I have been struggling with primers not seating flush.

[DuaneWessels]

First thought was that I was not completing the stroke with my new press. The Six Pack Pro primes at the bottom and not at the top like the Load Master.
I have been very careful to complete the stroke and use a bit of force but I still get primers not seating flush.
Took these high primed cases and tried to seat them deeper with a hand primer and no luck.

I then swaged a bunch of cases and tried again, same problem.
I then reamed the cases and again same issue.
Got myself a Lyman Primer Pocket Uniformer and thought this should solve the issue.

But no.
See the first pic...this is the offending case and you can clearly see the gap between the uniformer and case. There should be no gap.

I recently got a few extra cases to fill my supply.
Some of them used to be Berdan primed cases that were converted but...
Berdan Primers have a height of .175 inch or 4.44mmm.
Boxer Primers have a height of .177 or 4.5mm.
This little difference means that the primer pocket of a Berdan primed case can be shallower.
See the second pic, these little bastards are causing 80% of my hassles.

The other 20% is caused by S&B NX cases where the flash hole was drilled out and left with a burr. In the third pic you can see where the uniformer cleaned the burr out. I think this is the case as I have loaded a lot of NX cases. I have either deprimed them with rifle pin or Lee's undersized pin with no issues.

So is converting Berdan case to Boxer worth it? Personally I don't think it is.
And those extra holes, could that not increase pressure?
 

[DuaneWessels]

[oafpatroll]

So is converting Berdan case to Boxer worth it? Personally I don't think it is.

Couldn't agree more. I did a few thousand using a ghetto jig I made years ago when I had access to free 9mm Berdan brass and no money. Most of them were fine but enough weren't for it to be a massive PITA. When processing brass now I throw away any I find. I'm a brass whore that picks up everything that glints and I find a fair bit of it. My theory is that it comes from the reloading companies like the one that sells the little hand grenades in the blue plastic boxes. 

[janfred]

Part of my inspection routine with range brass is sorting for and disposing of NX and Berdan cases.

I am a stingy bastard when it comes to 9mm brass and I have yet to see any advantage in keeping the above cases.

[Ds J]

The converted Berdan cases will give protruding primers, loose primers, and I once (just once) had a failure to fire for some unknown reason.

They are not worth it, unless one has some very good reason to go down that road.

[DuaneWessels]

My theory is that it comes from the reloading companies like the one that sells the little hand grenades in the blue plastic boxes. 


Agreed