Lee Trimming Equipment

24 December 2004, 16:13

Born to Hunt

Anyone use the Lee spinner stud and related equipment? I can't figure out what piece goes where?

24 December 2004, 16:52

downwindtracker2

The black 1/4" hex goes into a drill.I turn mine at 500rpm.The silver thing that came with the guage rod screws onto it.You slide the resized cartridge case rim in and tighten.The guage rod screws into the cutter.When it's cut,you must chamfer the burr off the case mouth,inside and outside.

25 December 2004, 12:23

LE270

I use the Lee trimming equipment on all my cases, and I like this trimming system a lot. In fact, I trim all my cases with it every time I reload them.

The only disadvantages to the Lee system are that you must use a different Case Length Gauge for each different cartridge; Lee makes case length gauges for a limited number of cartridges (the most popular or well known ones), and the length is not adjustable -- you must trim the case to the length that the Case Length Gauge provides. That last disadvantage is not meaningful, however, because this system does guarantee that all the cases are trimmed to the same length, which is, after all, the point of trimming cases.

You need to buy one cutter and lock stud (they come as a set), but you need to buy a diferent case length gauge and shell holder (these too come as a set) for each different cartridge you load.

The lock stud gets put into an electric drill -- you could use it by hand, but why? You could also use Lee's zip spinner, but again, why? There is a shell holder that screws over the lock stud; the case fits into this shell holder and is screwed down tightly over the locking stud. The electric drill will now spin the case when you turn it on. The case length gauge is screwed into the cutter. The cutter + case length gauge assembly is put into the mouth of the case, and the small pin on the end of the case length gauge goes through the primer hole and, when the cutting is finished, stops when it meets against the face of the lock stud.

So each case is trimmed in that way -- you hold the case length gauge + cutter assembly still, and spin the case around it until the cutting operation stops because the pin has hit the lock stud and cannot go any farther into the case.

An additional and welcome side effect, besides cutting the case back, is that the mouth is cut perfectly evenly and perfectly perpendicular to the axis of the length of the case.

As a previous writer notes, after trimming you need to chamfer the inside and outside of the case. I use a RCBS-Wilson chamfer tool, and chamfer the case, with the electric drill spinning it, before I take the case out of the shell holder + lock stud assembly.

25 December 2004, 15:38

YUMAN

NO NO NO it is a lot easier to put the cutter and case length gage in the drill motor then hold the case up to the cutter. then you dont have to stop the motor to change every case. It is a lot quicker. I put the hex of the lock stud in a stubby screwdriver handle, works great.

Lyle

25 December 2004, 17:09

LE270

Quote:

NO NO NO it is a lot easier to put the cutter and case length gage in the drill motor then hold the case up to the cutter. then you dont have to stop the motor to change every case. It is a lot quicker. I put the hex of the lock stud in a stubby screwdriver handle, works great.

I can see that this method would work well, with the advantages you claim for it, if two things are true: (1) You have a stationary drill mechanism, such as a drill press, or a motor bolted to the bench with a drill chuck affixed to the motor spindle, or you can use some kind of bracket to bolt your hand-held electric drill to the bench, and (2) the drill chuck you are using has a large enough opening that it will accommodate the cutter -- a standard 1/4 inch electric drill is, I think, too small to do this.

25 December 2004, 17:33

Born to Hunt

Thanks guys. I think the confusion for me came when the guy sold me both the spinner and the lock stud. I was trying to figure a way to use both at the same time! He said the spinner would be handy if I wanted to polish the outside of the cases. I can't get the shell holder to fit the spinner??

Also, None of my cases (once fired) are long enough to need trimming yet. The problem is: I want the distance from the lands to be the same for each completed round. Won't that measurement be different unless the cases are all the same length?

25 December 2004, 17:48

LE270

Quote:

I want the distance from the lands to be the same for each completed round. Won't that measurement be different unless the cases are all the same length?

No, unless you are loading for and shooting a handgun that headspaces on the case mouth. The distance from bullet to lands depends on the cartridge overall length, measured from the cartridge base to the tip of the seated bullet for bottleneck rifle loads and for any other rifle load where headspacing is controlled by the case base through a belt or a rim, or by the case neck, or by anything else other than the case mouth. In loading for any rifle where the headspacing is done on the case neck, or the case base, or a case belt, the length of the brass -- i.e., the length of the case neck -- has no effect on the distance of the bullet to the lands. If you are shooting and loading for a handgun where the cartridge seating and headspacing is done on the case mouth, then the length of the brass would determine the distance of the bullet to the lands because, if the brass differs in length from case to case, the bullets will be seated to different depths so that the overall cartridge length is the same for all your loads. This overall cartridge length is controlled by how far you screw down the stem in your seating die, and is best measured with a caliper.

26 December 2004, 07:00

kraky

One last simple comment. At the end of the pilot is a stop pin that should let you trim back to minimum spec. I had some that were a little too long. They are "adjustable"--yup just take them to a grinder a remove a few .001" from them. To bad they don't have a socket at the end of a basic pilot and then you could buy pins to match your caliber--that would be really versatile.

26 December 2004, 16:08

Born to Hunt

LE270,

Your ponits are well taken and please realize that I still consider myself new to the reloading game. I use a Stoney Point bullet comparator to measure loaded rounds. I do see some variance even when the cases are trimmed to the exact same length. Is this in die set up? What am I doing wrong and how much variance is normal. If needed, my dies are RCBS, the press is an RCBS Rock Chucker.

26 December 2004, 16:44

LE270

Quote:

I do see some variance even when the cases are trimmed to the exact same length. Is this in die set up? What am I doing wrong and how much variance is normal.

Some variance is normal,and I wouldn't worry about it if its less than maybe 2/100 of an inch. All dies and cases and presses have some variation in them. Also, some variation in overall cartridge length will also occur. Again, I wouldn't worry about it, at least for now.

I think the best thing is to do a lot of loading and shooting, and get as much experience as you can doing so. Also, read as many loading manuals and accounts of experienced loaders as you can. After awhile you will begin to have a good intuition for when things are going well and when they are not, and for what you have done as well as can be expected and what you should change.

26 December 2004, 17:45

RMiller

I like the lee system best also. I do all mine by hand. I mostly only do 50 at a time so its no big deal.

I run all my cases through the process everytime I reload so they barely get trimmed anyway.