Would it be practical to decap Berdan primed 8 mm French
Lebel and drill and ream for boxer primers? Anyone know what
the case life would be?

I think PPU makes 8mm Label. Modern commercial ammo. It usually goes for at least $20/box

To load your own and change the primers, well, up to you


can be purchased here (says Boxer primed?)

PPU 8x50R Lebel 200 grain FMJ-BT 20 rounds - 223253, Other Calibers Ammo at Sportsman's Guide

8 x 50R LEBEL Ammunition for Sale. Prvi Partizan 200 Grain Full Metal Jacket Boat Tail (FMJ-BT) - 20 Rounds

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Still Running Against the Wind

I used to convert some berdan primed 8x56R Steyr & 7.62 Russian to LR.
I put the fired case in the lathe and drilled out the face of the fired berdan primer, leaving the walls of the primer in place inside the primer pocket.
I would drill off the top of the internal primer anvil in the case also but leave about half of it still standing.

Then take the case and run it thru my press with the LR primer pocket swage installed.
What this does is swage the remaining ring/wall of the old primer tightly into the primer pocket while at the same time sizes it to standard LR size.
The remaining stub of the anvil left inside the pocket is swaged down flat and will on occasion fill in the berdan primer flash holes,,sometimes not.
Seems to make little difference if the holes are in fact closed up.
What is needed is a nice clean flat bottom surface for the new LR primer.

If the old berdan flash holes (sometimes there's only one) are still usable,,that's fine. I still drilled a new center flash hole (#41 drill) as you'll need it to decap the LR primers when reloading.

Once in a while the thin ring of the old berdan primer would come out along with the deprimed LR primer. I super glued a few back in. They are supposed to stay put on their own being swaged into place by the primer pocket swage operation.

The 'floor' of the primer pocket to the case interior can be thin on some converted brass,,that can be a problem as far as case life.
But if not,,then the number of reloads you get is no different than any other brass case.
Steel cases convert and reload just fine also. They work thru the reloading dies no different than brass cases.

I've converted some cases to take standard shotgun #209 primers too.
It takes 2 different drills. One to drill through,,the second to put a shallow bevel on the pocket to take the flange of the 209 primer.I can't recall what the drill #'s are. A bit of looking on google for the subject will turn it up.
With the #209 primer conversions,,use light smokeless loads only.
Or you could just buy some PrviPartizan ammo and reload the brass!

I have a little under 2000 rounds I would like to sell. It is on 15 round strips for Hoschis (sp) Machine guns. It shot fine in my carbine single shot upgraded to 3 shot. PM if interested. Ivan

A retired gentleman at our range used to drill and ream brass berdan primed rifle cases then press in shortened .25 ACP cases. He reamed a shoulder for the .25 ACP's rim to seat against. He used small pistol primers and ONLY fired cast bullets with powder charges that were a drastic down load compared to the military loads.

How much time do you want to kill?

I you load them way down, don't work the brass any more than necessary (just enough to fit your gun and seat bullets) and anneal the necks and shoulders before work hardening they could last 20 loadings or much more.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"