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Posted: 11/23/2011 12:38:18 PM EDT
| In my adventures of reading on reloading i forgot to ask about case trimmers. any differences between the ones out there. I was going to get hornady but the RCBS gets better reviews on cabelas website |
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if starting out I'd get the Possum Hollow, then as my production grew, the Giraud or the Dillon trimmer. Anything but a lathe trimmer +1.5 I will reluctantly use my RCBS lathe trimmer when there's no choice, but the number of cases is generally not too large. Truth is, a trim die and a file is probably a better choice, now that I think about this. |
Trimmers, which one is best depends on how much money you want to spend and how much time you want to spend trimming. Very front, Lee the least expensive, about $12. Very basic and works, can be chucked in a drill. Need one for each caliber. Next the Possum Hollow, about $30 need to be run in a drill or drill press. Pretty fast, a great value for the money. Need one for each caliber. RCBS manual lathe trimmer, comes in a kit to do many calibers about $75. Very versatile, kit will do all common calibers. RCBS motorized lathe trimmer, comes in a kit to do many calibers about $175. Very veritable, kit will do all common calibers. Motor saves your arm from cranking on the handle. 
If you want the best, get a Giraud about $500. I can trim 1k of 223 in an hour. Then there is the Dillon press mounted trimmer that is the other choice for the best. I went with the Giraud. |
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when talking about electric trimmers don't forget about the Gracey, not as expensive as the giruad or dillon but still a nice electric trimmer especially after you replace the cutting blades with a one piece blade.
Btw, manual trimmers suck especially after getting my gracey's .223 and .308 Jason |
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I have 2 of the WFT's; one in .223 and the other in 7.62. They work great for the $ and are an upgrade from the Lee hand trimmer I was using. My reloads consist of neck-sized brass made from once-fired LC brass. I have some work to do initially but once I remove the primer crimp and trim I don't have to trim again for at least 6 reloads. I would love to have a Giraud but the price and usage it would get makes it impractical for me. If I were shooting semi-autos and had to FL resize I would buy that one.
The way I set up my process is: drill with WFT in once hand and case prep center on the bench next to me. With my free hand I'm feeding the trimmer and immediately moving the brass over to the stations to chamfer, debur and prep the primer pocket. It's actually faster than it sounds. |
Just got the Worlds Finest Trimmer, and love it Much much faster than a lathe trimmer, and accurate too.
Trims just as uniform as my Wilson does, and doesn't leave hardly any bur on the outside and inside of the neck. I think I almost could get away with skipping the chamfering and deburring step. I haven't tried it yet though. I'm a little OCD 
It is that much better. The only downfall would be that it measures off of the case neck, so if you are going to trim some new brass that didn't need sizing, you will have to readjust it again. I have some new lake city, that the neck came sized down -.003 more from my once fired re-sized necks. I only size my fired 223/556 cases so the necks get bumped about -.003 .004 down. This seems to make them last longer. Because of this, the new lake city would end up trimming too short in the WFT. I kept my Wilson trimmer for just this reason, so I could trim one of the new lake city, and use it as a master case to re-adjust the WFT to trim the rest of them. For those that don't know, the Wilson trimmer measures off of the whole length of the case, and not the neck. |
| The only negative I have for the Giraud is that it isn't capable of trimming relatively straight cases like the .30 carbine. For that, I still need my trusty Lee case trimmer (which I need to automate, but have not yet come up with a practical set up for). Otherwise Doug's trimmer is perfect. It's fast, easy, very consistent, and very flexible. |
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And to add to the confusion....
http://www.forsterproducts.com/store.asp?pid=27805 Fair trimmers with options to add the three way cutters and also to neck turning and reaming. I have the power adapter on them and they run nice with a small cordless. The drill press unit is also very efficient if you already have a drill press. |
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Quoted:
And to add to the confusion.... http://www.forsterproducts.com/store.asp?pid=27805 Fair trimmers with options to add the three way cutters and also to neck turning and reaming. I have the power adapter on them and they run nice with a small cordless. The drill press unit is also very efficient if you already have a drill press. I use the Forster power trimmer with their 3-in-1 cutting head for .223 and their Classic trimmer for everything else. I have a Possum Hollow for .223 as well and it works fine but like many of the other options mentioned, getting a consistent trim length depends entirely on getting consistent sizing and it lacks flexibility. The Forster trimmer is light years better than the Lyman that it replaced. I wore that one out on around 5k or so .223 and .204 cases. The chuck that holds the cases, no longer holds the cases. It's still on my bench, but mostly as an ornament. I'll unbolt it from the board it's screwed to and toss it in the trash one of these days. |
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