Berdan Primers
Berdan primers, although normally associated with European ammunition, actually originated in the United States of America. Colonel Hiram Berdan is generally credited as being the inventor although it is only fair to note that Hiram Berdan may not have been the only person involved in developing his priming system. Alexander Rose points out in his excellent book American Rifle:A Biography that Col. Berdan may have gotten his inspiration from a prototype of a primer that Frankford Arsenal was developing. Philip B. Sharpe mentions in his excellent book, The Rifle in America, that Hiram Berdan was not the original inventor “as official government records show” although Sharpe does not list the records he alludes to. Colin Greenwood, a retired Superintendent of the West Yorkshire Police and author of Firearms Control, writes in The Classic British Rook & Rabbit Rifle that Hiram Berdan’s 1866 patent was for the primer pocket and not the primer that bears his name. Roy Marcot lists Berdan’s primer pocket patent along with many others secured by the colonel in Hiram Berdan:Military Commander and Firearms Inventor including a statement by Major Treadwell to the effect that Hiram Berdan essentially copied a primer and pocket designed by Colonel S.V. Benet, Frankford Arsenal’s Commanding Officer at the time. A close study of cartridge development also shows a steady progression in design and improvement from some of the early priming systems developed in the U.S. from the early 1800’s to Berdan’s final product. George W. Morse received 2 patents in the 1850’s that are the genesis of the modern centerfire cartridges so familiar to shooters today and it is probably fair to assume that Hiram Berdan was at least aware of Morse’s patents. Still, history credits Hiram Berdan as the inventor of Berdan primers and so it shall be. Berdan’s patent for his primer pocket was used by Marcellus Hartley and Alfred C. Hobbs of Union Metallic Cartridge Company in the production of UMC’s centerfire cartridges beginning in 1867. For those of you that are curious, George Hoyem has drawings of early and improved Berdan priming systems in his 1990 edition of The History and Development of Small Arms Ammunition volume 2 that show the anvil on the earliest Berdan primed ammunition was actually offset to one side. The improved version, which is the one still used today, has the anvil in the center of the cartridge case’s primer pocket.
The Boxer primers so familiar to American shooters are named after Colonel Edward M. Boxer, a British Army officer who was Superintendent of the Government Ammunition Factory at Woolwich and were created shortly after the U.S. Civil War in Great Britain. Although most references I’ve looked at list Col. Boxer as the inventor of his namesake primers, and to be fair to Hiram Berdan, the truth may lie elsewhere. Colin Greenwood in The Classic British Rook & Rabbit Rifle mentions that Col. Boxer did not actually design the primer bearing his name. As also pointed out by George Hoyem, today’s Boxer primers are the result of John Gardner making improvements to the original Boxer design while he was employed in the cartridge shop at Winchester Repeating Arms Company. However, most sources still credit Col. Boxer as the designer which can make it a bit confusing to research the history of Boxer primer development. Through a strange quirk of fate, Boxer primers became the most popular type in the U.S. while Berdan primers became the most popular type outside the U.S.
As it is now, it is very difficult to find Berdan primers for sale anywhere in the U.S. although they were once offered by RWS. In my personal experience, they were excellent primers and if I remember correctly they were offered in 9 different sizes. I used them many years ago to load a large quantity of 7.62mm NATO ammunition I acquired very cheaply that was originally produced in Portugal along with some 7.92 x 57mm ammo. The first thing I noticed was how easy it was to clean the primer pockets after firing. Most Boxer primers I’ve used are excellent too but the residue left in the primer pocket can sometimes be difficult to remove. The RWS Berdan primers I used left a layer of ash that practically fell out of the primer pocket in a thin film that always left me wondering what sort of priming compound they used or if the foil covering the priming mix had something to do with it. It made it very easy to clean the primer pocket and I wish American manufacturers would create a Boxer primer that would do the same.
Many of you reading this are probably wondering why I even bothered to load cartridges with Berdan primers when there are so many easier, cheaper ways of reloading ammunition. I did it mostly to see what sort of effort it would take and the fact that I had a lot of cheap, good quality brass available to me clinched the deal. There are several ways to decap Berdan primed cases but my own personal experience has been with the RCBS Berdan decapping tool. It consists of a pair of steel rods, one of which contains a hook with a hardened steel pin. The plain rod is inserted into the mouth of the case until it bears against the web of the case, the rod with the hook is used to lightly pierce the primer, then a quick twist of the tool removes the primer. As long as the pin doesn’t protrude too far into the primer pocket and the hook is placed firmly on the rim of the cartridge case, the primer will come out with very little force. If the pin protrudes too far into the primer pocket, a broken pin will be the usual result. Luckily, RCBS reloading tools come with a lifetime guarantee so getting new decapping pins is not a problem. By the way, please don’t ask me how I know this.
As far as I can tell, no one currently imports Berdan primers into the U.S. although they have probably been produced in practically every country in the world that has any sort of industrial capacity, including our great country, the U.S.A. I still have some RWS 5608 and 5620 primers and I have seen Hirtenberger Berdan rifle and pistol primers from Austria listed at one time in the Vectan reloading manual. Most of the ammunition offered by Kynoch during the 20th century was loaded with Berdan primers as was most of the small arms ammo produced for the various military and police forces of the world. Most of my experience has been with RWS 5608 and 5620 primers although I have some Berdan primers that are meant to be used in brass shotgun shells. Since I can never be absolutely sure of what size Berdan primer a batch of cases requires, I always make a careful measurement of the primer pockets of deprimed cases with a dial caliper to find out which one is most suitable for a particular cartridge. It is a habit I have stuck with on the rare occasion I do reload Berdan primed cartridges and it has served me well over the years.
Why did an American invention become so popular in most of the world while a British invention became the standard type in the U.S.? It’s hard to pin it down to any one factor but cost probably had a lot to do with it, at least for anywhere outside the U.S. The Berdan primer has its anvil built into the primer pocket of the cartridge, unlike the Boxer primer which has its anvil built into the primer cup. This makes the Berdan primer very easy to manufacture as it is essentially a cup punched out of sheet metal that has a priming compound placed in it. It can also be made in any size desired to suit various specialized applications. I can’t say for sure but I suspect that some of the very large Berdan primers that were produced over the years were for use in cartridges with large charges of hard to burn powder or in actions that made it difficult to strike the primer with a direct blow. Single shot rifles that use angled firing pins or guns that won’t strike primers dead center are obvious candidates. Greenwood mentions that the British military felt at the time they were invented that Berdan primers were more reliable than Boxer primers, which I’m sure had a lot to do with their widespread use in the UK. The Berdan primed cartridge case usually has 2 or 3 small flash holes that are punched in a symmetrical pattern around the built-in anvil, which is itself just a small protrusion in the primer pocket that looks, for all intents and purposes, like a pimple protruding from the center of the primer pocket. The legendary gunwriter and firearms authority Elmer Keith wrote of reloading cartridges with Berdan primers in Keith’s Rifles for Large Game and even included a drawing of a homemade decapping tool made from a scrap piece of wood, a hinged metal plate and a modified punch. The Berdan priming system, at least according to Elmer Keith, was quite common in the days of the Sharps rifle-toting buffalo hunters of the 1800’s and Keith’s early experience was with those rifles and their Berdan primed cartridges. Philip B. Sharpe wrote about them in his book Complete Guide to Handloading and noted in his 1952 edition that they were still available in 1900 from Winchester and UMC via special order. Sharpe also mentions in the same book a double cup Berdan primer manufactured by Western Cartridge Company for use in French Lebel ammo although I have never seen any. CCI used Berdan primers many years ago in their Blazer line of aluminum cased handgun ammunition but as far as I know, they have never offered them to reloaders. I’m sure if they found a potential market for it though, they would fill the need quite quickly.
Unfortunately, all of the positive attributes of a Berdan primer are cancelled out when compared to the ease which Boxer primed ammunition is reloaded. All it takes to decap a Boxer primed cartridge is a decapping die or hand tool. The single, central flash hole of Boxer primed cartridges makes it very easy for anyone to design a tool that uses a small pin to punch out a Boxer primer. Although it takes a bit more effort to manufacture Boxer primers, their ease of use has ensured their status as the U.S. standard. In fact, American shooters don’t have any idea how fortunate they are to live in this country. Aside from a few places in the U.S., they can buy almost any type of ammunition or reloading component just by visiting the local gunshop or placing an order with one of the large vendors such as Graf’s or Midway USA. It is most definitely not like that in the rest of the world and as a consequence, the interest in reloading cartridges never built up to the level we have in the U.S. The only exception to the rule may be Norway and Sweden but I can almost guarantee you that they do not have the selection or the ease of access we have in the U.S. Reloading cartridges was fairly common in the U.S. back in the late 1800’s and it has continued to this day, only with better tools and components. Let’s hope that American shooters never let the U.S. become like the rest of the world.
I’m not sure how long Berdan primers will be with us but they will probably be a footnote of history in the next few decades. Then again, that’s what most shooters were saying about the old British Nitro Express cartridges when the original Kynoch company went out of the ammunition business in the 1960’s and they have made a huge comeback. Rising levels of wealth across the world have given many hunters the chance to chase large game in Africa and many have decided to emulate the early hunters and explorers such as Jim Sutherland and Theodore Roosevelt by carrying the same rifles they would have. Maybe the same thing will happen with Berdan primers. I can’t say I would go out of my way to load ammo with Berdan primers if I have the option of loading the same stuff with Boxer primers but, being an inquisitive sort, I have enjoyed the limited experience I’ve had with them. Fortunately a lot of the old cartridges that were originally available only with Berdan primed cases are now available with Boxer primers and today’s brass is light years ahead of what was produced 50 or 100 years ago. If you can’t get ammo for that old British or Continental double that has been collecting dust in the closet, you can usually buy brass made by A-Square, Bertram, Jamison or Hornady and load your own. RCBS or Redding Reloading will be more than happy to make a custom set of dies so there is really no excuse not to try shooting some of the old guns that are out there, assuming they are in good condition. Naturally, if you have some Berdan primers and some old brass that hasn’t been damaged by mercuric primers you can load those too. Most shooters today have never seen the damage a mercuric primer can do to a brass cartridge case and although they haven’t been manufactured in several decades and are now rarely seen, it pays to be informed when shooting old guns.
As always, I encourage anyone that has any sort of interest in firearms or reloading to take an active part in our struggle to preserve our Second Amendment. At the very least, join the NRA, The Firearms Coalition and your state or local organization. It is a lot easier to preserve a right than it is to regain it once it is gone and we are a lot closer to losing our rights than anyone realizes. For those of you that don’t have an interest in Second Amendment issues, consider what Charles E. Fuller, Jr. had to say in the California Rifle and Pistol Association’s Firing Line of September 2009. His article was titled “Constitutional Loophole?” and he makes an excellent point that the various restrictions that have been proposed for gunshows are an indirect attack on our First Amendment rights. After all, gunshows are a peaceful assemblage of people conducting a lawful activity and it is a venue where like minded gun enthusiasts can get together and network. Unless more of us decide to stand up to those who would take away our rights, it is possible that our country will be unrecognizable in a very short time and our greatness will have been squandered for no tangible benefit to anyone but our enemies . --John Swikart
Copyright December 2009 ALL ABOUT GUNS
