manufacture of decapping pins falls under "those who know better than us" regulation. ie banned. It's a conspiracy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyOne Posted December 2, 2011 Author Share Posted December 2, 2011 So, no one REALLY knows, huh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 So, no one REALLY knows, huh? Pretty much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyOne Posted December 2, 2011 Author Share Posted December 2, 2011 Damn, I was hoping for some real insight...... There has got to be a real reason out there, and someone has got to know what it is.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 Pretty sure the article I mentioned said some countries still feel it is more reliable for military use. And it is cheaper to produce initially. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyOne Posted December 2, 2011 Author Share Posted December 2, 2011 Pretty sure the article I mentioned said some countries still feel it is more reliable for military use. And it is cheaper to produce initially. The primers yes, are cheaper to produce...But the brass? And, what does the number one military in the world use? Boxer or Berdan? I would think (although there is no proof in the theory that our miltary would use something inferior and more expensive! ), that ours would use the best available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acekc Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 Various places on the Internet claim that one purpose of Berdan primers is to discourage reloading, but it's hard to know if that's actually true or just a supposition that got picked up and repeated. I understand that's happened on the Internet once or twice. ;-) Google "berdan discourage reloading" to see what i mean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coleman Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 I was told(cant verify) that corrosive berdan primers are more reliable in very cold wheather conditions. Maybee that is it not for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canuck223 Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 Pretty sure the article I mentioned said some countries still feel it is more reliable for military use. And it is cheaper to produce initially. The primers yes, are cheaper to produce...But the brass? The stamping and forming die costs are essentially the same. On the primer side, the tooling to stamp and handle the anvils would add considerably to the cost with no real benefit. The only negative I can see from the manufacturing standpoint in making berdan primed cases, is a slightly higher scrap cost when loading the primers into the cases. That's quickly offset by the likely lower scrap costs on the primer line. (As in the cost of the materials and time at the point the item fails QC.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cburlette Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 If I were to guess, and it's totally a guess with quite a bit of imagination thrown in, I would suspect that Colonel Hiram Berdan thought that the anvil in the Boxer primer effectively covers the flash hole in the primer pocket. A more effective, and therefore more reliable, way of igniting the powder would be to have holes that straddled the anvil "legs" or "struts" so that when ignited the flash could travel unobstructed from the primer pocket through the flash holes to the powder charge. If you imagine the "flow" of the flash in a boxer primed cartridge it starts from the tip of the anvil, propagates around inside the primer cap after rebounding from the anvil and eventually travels around the anvil legs and through the flash hole. Another way of looking at it would be to say how hard would the firing pin have to hit the primer to drive the anvil back and obstruct the flash hole to the extent that you have a failure to fire? I could see that with an overly powerful, and long, firing pin the anvil would be pushed back into the flash hole and the expanding gas of the primer charge would seat the anvil so tight that no propagation from the primer to the main charge could occur. This scenario could never happen with a Berdan primed case. But as I mentioned at the beginning this is only speculation on my part. Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sc0 Posted January 21, 2012 Share Posted January 21, 2012 Because it's hard to load a Berdan primer in backwards and not catch it like a Boxer primer. (If trying to load a Berdan primer backwards it will more than likely go off.) From this I suppose the reliability in the production ammo goes up for places that cannot visually look at all the primers to see if they are installed properly. If you hear a bang then you have a problem. Just another opinion anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmorris Posted January 22, 2012 Share Posted January 22, 2012 (edited) I can think of a story from a long time ago at great grandmothers house. A young(er) was fixing the ham up for the oven and cut 2" off the base and put it in the pan with the rest. When asked "why did you do that" by a kid, she said "I'm not sure, that's the way I always have seen it done." To make a long story short by the time they got around to asking GGM "why" she said she never had a pan large enough to hold a whole ham. My first guess is cost. The same reason you have 4 bolt wheels vs 5 lug, save a $1 a millon times and you have an extra millon at the end. If you already have millons invested in machines that make berdan brass and primers, it starts to make a lot more sense. Also a lot of berdan "brass" is steel or aluminum cases that they don't want you to reload for safety. Edited January 22, 2012 by jmorris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpeltier Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 I was told(cant verify) that corrosive berdan primers are more reliable in very cold wheather conditions. Maybee that is it not for sure. The compounds used in corrosive primers are what aid in cold weather ignition. It has nothing to do with the anvil being a seperate component or part of the shell case. Bottom line is cost. Berdan is cheaper to manufacture. With modern manufacturing it may not be as big of a differance as it once was. But retooling is very expensive, so some may continue the practice for practicality sake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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