What is a good equipment to trim short cases (pistol o revolver)in important quantities? Thanks in advance, Hector

I don't know as I never trim pistol or revolver cases. They tend not to stretch much before they get lost or wear out.

IF they make the pins, the best system I've found for qty. Is Lee's. I spot weld a base part to a handle, chuck the cutter in a small drill press. There's times I trim 2-4000 cases. I've gotten "one step" trimmed on over 400 per hour. Gets quite monotonous though, count on that.
I know they have ACP, and COLT trimmers, don't know what you're looking at. Send them a note if you can't find the current listing.

Leeprecision.com

Good luck and have fun. hehe!

George

quote:

Originally posted by H�ctor Carlos Roveda:
What is a good equipment to trim short cases (pistol o revolver)in important quantities? Thanks in advance, Hector

On a pistol case a taper crimp only streamlines the case mouth so it doesn't cause a failure to feed. And these cases seldom exceed max trim length and as stated by many their cases are never trimmed.

On a revolver case with hotter loads I trim the brass to make sure the crimps are consistent. But since most of my practice revolver loads are light loads with plated bullets they are not roll crimped and are lightly tapered crimped.

Bottom line I have brass OCD and not trimming handgun cases bugs me. But if I did trim them all the cases would be under minimum case length.

I just sized 500 once fired military Winchester cases and none of them were over minimum case length. And were even shorter when expanded so you can see why the vast majority of reloaders do not trim the pistol cases.

I bought a case trimmer once but the shop was unable to come up with either a magnum shell-holder or a .338 spud, so I took it back and still make do with a file.

As a kid used a RCBS trimmer with hand crank for .357 and .44 mags. That's going back decades when I had much more time than money. Maybe that's why I no longer shoot those rounds. Anyway, today would spring for something motorized.

Parenthetically, three decades ago did an experiment on a Dillon RL1050. Started with 400 once fired mixed commercial/mil .45 ACP empties and loaded them with 230 gr cast RNs and 5 gr Red Dot. Didn't once clean or trim them. Zip, zero, nada case prep. Rounds fed several 1911s.

100 firings later there were just about 120 cases left standing. Of note, no discarded or surviving empty ever reached max (trim) length.

Total waste of my valuable time to trim pistol cases.

I will leave the question about what cases need to be trimmed for others, but to answer "what is the best way to trim a large quantity of cases" here is what I do:

Lee Case Length Gauge & Cutter and Lock Stud looks like this:


Note that the case is being held in the left hand, and the cutter is being held in the right hand and twisted.

Here is the "zip trim" accessory where the cas is spun. You can see the cutter with the stud laying down next to it.



What I do is chuck the cutter with the stud into a drill press which will just fit if
the chuck is opened up all the way. Now you can hold the case in the collet up on to the rotating cutter and it will trim it to length in a second and a half, then insert another case into the collet and keep going. You can just hold the case in your hand or use a drill chuck to hold the bottom of the screw down collet as it is a bit more comfortable and also keeps your hand a little farther away from the cutter teeth.

Anyway, if you have a drill press and need to trim a bucket or two of brass this is the fastest way I have found.

Thanks to all. Regards, Hector

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
I don't know as I never trim pistol or revolver cases. They tend not to stretch much before they get lost or wear out.

This.

Many do not choose to trim handgun brass and I haven't in 30 years. But there's no law that says you can't. Some like everything as consistent as possible and trimming their brass makes their ammo "better". Personal choice. Perhaps the easiest is the Lee and Lyman trimming tools that are not adjustable, but work quite well.
https://www.lymanproducts.com/...trimming-system.html
http://leeprecision.com/case-c...length-gauge-holder/
http://leeprecision.com/cutter-lock-stud.html

Mark:

Thanks for the pictures, now he'll know what we're talking about.

As I explained above: I make a short handle to hold the lock stud part, chuck the cutter in the drill press and get to trimming. Just change the cases on the stud/ring.

This picture shows a finger killing way to do it. With a handle, that's eliminated.

George

The only time I have trimmed handgun brass is when I want to make cases for some obsolete calibers.

I trim all of my .460 Rowland cases because new brass was a little bit longer and some loaded rounds didn't allow to close the receiver. I use Forster case trimmer for that. Easy. This is not used for high volume shooting, so 100 cases last long long time. I also trim to exact length all .500 S&W brass. On shooting range, I don't fire more than 30 or 40 rounds per visit.

From my point of view, it is waste of time to reload 9mm Luger or .45 ACP etc. at all (used for higher volume shooting).

Jiri