Anyone out there actually reloading berdan cases, specifically 308 ?
Yes.
First post here. Certainly not my first post anywhere though.
I reload Berdan .308 quite a bit. Looks like your thread, Zeke, may not have a lot of folks that are interested in it. I LIKE to sit in the hovel and do little time consuming things that go with reloading. I will throw a few things at you as food for thought. Feel free to email or pm me.
Most DAG headstamped brass (not all) will help you learn new cuss words. I save mine for hard times.
R1M1 is the easiest, closely followed by FNM and MEN.
MEN is soft. Upon first FL sizing it will likely be so long it will not fit between the end of the leade of the chamber and the bolt face. Trimming is needed of course.
I cut the crimp out with a box knife. I have learned a skill in this little operation and as practiced as I am, I can cut about four to six a minute. Have not cut myself yet. Have done about 500 so far.
Not all Berdan pockets are of equal diameter. Some are so small they cannot be re-used (with the supply of PMC primers I have anyway) short of chucking them up and cutting them (lathe). Most of them are ready made to accept the primers I have. Probably work with the TULA offerings. Some are too tight and need swaged even after cutting the crimp. I copied the large primer RCBS primer pocket swage punch on my lathe. Of course, I adjusted dimension a little as Berdan primers are a couple three thousandths (nominally) larger than boxers. I cut a hole in the center of the punch of course to clear the Berdan anvil. I made it from a piece of 1" 4140 drop I had laying around. I intended to harden and temper it, but never got around to it. I have used it to process the 200 - 300 cases that have needed it and it's original hardness hath sufficed.
I clear the flash holes with a torch tip cleaner, by the way.
I trim them with a Lee trim rig. I took a .308 pilot and cut the flash hole pin completely off. I chuck the shellholder in my battery drill and using practiced dead reckoning, cut them easily to within .005" of "spec". Whose "spec" ? MY damn "spec", thank you very much. lolol. I use a Lee factory crimp die after seating bullets. A word on this:
Lee claims that you do not have to worry about case length when using their factory crimp die. One word- "BOLLOX". You DO. Just not as precisely as with a roll crimp. Hence, my "VFR" trim method works fine.
I have a lot of 50 pieces of Berdan brass I am working with for the fun of seeing which headstamp lasts longer. There is R1M1, FNM, MEN, DAG, O-O, RG and maybe another one or two. This lot of fifty has now been fired a total of four times. My recipe is a 147 FMJ over 42 grs of IMR 4895. Nobody has failed yet, even though my FNFALs are hell on brass.
Thanks to so many people considering Berdan brass as no good, I will have brass to use for longer than I shall live. For free. I have likely more Berdan primers than I will ever use, but that remains to be seen.
Life is fun. Funner for some than others.
Pontotoc.