elChupacabra!
member
- Joined
- May 29, 2008
- Messages
- 562
Well, the Giraud trimmer looks great, but honestly it was out of my price range, so I started with the Lee trimmer system and the brass chucked into a cordless drill. That worked ok for small batches (50 or less at a time), but was very slow and frustrating to me when the brass would catch on the cutter and stop rotating with the chuck - that made me CRAZY. So I asked what a better way to do it was, and got great advice from rcmodel - chuck the cutter and length gague into a drill press, set the brass on the iron table and just drop the cutter into the brass which you hold in your fingers (gloves are a good idea for this).
I didn't have a drill press, and was leery of spending TOO much money, but lo and behold, Harbor Freight has 5 speed bench drill presses on sale until 9/22/08 - $49.99! So i picked one up yesterday, got it assembled, chucked my cutter and length gague in there, and tried it out on 5 pieces of scrap brass - it was a beautiful thing. I did all 5 in less than a minute, and it was taking me about a minute per each to do it the other way (cordless drill).
Tonight I'm going to do 150 pieces, then quickly chamfer and debur them by hand (don't yet have the Possum Hollow Power Adapter to chuck my RCBS chamfer / debur tool into the press) and (hopefully) have a much better experience than I have been having.
So for those keeping score, the price is -
$50 - drill press
$4 - lee case length gague (223) and shellholder (which you won't need)
$5 - lee case trimmer cutter and lock stud (won't need the lock stud, either)
That's less than $60 bucks for a very efficient, foolproof system... I'm sure it's not nearly as good as the Giruad, but you can also switch out for any other caliber Lee makes a case length gague for for an additional $4 bucks per each, AND you have your first drill press which will (surely) come in useful someday for something other than trimming brass
To me, that's a fantastic solution to an irritating problem that might not warrant a $400 capital outlay, if your situation is like mine.
I didn't have a drill press, and was leery of spending TOO much money, but lo and behold, Harbor Freight has 5 speed bench drill presses on sale until 9/22/08 - $49.99! So i picked one up yesterday, got it assembled, chucked my cutter and length gague in there, and tried it out on 5 pieces of scrap brass - it was a beautiful thing. I did all 5 in less than a minute, and it was taking me about a minute per each to do it the other way (cordless drill).
Tonight I'm going to do 150 pieces, then quickly chamfer and debur them by hand (don't yet have the Possum Hollow Power Adapter to chuck my RCBS chamfer / debur tool into the press) and (hopefully) have a much better experience than I have been having.
So for those keeping score, the price is -
$50 - drill press
$4 - lee case length gague (223) and shellholder (which you won't need)
$5 - lee case trimmer cutter and lock stud (won't need the lock stud, either)
That's less than $60 bucks for a very efficient, foolproof system... I'm sure it's not nearly as good as the Giruad, but you can also switch out for any other caliber Lee makes a case length gague for for an additional $4 bucks per each, AND you have your first drill press which will (surely) come in useful someday for something other than trimming brass
To me, that's a fantastic solution to an irritating problem that might not warrant a $400 capital outlay, if your situation is like mine.