Praxis: Guerrilla Reloading -- Berdan to Boxer Conversion, Ammonpulver and Reusing Spent Pimers.

Berdan to Boxer Conversion Method

"Thanks to the excellent instructions published by M.Chandler at http://web.archive.org/web/20090109164453/http://users.ameritech.net/mchandler/primer.html, I finally found a practical method of converting .217" Berdan brass to take .210" Boxer primers. The tools I used are an RCBS primer pocket swager, a good loading press, a drill, a spare shellholder, and a ball bearing about 1/2 inch in diameter. The process is simple and quick, requiring under two minutes per case once everything is set up. It works very well for me. Once I'd made up a dozen cases, I loaded and fired 150-grain bullets with charges of WC852 from 43 to 55 grains, then reloaded and fired one case 7 times with the stiff 55-grain load. There were no gas leaks at all and the primer pocket was just about as snug after 7 load/fire cycles as it was immediately after conversion."

Ammonpulver

Ammonpulver is a very energetic powder with an energy content about equal to powders like 2400, Blue Dot, or Bullseye, which are all quite powerful. Its burn rate is controlled the same way as other powders by changing the grain size, and I found that the ammonpulver I made ranged in burn rate from about IMR3031 or IMR4895 down to around IMR4350 in granulations about like corn meal on down to Cream of Wheat, the finer the granulation the faster it burns. It is also flashless as well as a truly smokeless powder, the combustion products are nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and water in the form of steam; all of which are clear colorless gases. Because of the inevitable ash from the wood charcoal, a very tiny amount of smoke in the form of a colloidal dust is briefly seen, and when the temperature is low and humidity high the condensed steam is also seen as "smoke" that very rapidly disappears.

As has already been mentioned, ammonpulver is simply a finely ground mixture of carefully dried ammonium nitrate and charcoal (ammonium nitrate is highly hygroscopic and readily absorbs moisture from the air and when left out in the open it turns into a soupy puddle), the range of proportions that prove useful are from about 80% ammonium nitrate and 20% charcoal, to 90% ammonium nitrate and 10% charcoal. The chemically balanced equation gives very close to 86.96% ammonium nitrate and 13.04% charcoal (87% and 13% are close enough). However, I did all my experiments with the most commonly used proportions of 85% ammonium nitrate and 15% dead-burnt charcoal. It is of utmost importance to use dead-burnt charcoal since the creosotes left from partially roasted wood make the powder unstable and possibly subject to spontaneous ignition. The partially roasted wood charcoal that was used for canon powder by the U.S. Navy in the 1890s is probably what blew up the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba in 1898, setting off the Spanish American War. At the time in 1898, it was rumored that a Spanish torpedo or sea mine was responsible for the Maine sinking, however later problems with auto-ignition of the so-called "cocoa powder" made using partially roasted charcoal that was still a reddish-brown color is most likely what ignited the canon powder magazine aboard the Maine, blowing it up and sinking it in seconds. Anyway, to be safe, the charcoal used for making ammonpulver should conduct electricity, ensuring that it is dead burnt and has no creosote left in it.

What if you can't buy primers for handloading, DIY ammo option