By Duane Thomas
I find it really interesting that, although the Boxer primer was invented by a Brit, and the Berdan primer was invented by an American, they have each become the dominant primer in the OPPOSITE country from their inventor’s. I have put some time into considering why that’s the case.
Edward Mounier Boxer patented his primer design in Britain on October 13, 1866 (British Patent No. 2,655). American Hiram Berdan patented the first version of his primer design on March 20, 1866 (U.S. Patent 53,388) with a further design refinement patented on September 29, 1868 (U.S. Patent 82,587).
There are two major differences between the Boxer and the Berdan primer.
1. What causes a primer to “fire” (literally) is that it’s filled with a shock-sensitive material, in other words you hit it and it burns, called priming compound. What supplies the impact energy causing the priming compound to ignite is that a firing pin mashes the priming compound between the primer cup and a flat surface called an anvil. In the Boxer primer, the anvil is a part of the primer; in a Berdan primer, the anvil is a part of the cartridge casing, specifically it’s inside the primer pocket.
2. The Boxer primer has one, centrally located flash hole. The Berdan primer has one to three offset flash holes.
So, why did the Berdan primer, invented in the United States, become the go-to primer in Britain, and the Boxer primer, invented in Britain, become the go-to primer in the United States? I think it comes right down to differing political systems, and how each country views its citizenry and their access to weaponry and ammunition.
Historically, access to serious weaponry has been a privilege reserved to the wealthy and politically powerful, or their servants, read: armsmen, military. In Britain, many political decisions over the centuries, and even today, have been tied to a fear of civilian insurrection. That’s why, in time of war, Brits famously produce barely enough ammunition for their troops’ use. Frequently they have to beg weapons, and ammunition, from other countries. Thus, the joke about British attitudes toward guns and ammo: “Ban in time of peace, beg in time of war.” Certainly they aren’t going to produce enough ammunition to equip the unwashed masses.
That’s also why, when former British military weapons get replaced, they don’t do what the American military has historically done and sell the old guns on the civilian market, they export them to other countries. Even if they’re obsolete military revolvers, can’t have the serfs owning actual firearms. I say, Muffy, it simply isn’t DONE.
By contrast, the United States’ Founding Fathers were radicals, the true liberals of their time, they had this bizarre idea that the citizenry at large could be trusted with arms and ammunition – in fact, SHOULD be trusted with arms and ammunition – as a bar against government overreach leading to tyranny.
This attitude is why the Boxer primer became THE American primer. Because the Boxer primer’s single, large, centrally located flash hole makes cartridge casings set up to take Boxer primers easy to handload. It’s really at the heart of what makes reloading machines work. Run a simple metal rod down inside the cartridge casing, boom! you’ve popped out the old primer and you’re ready to insert a new one. Fast and easy.
By contrast, the Berdan primer’s two offset flash holes make Berdan casings a pain to handload. It’s not that it can’t be done, but that generally requires fabricating some sort of two-pronged hand tool, and then tapping out the primers, one at a time, by hand with the tool and a hammer. An alternative is “the hydraulic method” in which water pressure is used to remove the primer cup. Whichever is used, it’s FAR slower, much more complicated, and not conducive to volume reloading.
It’s worth noting – barely – that even today there are a small number of Brits who own firearms. Handguns are completely outlawed for civilian ownership, but a tiny number of hardy Brits still own, and shoot, rifles and shotguns. What domestic ammunition manufacturer exists in Britain sometimes does feature Boxer primers, but that’s because most of it gets shipped out for sale in countries like the United States, where our rich history of handloading means our buying preferences absolutely require Boxer primers. The poor Brits, by contrast, don’t have Americans’ huge history of, and affinity for, handloading.
So that’s why Boxer primers became the dominant American primer: Americans wanted a primer that allowed them to control their own ammunition destiny, which meant being able to handload our own ammo, if we wanted. The Brits wanted a primer that makes ammunition hard to handload, because the people at the top didn’t, and don’t, trust their subjects – can’t call them citizens – with the freedoms that Americans largely take for granted.
