Berdan Primers in 30 Carbine

[Ivan the Butcher]

I went for years thinking no 30 Carbine had corrosive (Mercury) or Berdan primers. Then in the late 80's, Knock off 30 Carbine made in China had both. Head stamped "LC 52"!

About 6 months ago I bought about 600 used cased and about 15 were the LC 52 Berdan cases. What really surprised me were the 35 or so cases marked "Geco", that ARE Berdan primed. Sometimes, on 9mm, when you deprime a Berdan case(this punches the anvil out too) you can use a Win SPP. These "Geco" 30 Carbine cases have the right diameter cup but the cup is about 1/16" too shallow to allow a WSR primer and the web is too thin to grind it deep enough!

My assumption is these came into the country with the Bavarian Forrest Service M1 Carbines. If you reload this cartridge BOLO! (Be ON the Look Out!)

Ivan

 

[stansdds]

U.S. manufactured .30 Carbine ammo was always non-corrosive primed and, as far as I know, used boxer primers. Foreign made ammo is a roll of the dice.

 

[Jack Flash]

Buying "Once Fired Brass" is always a roll of the dice, IMHO. How would you know? It could be somebody just swept it up at a range and did a half-baked job of sorting it at that.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

U.S. manufactured .30 Carbine ammo was always non-corrosive primed and, as far as I know, used boxer primers. Foreign made ammo is a roll of the dice.

IN 43 years I have only seen these two head stamps with Berdan primers!! I have seen a lot of foreign 30 Carbine ammo and Never any Berdan (except the Chinese that faked a US head stamp) In this batch was the first Iraqi head stamped, and the first Israeli, I have ever seen. Both Boxer primed.

Ivan

 

[LoboGunLeather]

Berdan-primed .30 Carbine ammo started showing up in the US about 30 years ago. Russian, Chinese, probably others.

I've also seen .30 Carbine ammo produced in Mexico, Venezuela, Korea, Germany, Sweden, and Malaysia. Since WW2 those old carbines found a lot of new homes!

I was fortunate to receive a case of LC-63 from CMP during the 1980s. One of the first calibers I purchased a carbide sizing die for reloading, which makes the job much simpler and faster. Lee mold for the C309-115RF has turned out several thousand cast bullets. For years I've been using 12.0 grains of 2400 and small pistol primers, which is a case-capacity load resulting in average 1780FPS, slightly under service load velocities but allowing the use of the same sight settings as GI ball at 100 yards. Lyman manual shows a max of 12.5 grains at ~40,000CUP so I'm not pushing the pressure limits.

My usual "shooter" carbine is a Inland 1943 that really likes to spit fired cases vigorously. Every trip to the range results in 5-10% losses of my brass. No danger of running out, as those old Lake City cases seem to accept repeated use with few problems.

 

[Jack Flash]

My usual "shooter" carbine is a Inland 1943 that really likes to spit fired cases vigorously

My main shooter carbine throws them every which way, including some that hit me on top of my head!

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

Ivan. My Underwood, high wood Bavarian forestry police from the CMP

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

My two M-1 Carbines area 1944 IBM NOT REBUILT, and a 1943 IBM rebuilt and fitted with a T-3 Nightscope. Around 25 years ago I found an ammo crate with 15 ROUND MAGAZINES for $200, there were 99 mags. I have sold all of them except for about 10 for personal use.

I found my wife doesn't have the upper body strength for a Mini-14 or full sized AR-15, so the plane jane IBM sits in the vault with a loaded 15 in the well and two loaded 15's in a pouch on the stock. 45 ready rounds of Winchester soft hollow points will cure anything that bothers her when I'm away. I use 30 round mags for FMJ so I can tell the difference in the dark.

IMHO, M-1 Carbine: The Ultimate Pistol Caliber Carbine!

Ivan

In the early 80's I started building toy guns for my kids to play with. Their rifles were based on 3/4 size M-1 Carbines with spring retractable bolts. Their sub machine guns were bases on the Sterling and used a M1-30 round mag out the side and the body was 1.5" muffler pipe, perforated with 1/2" holes. From across the room or yard they looked very real!

ITB

 

[austintexas]

carbine empties

When I was in the Air Force We were using Carbines I Know up to 1968 and the first thing We were told at the range was turn your ball cap around to keep the empties from going down your neck. You definitely don't want a hot empty going down your neck under your T-Shirt. I saw my first M-16 when I arrived in Vietnam in '68.
SWCA 892

 

[mikld]

Buying "Once Fired Brass" is always a roll of the dice, IMHO. How would you know? It could be somebody just swept it up at a range and did a half-baked job of sorting it at that.[/ Every new to me case gets a good inspection before I start reloading it. In all the many "once fired" brass I've purchased from a few different vendors (a few thousand for 9 different calibers) I have had fewer than 12 unusable cases that were steel, berdan, defective or damaged...

 

[desi2358]

Berdan primed military brass was produced in several countries that used the M1 Carbine in the post WWII era. Most seemed to have followed US practice in using non-corrosive priming mixtures in their Berdan primers. France used both corrosive and non-corrosive primer mixes with their Berdan primers which were marked on the labels (in French of course) to identify them......... Though, in my experience with older French military ammo is they are all likely to be dead by now. The fake LC stuff the Chinese made was very reliable ammo but corrosive and required extra care in cleaning.

Foreign made 30 Carbine ammo with boxer primers usually was loaded on US supplied equipment if military or was intended for export sale (mainly to the US) if commercially loaded. I have encountered a variety of foreign stuff over the years and shot up a lot of it when I was on an M1 collecting binge!

 

[DWalt]

At least some French-made .30 Carbine ammo used corrosive primers. The French Military were given lots of surplus US carbines by Uncle Sam after WWII, and most of those went to Vietnam (aka French Indochina) which was a French colony until Dienbienphu. The VC then inherited them, later using them against us. There was also corrosive Dominican Republic-made ammunition. The Dominicans had their own design for a .30 Carbine they called the Cristobal. I once fired a couple of boxes of the Dominican- made ammo in one of my US carbines before knowing it was corrosive. I had to flush out the gas chamber with water. Not too difficult a job if you have a magnet. As I remember, the Dominican ammo used Boxer primers, but I did not reload the fired cases.

No country ever used mercuric primed .30 Carbine ammunition. Except in certain special purpose applications, the mercuric primer composition became extinct everywhere around the turn of the 20th Century. Mainly because it had a short shelf life in warmer climates.