A few months back I purhcased a Giraud power trimmer with several different caliber case holders. The trimmer indexes off of the case shoulder, and as I posted briefly on before, this makes for another factor in trimming to a certain length.

Perhaps having this feature actually makes you more diligent in your reloading process, since your brass must be consistent in shoulder position to get consistent lengths. Obviously it doesn't make a huge difference, but it is certainly measurable if your shoulders aren't consistent.

The case holders will not allow a neck sized case to fit through and be trimmed, Doug Giraud explains this quite clearly, and if you want to trim neck sized cases, you simply send him a few of the neck sized cases, and he'll make you a custom fitted adaptor. Doug Giraud is very professional, and a real gentlemen, and builds a first rate product.

At this point, I feel like the Giraud trimmer introduces another check point for cartridge measurement/confirmation, and that can be good, but is perhaps a little unnecessary for typical high quality hunting ammo.....If doing a large batch of cases it sure is fast--which I would say is it's main advantage....it is a little tricky to set the cutter, which trims, inside and outside chamfers all at once. Once set it does a neat clean job for sure.

The trimmer has not been as versatile as I had hoped, I actually have one full size die that does not size the neck enough to allow me to use the trimmer for cases sized in it. Even with cases which have the shoulders in the exact same position, it can give you a little bit of variance in length, sometimes you have to remove and insert the case 2 or 3 times to get the full trim the same......

I would say the quality is very high, the efficiency likewise, and it does provide another benchmark for case measurement integrally. I think it is borderline for my uses, I reload around 3500 rounds a year, so timming fast is certainly desirable, but I think I am more focused on the lengths being very tight in consitency, as opposed to the shoulders varying slightly, but I realize I may have this exactly backwards in terms of making quality ammo--I certainly strive to get both!

My Wilson is too slow for me a lot of the time, but right now I am considering selling my Giraud, and buying a RCBS trim pro electric trimmer, but I'm not sure just yet.

Curious as to ya'lls thoughts.

Don

Fish,

Good narrative, and very well presented.
I've been considering buying a Giraud for some time now, and didn't make the purchase as I wasn't sure how it would work for my shooting, in terms of numbers of cases to trim and different calibers I use (Cost effectiveness).
I didn't realize that it indexed off the shoulder. I'm in the camp of having all cases, after trimming, the same OAL. Glad you made that point.
Good food for thought.
Thanks for the share.

Don

I have looked at the Giraud myself a couple of times, a friend had one for about a year shooting 223/308 HiPower. After watching me run my RCBS power trimmer a couple times he sold the Giraud and bought an RCBS like mine. I can hold .001" pretty easy, and it's only about ten seconds per case.
The RCBS is just stone-axe-simple to operate and will run up to 3" cases. I run a Dillon 550 for the same reason after having had the headaches with a 650 adjustment hassles.

Rich
DRSS

Thanks for the comments guys, I am definitely leaning towards getting an RCBS at this time.

When you have a couple hundred cases or more to trim, the Wilson is just a bit tedious.

Regards--Don

Fish30114 great informative post. Thank you.

This has been a good thread.
I hadn't considered an RCBS unit before, but will be looking into it.
Good words Idaho Sharpshooter, thanks.

Don