Do you all trim 9mm brass?

[Matt Dillon]

I have a bunch of 9mm to process, and I dread the thought of trimming all of it. 9 mm is a relatively new caliber to me,and I always trim my straight walled cases, such as 38 and 357 magnum, because I roll crimp them. But I plan to use a Lee factory crimp die to give them a taper crimp. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[soloban]

I don't trim handgun cases.

 

[flipajig]

No I don't. Check for obvious damage sort out the non loadable tumble and load no trimming for me.

 

[Jenrick]

With soloban, I don't trim any of my handgun cartridges.

-Jenrick

 

[jcwit]

In a word, NOPE!

 

[MutinousDoug]

I don't shoot 9mm much but throw away all my .45ACP brass when it gets shortened to .885" OAL.
By that time, I can't hardly read the headstamp anymore.

 

[beatledog7]

Never have trimmed 9mm. Have trimmed a few .357 Mag.

 

[45lcshooter]

I just make sure its within the specs. Straight walled cased do not tend to grow. Sometimes but very seldom.

 

[icanthitabarn]

What a break I have from not trimming 9, especially since I have Lee, hand trimmed, everything else, and quite a bit of it. It still is sorted by stamp thou.

 

[italy176]

Yes, I do trim my 9mm Luger brass - only if it needs it. I use a Lyman E-Zee case gauge ( http://www.lymanproducts.com/lyman/case-prep/ezee-case-gauge.php ). It is cheap and quick to use. You can quickly sort hundreds of pieces of brass in no time.

If you load to max your brass will eventually need to be trimmed.

 

[jmorris]

Loaded hundreds of thousands, never trimmed one.

 

[Walkalong]

No.

Just adjust the taper crimp die to completely remove the bell on the shortest cases, and that will still be OK on the longest ones.

 

[CGT80]

I have loaded tens of thousands of pistol brass. The only ones that have grown are my 460 S&W mag cases. After 5+ uses, they were inconsistent and did not line up well with the canelure of the bullets.

I run 9mm through a dillon 1050 with a bullet feeder, by the thousands. As long as I don't get 380 or 38 super mixed in, it is all good. Headstamp doesn't matter. My 9mm is used for local competitions, and performs just fine.

 

[Arkansas Paul]

We load for .45 Colt, .40, .38 spcl, and .357 SIG. I have never trimmed a piece of handgun brass, even the ones I roll crimp. Never have had any issues either.

 

[Hondo 60]

Never - I haven't trimmed any handgun brass in eons.
I tried to trim when I first started, cuz that's what the book said to do.

But I found that 99.9% of the brass is at or very near the "trim to" length already.

 

[gamestalker]

Most reloaders I nwo don't trim rimless brass. However, I'm not one of those and have been maintaining all brass to within SAAMI spec., regardless of type. When I started relaoding several decades ago I read and followed the books to the letter and have been doing it this way ever since.

My take on why I feel it is necessary to trim 9mm in particular is because,
A. it head space on the mouth,
B. if I were to apply a crimp to remove the belling I would want all the cases to have the same degree of taper crimp, and this is a head space related reason.
There are several head space issues that can result if 9mm or other rimless cartridges aren't kept to within SAAMI spec.. I hear a lot of reloaders say that straight walled cases don't stretch beyond SAAMI spec., but in my experience i commonly see once and twice fired brass exceeding the allowable maximum as defined by SAAMI. In this regard I can honestly say that I have yet to experience a single mis-fire or other failure with any cartridge I've reloaded.

GS

 

[kerreckt]

I have been reloading since 1982 and have never trimmed a case for a handgun round.

 

[ReloaderFred]

I've been reloading since 1963 and have only trimmed 5 Federal 357 Sig cases, just because I wanted to. My round count is well over 750,000+ rounds, and those five cases are the only handgun rounds I've ever trimmed, or ever will.

Life is too short to spend it trimming pistol brass.......

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[jwrowland77]

Yep sure do.

 

[evan price]

Don't trim, don't sort, don't separate 9mm. Its all the same more or less. It works or it doesn't. Wow, could you imagine the time spent measuring and trimming 10,000 9mm cases....yeesh.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

Yes, I keep my cases within saami specs also. If you mic your shells before you check length on your cases you will find you don't have very many you'll have to trim.

If you check your cases with a dial caliper and pull out all cases over .750, you'll find you don't have very many to trim. It's not what it sounds like.

 

[Ky Larry]

I don't trim 9mm brass. All my 9mm reloads are just for blasting ammo. If I am carrying a 9mm for possible social work, I keep it loaded with 124gr Federal HydraShocks. I have so much 9mm brass I sometimes don't even bother to pick it up.

 

[wtr100]

only nickle cases and then because I'm converting them to 9x18 Makarov

 

[cfullgraf]

I do not trim 9x19, never have.

When I first got into reloading in the early eighties, I trimmed some 357 Magnum cases in an attempt to make roll crimps more uniform. An exercise in futility but i still have a few boxes of new, never used, 1980 vintage, trimmed 357 Magnum cases. They are too valuable with too much time invested in them to use them.

I do trim 38/45 Clerke when forming them from 45 ACP case, but that is different. Once formed, they never see the trim die again.

 

[rbernie]

Nope.