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Berden primed 556 and 308 - to avoid?

thedude824

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Oct 7, 2020
176
127
Tampa FL
Anyone have a list of manufacturers of 556 and 308 ammo that use Berden primers? Last time I deprimed several hundred 556 and 308 cases I broke at least 4 decapping pins over a couple hours. I sort out Lake city, Federal, Norma, and Winchester brass and use the remaining stuff for a single reload for training loads. I appreciate it
 
Only 223/556 i have seen that was berdan was the South African and Spain Santa Barbara. There may be others. 308w/7.62 there are a ton of them.
 
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Man, I didn’t check 5.56, but just doing some back of the envelope math on 7.62, only getting one reload out of that brass, you might be almost as cheap buying factory ammo in bulk, and not have to do all that work.

My quick and fuzzy math puts a reloaded round at a little over $0.90, using cheap (but still copper jacketed) ball and 43 gr of Varget (just a baseline) and typical LRP at current prices.

You can buy IMI M80 ball right now for $1.00 per round if you buy 500 at a time.
 
not sure what die set your using but since I switched to using the lee universal decapping die, I have not broken a pin.