I stopped in Gouger Mountain last night so see what they have on sale and ended up striking up a conversation with the old gent at the gun counter. We got talking about 300 mag ammo as i was holding a box in my hand. He says do you reload? I answered yes and asked him if he had a pilot for my trimmer and he replys i don't know much about the trimmers because i don't use one. I said i thought you said you reload and he says i do but i have never needed to trim my cases. Scratching my head i said how is that possible when after just one fireing of factory ammo and F/L resizeing my .308 cases are over max length. Now i'm thinkin this old codger don't know squat, but without getting into a huge debate cause thats where it was headed, i bowed out and went home. My question is how often if at all do you guys trim your cases and is it possible to reload at any rate and not have to trim your cases?

Depending on the chamber size and the amount of reworking the die does to my brass I might get 4-5 loads of full sized ammo prior to needing to trim cases. Neck sized brass lasts much longer but still needs a trim on occasion.
Straight walled handgun ammo (45acp, 38spcl)is an exception and they can go in some cases forever without a trim.

He said he reloaded .300 mag, .308, 44mag, and a couple others. after the first F/l resizeing and after i trim my cases i can get 4 or 5 reloadings till i have to trim again but i even have to trim my 45acp cases at some point. He made no mention of hangun ammo. I've never heard of not needed to ever trim cases. I am just curious.

Do you trim -.010?

I can get by 4 - 6 times without trimming, but I trim all my brass back .010" on the initial resizing.

I slap every one upside the head with my Lee trimmer. If it trims, that's OK. If it doesn't, it's still OK and into the jug it goes with the rest of them...

Every damned one of them been trimmed...

If you measure your chamber's length, you may find that SAAMI spec isn't a true representation of the space available to accommodate the neck.

After I resize my cases,I've found it's just as easy to run each case through the trimmer as it is to measure,separate and trim.This way,every case is the same length when I load them.

+1

quote:

with my Lee trimmer(s)

Everytime I re-size; that way every case is always the same length.

With a Drill Press or electric screwdriver.

Give this littlE gizmo a try. It has kept me from over-trimming my cases in a couple of rifles. You'll be surprised how much leeway factory chambers give you.

http://www.sinclairintl.com/pr...uges-Headspace-Tools

You have to sacrifice one case, but it is simple to use and safe in your chamber.

There are homemade methods of doing this as well, but at these gauges are cheap and give you more consistent readings in my experience.

I check all mine with a max length gauge after firing.If they are to be crimped they all get trimmed.

quote:

Originally posted by plainsman456:
I check all mine with a max length gauge after firing.If they are to be crimped they all get trimmed.

This is not stated enough...if you crimp you should be trimming to all same length.

Well, it seems i am on par with the rest of you. It just kinda blew my mind when he said he reloads and he has never trimmed a single case. I trim mine all uniform on the first reloading and trim em .010. After that i measure em each time after but as some said it may be easier to just throw em on the trimmer each time to keep em all uniform. Good idea, thanks Baldhunter.

quote:

Originally posted by ted thorn:

quote:

Originally posted by plainsman456:
I check all mine with a max length gauge after firing.If they are to be crimped they all get trimmed.

This is not stated enough...if you crimp you should be trimming to all same length.

+1....simply crimping the ogive of the booooolit doesn't really work

quote:

Originally posted by homebrewer:
I slap every one upside the head with my Lee trimmer. If it trims, that's OK. If it doesn't, it's still OK and into the jug it goes with the rest of them...

Every damned one of them been trimmed...

I LIKE PICKLES....

quote:

after just one fireing of factory ammo and F/L resizeing my .308 cases are over max length.

If that's happening to your cases you either have excess headspace AND/OR you are creating the same effect by setting your shoulders back way to far.

Depends what the caliper says. Some brass seems to be deliberately shorter so trimming isn't an immediate must. Also depends on the cartridge.

I have sinclair inserts to check the chambers trim length. On several guns I NEVER need to trim for the life of the brass. On others I can go from .010-.025 longer than saami spec. I don't have one gun that isn't at least .010 longer than saami spec.
The inserts are caliber specific and cost about $7 ea and have saved me A TON OF TIME trimming cases.

Don't forget the old boy might not be shooting too much. I know a couple of box a year shooters that are also reloaders.

I trim my brass to a uniform length after I fire form the case. I've never found it to be over long, in fact, on a couple of occassiona, I've had to trim it below saami specs to get it all uniform.

Years ago when I got my reloading setup it came with a chart for a lot of different cartridges.
It had a max legnth and a trim legnth that is what i use.For the ones that are not on the list i look for the max and trim.
It works so far.

Kenati and kraky are on to something good here.
Every "factory" chamber I have checked has it's neck cut longer than SAMI minnimum length. And SAMI minimum chamber dimension is longer than SAMI maximun case length. I see no reason to cut off case necks unless they really need to be shortened.
Note I am not advocating never trimming brass. That may be dangerous. What I am suggesting is that one finds out what the actual neck length of that rifles chamber is. Then decide if and if so how much neck length needs to be trimmed.

muck