Any thoughts on the best case trimmer out there! I have a Lyman trimmer and always trim the cases too much or too little. It's also difficult to adjust accurately.

Thanks,

Reddy375

Wilson for my money or Gracey if you have a truck load to do. Either one (I have both ) will give you very accurate trims.
I use the wilson for my 303B where I usually do around 50 cases at a time. The Gracey is set up for 308 win and I usually batch a few hundred at a time.
rob

I use the Lee trimmers more than anything else.

They are quick and pretty much fool proof.

quote:

I use the Lee trimmers more than anything else.

They are quick and pretty much fool proof.

the only prob i have had is mixing up the lenth guage, my brother stuffed 4 30 30 shells befor asking if all the shells needed SO much taken off? whilst using the 308 guage!!!
other than that no complaints
greg

I've used several and prefer the Wilson. Very accurate and as fast as any of the manual trimmers.

My Lyman is in my wife's rummage sale pile.

I purchased a Wilson, with a Sinclair base,
and holder clamp. I only trimmed a few pieces
of brass before I unscrewed the Lyman from
my loading bench, put it back in it's orginal
box, and handed it to my wife, to sell in the
next rummage sale. The Lyman is a "coffee
grinder" compared to the Wilson. First there
are no pilots, on the Wilson, and since the
holder completely captures the case, it cuts
square. My Lyman never cut perfectly square,
and it had tendencies to roll brass behind the
pilot, which caused me to pull so hard, to
remove the case from the pilot, that I often
times had to re-trim. I know with the Wilson,
I don't cuss any more, when trimming brass
And the trimmed brass now has a very square
mouth, with very consistent lengths.

Squeeze

I own a couple of Forster case trimmers and a Lyman electric case trimmer. They are all gathering dust and see no use at all these days.

Last year I broke down and bought the Wilson/Sinclair Ultimate Case Trimmer. This beauty is not cheap. Current price in the Sinclair catalog is #139.00. A lot of the price comes from the Sinclair Micrometer Attatchment which can be added to a Wilson Case Trimmer for $85.00.

This thing is BY FAR the best case trimmer I have ever seen!!

If you want a case to wind up 1.51 inches long, you just dial in 1.51 inches on the micrometer, put the case in the appropriate case holder and go to it. When you get done, you will have a case that measures 1.51 inches. That is just what I did last weekend. I trimmed 150 cases for my 7BR and did not get tired of the tedium or wind up with uneven lengths like I did with the other trimmers. Great tool!

This trimmer is worth every penny, I think.

Reddy375: The Wilson case trimming tool is the best tool offered by anyone today.
Don't even consider anything else.
You WILL be happy with and well served by this splendid tool.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I'm gonna make enemies here.

Get the Lee pin/gage sets. Buy two of each pin because you WILL break the threaded end off sometime. And count on that happening in the middle of an important batch. With an extra pin you'll be able to finish up before Lee can mail a replacement pin. That's the only bad thing about them. Why they don't make the mounting end at least 1/4" is beyond my understanding.

Make a small handle of steel. Tack weld the lockstud pin thru a 1/4" hole drilled in the steel. handles I make are 4" of 1/2" sq tube.

Then just change the lock rings for calibers as trying to hold it with finger tips is such a pain.

To turn the cutter/pin. I bought a cheap $40 miniture drill press and I've trimmed one step, more than 400 cases per hour many times. The whole set up including over 20 different calibers pin/gages's and extra's besides the drill press hasn't cost me over $75 or so.

That don't even consider how handy it is to have a drill press on the loading bench either.

I tried to use one of those hand crank piece's of junk and in less than 50 cases had blisters on my old caloused hands.

For those of you that only trim a few cases at a time they'd be ok even though still a lot more effort and hassle, plus the expense.

But, I load by the buckets full, many hundreds or a few thousand per batch so it's not practical to use a hand cranker, not even one that's powered as it's just too slow and not near as accurate as the Lee system is.

Just another of my many opinions, but, as they say: your choice.

George

quote:

Originally posted by reddy375:
Any thoughts on the best case trimmer out there! I have a Lyman trimmer and always trim the cases too much or too little. It's also difficult to adjust accurately.

Thanks,

Reddy375

I use a Unimat most of the time with a homemade widget to hold the case, will go back to the South Bend if I ever get it back out of storage.

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=481398

I have this one and I'm very,very happy with mine.I recommend it to anyone that has physical problems,does large volume rifles,or just anyone who reloads for rifles.

That's $200!!!

Still a lot slower than the Lee setup Iv'e described above.

I don't have $80 in my whole setup including the drill press and 20 different caliber pins, plus extra's for most.

But, your choice.

George

I have Lyman Power trimmer and I find I need to set ith "stop a little longer than I need... so I do...
My next one will be a "Gracey"

+1 for lee trimmer/gauges!

I'm with georgeld and the Lee. I can't say it's the "best," but my Forster's now for sale.

Jaywalker

I use the Lee system as well. I remember the blisters and then callouses and inaccuracies when using that hand crank monster. Now it takes 2 seconds to trim a case and it is always the same length, perfectly square across the mouth and easier to chamfer without those pushed up burrs around the case mouth edges.

Have a whole lot more money in my pocket too!

I have two Gracy trimmers and have had difficulty in getting consistant results with them. Is there anyone on the forum with vast experience with the Gracy trimmer that I can call to discuss the issues??//

I have three powered trimmers that will trim, deburr, and bevel the case mouth in one operation: The RCBS case trimmer, the Gracey, and now the Giraud trimmer. The speed champ, until I received the Giraud trimmer, was of course the Gracey.

I use the RCBS trimmer for low volume case trimming; lets say 100 cases of an odd ball caliber. Let 7.5 Swiss, 45/70, 375 H&H. However when I am trimming 5 gallon bullet loads of 308/30-06/.22 brass, that is when I use the Gracey and Giraud trimmers.

Having now trimmed a thousands of cases in each of these trimmers, I feel that I can make a fair comparison/assessment of the Giraud/Gracey trimmer.

It quieter than my Gracey trimmer, but I do not know if it is intrinsic to the design, or whether I just have a loud Gracey and a quiet Giraud. This means I can trim and listen to either the radio or TV without the rest of the neighborhood having to "enjoy" the same programs.

It is faster than the Gracey, where the cutter spins at the same speed as the motor. The Giraud spins its cutter through a notched belt and toothed gear system, the gear ratio adjusted so the Giraud cutter rotates faster than the motor.

Mr. Giraud supplies the cutter with a carbide blade of his own design. I really do not know anyone who has good luck with the "tool steel" (probably high carbon steel) blades provided with the Gracey. I have unsuccessfully gone through two sets of Gracey blades, trying to find a set that will take and hold an edge. The two blades of the Gracey trimmer are difficult to adjust in tandem, the once piece Bob Jones and Giraud blades are faster to adjust.

A side comment, I also have the Bob Jones carbide cutter blade. The Giraud Blade provides an internal case mouth chamfer of 15 degrees and an external case mouth of 45 degrees (per Doug Giraud). The Bob Jones does not cut as steep an internal slope as does the Giraud, and I find that I prefer the steeper slope. The reason is that it creates less resistance when seating a bullet. This is an advantage to me, because I dump powder and seat the bullet on a Dillion 550B. Every so often a bullet will tip and jam into the bottom edge of my seating die. If I can detect this in time I can stop and can clear the condition before the case gets ruined. However, when the bullet requires significant effort to seat, it is hard to differentiate on the seating stroke between a jammed bullet and normal seating. The end result is usually a crumpled case neck.

I like having an "On-Off" Switch. The Gracey does not have one.

The most important thing I found that made the Giraud a speed champ was that you can cut in a horizontal position, like the Gracey, or a vertical (upright) position. With the Giraud in a vertical position, I can put the machine upright in front of me, and trim cases with both hands. In the horizontal position I can feed cases to one hand, but only one hand can hold the case in the trimmer. This little difference significantly reduces hand fatigue and increases the effective trim rate. And one other thing, with the machine pointing up, the brass chips fall down out of the shell holder. These machines headspace on the case shoulder, so with the Gracey in a horizontal position, I am constantly checking trim length, because inevitably, a brass chip will fall into the shell holder and change the trim length.

My Giraud trimmer has a quick shell holder change feature. I can change out the shell holder from from 30-06 to 308 without having to readjust for depth. The Gracey shell holder must be readjusted for depth when changing calibers. Mr. Giraud has made an improvement to his trimmer, after I purchased mine, but it allows quick change of the cutter head. Currently I can only trim cartridges of the same caliber without adjusting the cutter head. This adjustment is perhaps the most time consuming as I try to get an chamfer angle I like and still deburr the outside of the brass. This is also true of the Gracey. However Mr. Giraud has made a removable cutter head which is a better idea and would allow a very quick change over from .223 to .308 for example. The removable cutter head option is a great idea, but it is not cheap.

I believe that Mr. Giraud has built a better "mouse trap", with improvements over the Gracey, which used to be the "best" case trimmer.

I hope someone can invent a cost effective trimmer that the only activity required from the operator is to pour cases into a hopper!

The biggest obstacle to over come on all of these "toys" is the price. But once you have made the decision to spend the big bucks, the time and effort saved in comparison with hand powered trimmers, make it all worth while.

Doug's website is at http://www.giraudtool.com/

Mighty rare occassion when two others agree with me in public. Now there's three!!

Gonna swell my head real quick!
Thanks guys,

George

Anybody have an opinion on the Dillon trimmer??

I also use the Lee Trimmers. The cartridge is engraved on the pilot.

I chuck it up in my variable speed drill. Works great and not EXPENSIVE.

I have a Forster Original trimmer and I think it's great for the money.

RCBS power trimmer works for me, for the last twelve years. I can cut .125" off of a case in about 20 seconds. That was making 45-60 cases out of 45-70 for my 1876 Winchester.

Rich

RCBS manual trimmer. You need a mandrel and case holder, but then it's all about setting up the trimmer with a caliper.

You can trim any case to any length you want -- which means it's possible to trim 30-06 brass to length for 45 ACP.

After reading about the Wilson trimmer, I called Sinclair and placed an order for the one with the Mic attached. All I can say is that this is one fine tool. I just finished 20 cases and it is easy and extremely accurate. Nice tools have nice price tags but I am glad that I have this one. I will never need another one and there is absolutley no guess work involved.

Will the Wilson Trimmer work for 470 NE Brass?

I do not see that size in the holder list in the Sinclair book. Give them a call at 800-717-8211 and ask. The trimmer will work on a 50BMG so the trimmer will work but you need the proper case holder. The Wilson uses a case holder sort of like a cut down sizing die rather than pilots.

tradewinds,

The Wilson will not work on the 470NE as it is too long. The limit of the Wilson trimmer is a OAL of 3" or less. It will work on the 416 Rigby class and smaller. I believe the OAL of the 470NE is 3-1/4" long.

I just bought a Wilson with stand from Sinclair and am really impressed with it. I will still need to get another trimmer for the 470NE (will probably get the Foster or a RCBS trimmer die for the 470NE).

Note: if you get a Foster and you want to use it for the 470NE make sure it is big enough to handle it, as they make 3 different length trimmers.

I'll sell ya my Forster classic 50. It has the 474 pilot already.

How much for the Classic Trimmer?

$75 shipped USPS flat rate. This is the kit with the collets and pilots. I had to order the 474 pilot.
Thanks, Ralph