There are two types of priming systems for centerfire cartridge in use today.

Both date back

150 years, to 1866, and in all that time, neither has overcome the other. That is because
each one offers specific advantages the system you choose depends entirely on which
advantages you give more weight to. Each system was developed by a man who had earned
the rank of Colonel in his national Army: Hiram Berdan of the United States and Edward M.
Boxer of Great Britain. Both were Ordnance officers, although Berdan did distinguish himself
in command of a Sharpshooters (skirmishers or light infantry) unit in the Civil War. Boxer was
superintendent of the laboratory at Woolwich Arsenal. (Boxers family produced many
distinguished Army and Navy officers).
Originally, Berdans system used a drawn brass case with a heavy, solid head, a primer cup
with an integral anvil, and two flash holes in the primer cup set 180 apart. Boxer invented a
self-contained primer with its own anvil, and originally intended it to be used in a thin-sheet
copper case with a single flash hole on the centerline. The strength advantages of the
Berdan case were so evident that Boxers system was quickly adapted to the stronger
heavy-base drawn case. Berdan had patented his integral-anvil primer pocket, but not the
drawn-brass heavy-head cartridge design.

Primer pockets: Berdan

(l.) and Boxer (r.)
Accordingly, long
before the turn of the
century, the only
remaining difference
was the primer and
primer pocket design.
The principal
advantage of Boxers
primers is that they
lend themselves to
reloading. Berdans
casings were intended
to be disposable. Boxer
cases are easily
deprimed with a
needle that poked
through the single
larger flash hole.
Berdan primers are
best deprimed
hydraulically, by
forcing an
incompressible fluid
into the case.
Boxer primers are also
a little more robust and
easier to handle than Berdan primers. At an industrial level, it may be cheaper to make
Berdan primed ammunition. While making a Berdan case is a little more complicated and
costly than making a Boxer case, the complex multipart Boxer primer is an assembly of tiny

parts that must be precision manufactured to be reliable. The primer complexity more than
offsets the case simplicity.

Primers and Pockets. Berdan (above) and Boxer (below)

The Boxer system took off in the United States, where cartridge reloading was very common
among individuals on the frontier, and where much more ammunition is produced for the
civilian market than for the armed forces, and in many more varieties. In Europe, where
firearms were more likely to be produced by state arsenals for state actors, in few
standardized calibers, the economies of scale justified Berdan priming. In the US, surplus
ammunition with Berdan primers is likely to be corrosively primed, but that is correlation
without causation. Either kind of primer can contain a corrosive or a less-corrosive (We dont

think any of them is truly non corrosive) impact-sensitive priming compound. The older the
ammo, the more certainty that its primer will leave highly corrosive salts in the bore and
action of a firearm, and thats true of Boxer and Berdan primed ammo alike.