[Jonathan_Michelin]

I was wondering why no one handloaded, thanks for the tips, I just got a sportarized number 1 mark 4, wanted to try to load, gonna get a neck sizer die

 

[MIKE_SELSOR]

I was depriming some 303 infield marked GB 54 7 in a Lee universal depriming die and broke the deprime punch. when I looked inside case it had 2 holes but none in center prime hole. does all 303 have 2 holes or is this type of ammo

 

[Anonymous]

Mr. Selsor: it sounds like that case was Berdan primed.

Basically, almost all centerfire ammunition made in the US is Boxer primed, with a single flash hole in the center. Boxer primers are manufactured with an "anvil" inside them--usually a tiny bit of wire or sheet metal--against which the firing pin crushes the priming compound in order to cause it to detonate and set off the powder.

Berdan cases have a little projecting knob of material in the primer pocket that serves as the "anvil," and Berdan primers, not needing an "anvil" inside each one, are therefore a bit less expensive to mass-produce. Most European centerfire ammunition is Berdan primed.

Some people say that Berdan primed cases cannot be reloaded. This is an oversimplification and it's not necessarily universally true, but it is true that it is much more difficult to get the old primers out of Berdan primed cases (some people fill the case with water and use a wooden dowel that is a tight fit for the case mouth, and beat on it with a mallet to dislodge the old primer by hydraulic pressure; it's a slow and messy process and it doesn't always work). And in the US, it isn't always easy to obtain Berdan primers--and Boxer primers, even if you use tweezers to pick the tiny "anvil" out of them, still aren't exactly the same diameter as Berdan primers and will usually be a loose fit in a Berdan case, though I have heard of people trying to shim them in place with bits of sheet metal, or even fixing them in place with superglue. I do not endorse these methods, I'm merely passing on information that I've heard about.

You may therefore wish to try to avoid trying to reload British military surplus .303 cases in the future, as I believe all that were ever produced were Berdan primed. All US commercial .303 brass has always been Boxer-primed, as well as the Greek surplus with the "HXP" headstamp you sometimes find.