I plunged my hands into the Leprechaun's pot, only to find fools gold.

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armoredman

armoredman

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When I was at the range this morning, just blowing off steam, I thought I had struck gold. All over the ground were winking bright brass shells 7.62x39mm BRASS left behind for a reloader like me! I was in heaven! I began scooping them up for my brass baggie, before something made me take a closer look...



NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! :eek: :'(

BERDAN PRIMED!!!

What foulness is this, to have perfectly good brass but with the ultra evil Berdan priming...woe is me! Well, not really, I didn't lose anything, but here's the headstamp - anyone recognize this?:confused: It will look good heading to the recyclers.:evil:

foolsgold.jpg
 
I am thinking it is a Yugoslavian origin headstamp but which factory I am at a loss to say. Yes I have a 3 gallon bucket of those berdan primed 7.62X39 and I have pulled the primers and am waiting for some berdan primers to arrive that I ordered a couple of days ago.:D They almost went to the recyclers but I will try to load them with the correct primers first. All I got were 1K of them to try along with about 15 K of standard ones.

I got my Large Rifle Berdan primers at Graff & sons. Just make sure that the Tula primers are the correct size before you order a butt pile.
 
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They may not be reloadable by you, but to some they are reloadable. The benefit to you is that if you can't, or don't, want to reload them, you can always sell them as scrap brass if you get enough of it. There's money to be made that way when all else fails.
 
Those are Barnaul Golden Bear, or possibly Monarch (same thing, different branding).

I have quite a bit of them from my personal shooting, and they all go into my recycle bucket.
 
Are they even brass? Copper washed steel (golden bear for example) cases have been used by various manufacturers in the past.

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The last few batches of golden bear I have ordered have all been brass, looks like they stopped using the copper washed steel cases.
 
It's brass, and the 6 I had in my brass baggie went straight into the recycling bag...I need to get that to the recyclers. Last time I had a full bag of bad brass, I just handed it to a group doing a recycling drive - they toasted my name for a week after that.
DCoke, reloading Berdan primed cases is a PITA, get the tuning fork in there just right, and finding Berdan primers. I have a buddy who reloads Berdan cases sometimes, and he's been waiting a LONG time for some good Berdan primers to come in. I'll stick with Boxer, thanks. I did NOT throw any of them away, I did NOT scoop them all up for my brass barrel, so if someone who A) reloads 7.62x39mm around here and B) uses Berdan primers comes along, they can still get them.
 
Even if you can't use 'em, you can always recycle 'em.

My last recycling trip netted me enough to buy 1,000 primers.
And that was only about 2 months worth of culled brass & trimmings.
 
Or just reload it. I spent an hour yesterday depriming berdan 7.5 - no mess/no fuss. Yes it's more time consuming than boxer but no big deal. DAG AMMO has berdan primers (Tula) that I can pick up at gun shows....I think online you have to by bulk....like 5k worth of volume. At shows, you can buy 1k at a time.

For lots of folks Berdan is more hassle than it's worth...and that's okay. I don't mind it though.
 
The last few batches of golden bear I have ordered have all been brass, looks like they stopped using the copper washed steel cases.
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Where did you find them? All the Google hits I look at all have "brass plated."
 
Bought them on ammunitiontogo.com a while back. While they were advertised as brass plated steel, they are most definitely brass cased. Not sure if this was limited to certain production runs, or if it is the norm.
 
As others have said they can be reloaded and are wrth more than scrap to those that load them. I'd be interested if there were more than 6 to make shipping worthwhile.
 
Bought them on ammunitiontogo.com a while back. While they were advertised as brass plated steel, they are most definitely brass cased. Not sure if this was limited to certain production runs, or if it is the norm.
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Well... guess I'll have get some & check it out. That Yugo milsurp isn't going to last forever & I would love to find some range friendly ammo besides the 80 cent/round WWB & Fiocchi. I'd really rather run brass in my Mini-30 as well.
 
I bent/scored/screwed up my RCBS .30-06 resizing die on a berdan case. I picked up about 75 pieces and loaded 35 or so withough incident. I sorted by headstamp and went about my business. After loading the first batch, much to my surprise, the second batch broke my die and RCBS would not replace it. Instead, I got the part no. from the salesman and ordered a replacement part, about $13 IIRC. Bummer.
 
I pick up all brass, even rimfire . what I cant use gose to the Recycler , a one gallen jug of 22 L.R. bass got me 23 $ last week.
 
Slightly off topic.

I use a Lee universal decapping die. The Lee dies are designed to push the decapping pin up and out of the top of the die rather than break the pin.

The best part is the whole die is less than $8 from FS Reloading and if you do break the pin Lee will replace it under warranty.
 
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