Odds ‘n Sods:

I’ve added a few more Affiliate Advertisers, including 1-800 GET LENS and the bookseller Chapters.indigo.ca in Canada. These join our big list of established affiliates that includes Lehmans.com, US Cavalry Store, Nitro-Pak, and Northern Tool & Equipment. (Those four generate more revenue for SurvivalBlog than all of the other affiliates, combined!) Of course, please give our paid (scrolling banner) advertisers your business first. But if they don’t have the products you are looking for, then please next patronize our affiliate advertisers. When you place an order via the web links from our Affiliates Page, we get a little piece of the action. Thanks!

  o o o

Michael Z. Williamson sent a link to useful site: a friend of his has developed and tested a method of converting European Berdan primed brass to Boxer priming.It looks like a very labor intensive process for salvaging a 10 cent piece of brass. But in a pinch, it could be done. Be forewarned that that if you start doing this, that cartridge head stamps will no longer serve as a sure indicator for you in sorting your supply of fired brass. For any formerly “Known Berdan” head stamps, you will then have to individually inspect each fired case with a bright flashlight to determine whether or not it has been Boxer-converted. There is nothing quite like when you get when you try to de-cap a piece of brass and you feeling something odd during the de-capping/re-sizing stroke, as you realize that the piece of brass was Berdan-primed. The decapping pin usually comes out bent around almost 180 degrees like a fish hook. It is even possible to bend a de-capping rod–effectively destroying your resizing die. OBTW, I have friends in Canada that have a Berdan de-capping and re-capping rig. Berdan primers are available via mail order from The Old Western Scrounger.If you ever buy a large quantity of Berdan-primed military surplus ammo, then it might be worthwhile to get set up to re-prime with fresh Berdan primers.

   o o o

Bob G. told us about this fascinating piece by Alexander B. Korelin