case trimmer a necessity?

[c_brutsche]

hey guys, just getting into reloading and read in my lyman's 49th edition that i should get a case trimmer...although the book states handgun casings and some rifle casings get shot out before you would even need to trim....so should a case trimmer be at the top of my list of essentials or can I do for a little while without it?

[Flash]

If you intend to shoot a lot of bottle-necked rifle cases, and you intend to reload each case more than a few times, I would raise it on the priority list.

A lot depends on the case, the caliber, and the pressure you reload to. It goes like this:

High volume cases with small necks, hot loads, hot-burning powders, occupy one end of the scale. Small-volume cases with neck diameter nearly equal to body diameter, gentle loads and slow, cool-burning powders anchor the other end. Where does your particular load/caliber/persuasion fit on that scale?? Full-length resizing increases the need, neck-sizing only will "postpone" that need somewhat.

Hope that helps, but a trimmer is a cool gadget, and will usually be found to be most neccessary at about 12:04 AM Saturday when you have a big range day scheduled for eight hours later and you find that ALL your available brass has just stretched five thousandths too long.

Flash

[bionicskip]

If you are going to load mostly straight wall hand gun cartridges, the case trimmer can be added later. Rifle cases are a different matter. Bottle neck cases do require trimming from time to time.

[Brick]

If you are using light loads for your straight walled revolver caliber cartridges you won't have to trim very often.

But if you're running your loads at the maximum and you're loading rifle cartridges also, you're going to need to do some trimming, if you're running your rifle reloads at the maximum you can guess that you'll need to trim after roughly every 5th reloading.

Get a trimmer, in fact pass it on as a hint to your SO that it would make the perfect Father's Day, birthday, 6-month anniversary or whatever gift.

[556slinger]

I suggest going with the Lee case length trimmer. They are caliber specific, extremely consistant and cost under $6 per caliber. I have been using them for a few years now.

[c_brutsche]

thanks guys this was very helpful...i am only going to be reloading 9mm and 30.06... so i guess i will invest in one for 30.06...thanks again

[762xIan]

I suggest going with the Lee case length trimmer. They are caliber specific, extremely consistant and cost under $6 per caliber. I have been using them for a few years now.

That is my recommendation also....the Lee trimmer is easy and very cheap, if you put the chuck in a cordless drill, you can trim, chamfer and de-burr large batches pretty quickly.

thanks guys this was very helpful...i am only going to be reloading 9mm and 30.06..

That's what I thought when I started reloading , I started with .30 carbine and .303 british because they were so expensive.

Now I reload for everything I have. It is a disease, a good one at that. Nothing like building up a load for a rifle or pistol and see what works and doesn't then the satisfaction of finding that "perfect load".

[stephpd]

I picked up a Lyman off of Ebay or Gunbroker fairly cheaply. Not caliber specific so it works with almost everything you'll ever reload. Works well and nice to have, especially for rifle rounds.

For consistent high quality loads I think it's a necessity. Same for a deburring tool.

[Eagles6]

What 556slinger and 762xIan said.
You need it for -06 and Lee is the way to go.

[hornady]

As said above straight wall pistol not so much, but I load 5 different bottle neck rifle rounds, I have used a RCBS trimmer for 35 years, I just replaced the cutter last year after thousands of 30 cal, brass, if you think you will be doing volume, I would go with one of the bench mounted models. I trim all my rifle brass uniformly, after sizing, the more time you spend on brass prep, the better your results at the range will be.