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Posted: 9/24/2009 1:50:37 PM EDT
| What are the advantages and disadvantages of a Berdan and Boxer primer? |
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Shine a light down the brass.
If you see a single hole in the middle then its "boxer" and reloadable. If you see two holes then its "Berdan" and not reloadable. The reason the Boxer is reloadable is simply because the presses designed today can easy punch out the primer through the hole in the center. With the Berdan you will never know where the two holes will lineup. |
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Because the Berdan primer is difficult to remove from the case without damaging the anvil, Berdan priming is used by nearly all militaries and most civilian manufacturers (with the exception of those in the United States) to discourage reloading of ammunition, but it a berdan primed case CAN be reloaded. It just take a special decaper and berdan primers to do it. here is a nice article on the history and how to do it. http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting2005/berdanreloading/index.asp here is another tool to remove them http://www.dave-cushman.net/shot/rcbsberdaninstructions.html |
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The Berdan/Boxer primer was really just the result of attempting to arrive at the same goal of an effective and reliable primer.
Strangely, the Europeans came to favor the Berdan type primer which was invented by US General Berdan, and the USA preferred the Boxer which was invented in Europe. The Europeans liked the idea of the double flash hole which in the early days, they thought offered better ignition of the powder and a stronger anvil made as part of the primer pocket.. The USA liked the simpler single flash hole and the primer that had the anvil instead of being part of the case. Just two approaches to the same thing. Since reloading was never really popular in Europe, the difficulties in the double hole primer system wasn't a major issue. In America, the very earliest cartridge shooters, especially the buffalo hunters gave a big early boost to the easily re-loadable Boxer system. Once settled on a system, neither Europe of America saw any need to change. As for difficulties or advantages, these days, there's really no special advantage to either system due to modern, more reliable powders and the primers themselves. The only real disadvantage is to the Berdan system, and that's caused by the difficulty in de-priming the case. De-priming methods range from filling the case with water and inserting a tight fitting pin to various mechanical methods. In the water method, the case is filled with water and a tight fitting rod is inserted into the case. The rod is struck with a hammer, and the hydraulic pressure pushed the primer out. This method gets you good and wet, but works. Another method uses a special de-priming rod that has two pins. This requires that the case be rotated and the ram lowered very carefully until you can feel the pins entering the two primer holes. This is slow and the smaller diameter pins tend to break easily. Usually, the entire rod head has to be replaced if a pin breaks. The last method uses some type of hook device to catch and pull the primer out. After de-priming, there's the problem of finding new primers here in the USA. Not that many are imported, and the price is higher than American boxer type primers. |
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Berdan primer cases are not hard to reload, they are just slower to deprime and reprime.
Many will argue that Berdan primers are much more surefire than the Boxer primer and are much less likely to blow out or become pierced. Because of dimensional differences between Berdan and boxer primers and the primer pockets in the cases, it is not practical to convert cases from one to the other. Buy cases specifically made for Berdan or Boxer primers. Cases that are special made and machine turned are generally made to accept Boxer primers because the primer pocket is much easier to machine correctly.HTH |
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