Why do you consider these great tools?

The hull trimmer may make your crimps minimally more uniform.

My hulls blow out at the crimp way before I have issues with the primer- for target shells. For hunting, they get rusty or lost before the primers get loose…

What are you seeing that makes this worth the investment?

hull trimmers are handy if you want your crimps even.
many hulls today are all over the map as far as length.

other than that they make nuthin that fits any of my machines, and I've got along this long without them.

Don't know how many 10's of thousands of shotgun shells I have reloaded in 3 gauges.

Never even thought about a hull trimmer. I have a PW800 if everything goes right it will produce a box of shells in 1 min 30 seconds.

I do not want to add a process to slow it down.

I guess if one was loading specialty loads like buck, slugs or the new TSS shot. In very limited numbers maybe.

But it would be easier to just select shells that are in great shape.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:
...But it would be easier to just select shells that are in great shape.

^^^^^This^^^^^

It looks like a good idea, but I don't know how I have shot as many shotshells without it.

Through the '80s and '90s I was reloading and shooting about 10,000 shotshells each year.

I was shooting Trap and Skeet at our local range, and shooting in registered Trap or Skeet shoots on weekends.

I no longer formally compete, but I still shoot around 5,000 shotshells each year.

Especially when I was shooting registered Skeet, I had friends that didn't reload and they would only shoot new AA shells in competitions. Many of them gave me their once fired AA shells.

I filled my empty plastic bags that wads come in with those once fired AA shells, and I still have a pile of those bags in the crawl space under part of my house that is about 10' in diameter and 4' high.

I used to get at least 10 reloads out of a AA case and when the case mouths would split, I would wax or tape it to keep the shot from falling out, for one last firing before I threw them away.

Most of the Old style AA cases that I have shot wore out from splits in the case mouths caused by many firings.

I don't see how this tool would change that.

I have also finally realized that I have a lifetime of once fired AA cases and that I can afford to throw a case away after it gets it's first split mouth.

quote:

I used to get at least 10 reloads out of a AA case and when the case mouths would split, I would wax or tape it to keep the shot from falling out, for one last firing before I threw them away.

For sure I did it many times myself.

Obviously the two tools are not necessary to reload shotgun shells but then neither is a press or a lot of tools we do use to produce shotshell and metallic reloads. There are simple manual kits that make a reasonable job of reloading. Most of us have purchased tools to speed up the process and to make better quality reloads.
Apparently the secret to shotshell performance in particular is consistency. Consistency in hull type, powder drop, good spherical shot at correct hardness, wad seating and pressure, and final crimp. These all go to produce uniform and consistent velocity and patterns which are the all important features of shooting shotshells.

I too have reloaded and shot thousands of rounds of shotshells for both clay target competition and hunting and like most of us, who are honest, I have had my fair share of missed targets and birds where I felt I had made a good shot. Was this a result of a poorer performing reload? Who knows but why not produce reloads of any kind where we can eliminate as many variables as possible.

I like the look and purpose of the tools. My Lyman shotshell press already has a feature that irons and flares the case mouth while decapping making starting the wad an easy operation. I am still on the original brass spring fingered wad guide, never broken a finger with a tight or catching wad.

As for the trimmer tool to square case mouths, as is said in the video, Winchester AA compression formed shells seem to have the best plastic that doesn't lengthen on first firing and the factory case length trim seems to be near perfect so these cases don't usually need the mouths squaring off.

I have only ever loaded Win AA compression formed cases so like the first tool, probably would gain nothing from the trimming tool, however I can see the benefit of it if loading other less than perfect cases. As said in the video, cases only need trimming once after the first firing so the process is not something you would be doing every time you were loading cases. A little time to trim batches of once fired cases as you get them is not an onerous
task in the scheme of loading shotshells.

No Thanks. One more step not necessary.