As a competitive highpower shooter I shoot lots of .223, and 308 in highpower competition. Used to shoot a lot of 30-06, but not as much now. It used to take weeks to trim a seasons brass with a Lee or a Redding lathe trimmer. I am able to trim 88 cases in five minutes including set up and put away with my Giraud trimmer, this is a vast improvement over anything I did previous.
I have three powered trimmers that will trim, deburr, and bevel the case mouth in one operation: The RCBS case trimmer, the Gracey, and now the Giraud trimmer. The speed champ, until I received the Giraud trimmer, was of course the Gracey.
I purchased a Gracey direct from Col Gracey when he sold trimmers at Camp Perry. He was a interesting and enthusiastic salesman. I still have mine.
Having now trimmed a thousands of cases in each of these trimmers, I feel that I can make a fair comparison/assessment of the Giraud trimmer.
The Giraud trimmer is quieter than my Gracey trimmer, but I do not know if it is intrinsic to the design, or whether I just have a loud Gracey and a quiet Giraud. This means I can trim and listen to either the radio or TV without the rest of the neighborhood having to "enjoy" the same programs.
It is faster than the Gracey, where the cutter spins at the same speed as the motor. The Giraud spins its cutter through a notched belt and toothed gear system, the gear ratio adjusted so the Giraud cutter rotates faster than the motor.
Mr. Giraud supplies the cutter with a carbide blade of his own design. I really do not know anyone who has good luck with the Gracey "tool steel" (probably high carbon steel) blades except Mr. Gracey. I have unsuccessfully gone through two sets of Gracey blades, trying to find a set that will take and hold an edge. The two blades of the Gracey trimmer are difficult to adjust in tandem, the once piece Bob Jones and Giraud blades are faster to adjust.
A side comment, I also have the Bob Jones carbide cutter blade. The Giraud Blade provides an internal case mouth chamfer of 15 degrees and an external case mouth of 45 degrees (per Doug Giraud). The Bob Jones does not cut as steep an internal slope as does the Giraud, and I find that I prefer the steeper slope. The reason is that it creates less resistance when seating a bullet. This is an advantage to me, because I dump powder and seat the bullet on a Dillion 550B. Every so often a bullet will tip and jam into the bottom edge of my seating die. If I can detect this in time I can stop and can clear the condition before the case gets ruined. However, when the bullet requires significant effort to seat, it is hard to differentiate on the seating stroke between a jammed bullet and normal seating. The end result is usually a crumpled case neck.
I like having an "On-Off" Switch. The Girard comes with an On-Off switch. My Gracey trimmer did not come with one. I went to home depot, bought a cheap switch, cut the wires, drilled the Gracey base, and now I can turn the thing off without pulling the cord from the wall socket.
The most important thing I found that made the Giraud a speed champ was that you can cut in a horizontal position, like the Gracey, or a vertical (upright) position. With the Giraud in a vertical position, I can put the machine upright in front of me, and trim cases with both hands. In the horizontal position I can feed cases to one hand, but only one hand can hold the case in the trimmer. This little difference significantly reduces hand fatigue and increases the effective trim rate. And one other thing, with the machine pointing up, the brass chips fall down out of the shell holder. These machines headspace on the case shoulder, so with the Gracey in a horizontal position, I am constantly checking trim length, and wiping out the inside of the shell holder because inevitably, a brass chip will fall into the shell holder and change the trim length.
My Giraud trimmer has a quick shell holder change feature. I can change out the shell holder from from 30-06 to 308 without having to readjust for depth. The Gracey shell holder must be readjusted for depth when changing calibers. Mr. Giraud has made an improvement to his trimmer, after I purchased mine, but it allows quick change of the cutter head. Currently I can only trim cartridges of the same caliber without adjusting the cutter head. This adjustment is perhaps the most time consuming as I try to get an chamfer angle I like and still deburr the outside of the brass. This is also true of the Gracey. However Mr. Giraud has made a removable cutter head which is a better idea and would allow a very quick change over from .223 to .308 for example. The removable cutter head option is a great idea, but it is not cheap.
Gracey's tool was good in its day, but the Giraud is an improvement.
