Originally Posted by
HamGunner
I had a couple hundred good brass cased Berdan primed 7.62x54R that had the larger sized Berdan primer and they deprimed ok with my homemade hydraulic tool. I also had plenty of the smaller primed cases as well, but they were not as easy to deprime, plus most of them were copper washed steel and I just did not want to mess with them anyway.
I reprimed the large primer cups after punching out the dent with a hammer and punch. I filled and tamped down my version of the EPH-2X primer compound and just before the compound sealer has dried, I also place one Legend brand toy cap gun cap disc on top of the priming compound and tamp down again. I suppose the paper cap gun cap is not necessary, but I feel much better about the compound staying in place with some sort of paper on top, although any thin piece of paper would likely work as well. I don't think a tiny bit of Armstrong mixture will corrode things up much.
I use my Arbor Press to prime the already resized cases by placing a flat rod inside the case for the press to bare on the inside case base, since I do not have a priming tool the correct size for the large Berdan primer cups. This has worked well.
I also knock the firing pin dent out of large center-fire primed cups and use the Arbor Press to replace the anvils on my reprimed large pistol and large rifle primer cups. This also has worked out well, but I have not attempted the smaller primer cups. I am sure it would be just as easily done, but my 72 year old fingers just do not handle such small detailed work.
I had been saving up spent primers for years, but unfortunately I had just been dumping any brand and any size into the same coffee can. That requires a lot of measuring with a caliper to separate the large rifle from the large pistol cups, but it has worked out okay with just a bit more tedious time involved. I now have been segregating and saving my spent primers by size at least.
I hope this is only an experimental process and primers once again become plentiful and not so costly. One can at least hope so.