I mentioned this in a thread below, but if anyone is interested in reading more about it, check out some of these links:

Berdan reloading

Depriming Berdan

More Berdan stuff


This is provided as informational resources only.  I have never tried it myself, as I haven't had a need or desire to do so..... YET.

Right now there are not any berdan primers avaliable that I know of.

I got lucky and stocked up on them when they were avaliable. I use the RCBS berdan decapper which works well eccept for two types of cases, AFF and RG. I altered a RCBS bench primer to accept the larger primers and have loaded about 3000 308 rounds. The best part is most people will sell their berdan brass to me for scrap prices or just give it away, and it's always once fired. The learning curve was long and altering tools was a pain but now I just breese through them almost as fast as boxer primed cases. 22000 more to go and unless someone imports them again I'll be done with berdan primers.

RCBS decapper works well.

I've used the hydraulic method.  Messy but it works.  The older Lee dies were great with their long expanders.

Every time I’ve tried the “hydraulic method”, all I’ve accomplished is getting wet!  

A guy over at swissrifles.com reloads the GP-11 brass after removing the primer with a ground-on round file.  His method takes all of about 3 seconds and doesn't require a blow dryer.

May I suggest.........try finding a source of Berdan Primers.  And, note the variety of sizes.

www.dave-cushman.net/shot/berdan_supplies_dimensions.html

Aloha, Mark

My original intent was to post this for the fellow that was looking to deprime the cases for whatever reason (the OP was looking to neutralize some old 7.62x54mmR primers, but then the thread got locked from others jumping in).  Knowing how scarce Berdan primers are, unless you have a bunch on hand, this wouldn't be worth the time to do it - unless you just had some need outside of reloading or wanted to get wet.