Lee case trimmer

[MCgunner]

I've been using the drill mounted arbor and Lee's gauges to trim for quite a while. I recently bought a 9mm mak and am going to try trimming 9x19 brass for it. I can't find my arbor, SECOND one I've lost, the part that mounts in the drill. :banghead: So, I was going to order YET another one when this bench mounted recoil rope operated thing came up for 18 bucks and change at Midway. I ordered it. I don't know if it's worth a crap, all plastic, wondered if anyone had tried it? I just was thinkin' the thing could be bench mounted and would be damned hard to misplace.....

My mind is going. I can't remember crap. As Pink Floyd puts it, "shorter of breath and one day closer to death".

 

[Kentucky_Rifleman]

You're describing the Lee Zip Trim. I've never used one, but most of the rest of their stuff is quite serviceable. I like their arbor/lock-base trimmers better than anything else I've seen. I've thought about the Zip-trim, but I mostly neck-size which eliminates the need for trimming. The trimming I do most often is the heavy length cutting after re-forming .223 brass to .222, and I use the drill holder for that.

KR

 

[helg]

Cutting a full millimeter in bulk quantities with muscle force may be challenging. Better chuck the Lee cutter (with pilot screwed in) into a drill press, and hold brass with soft-padded pliers at the base.

 

[MCgunner]

I thought about that, but only have a 3/8" hand drill.

Maybe I can find that danged arbor if I look hard enough. SHEESH! It ain't where it's supposed to be, though.

 

[helg]

Lee anvil of the cutter fits onto a hand drill. Screwing/unscrewing each shell in the cutter is not too fast for bulk conversions. I used hand drill, which was C-clamped to a bench, with the anvil chucked for that conversion. It is still faster than the hand-driven Zip trim, though not as fast as the drill press.

 

[R.W.Dale]

I use a cordless drill with a 10" flexable extension. this way the drill can stay in my lap and the end of the drive reaches up over my desktop. Using this drill with the torque clutch set on 6 and a pair of good pliers I can reverse release, forward tighten cases into the chuck faster than I can say it. I Chamfer the case mouth, polish, chamfer flashholes all in ONE extremely quick operation. Something you cannot do spinning the cutter bit in a drill.

using a drill press MIGHT be faster to just trim, but it's NOT faster by the time you go back and chamfer all those rugged case mouths

 

[rjbishop]

I use the Lee Zip Trim for .223 prep work. Tools used are the Lyman flash hole reamer (one time only), the Lee case trimmer mounted to a Lee wooden ball, and the Lee chamfer tool. It's not bad- I can do about 150-200/hour with the Zip Trim, and I get no muscle fatigue. I don't know if I would want to cut down one full millimeter- that would take more uumph. It would be fine as long as you had a good sharp trimmer cutter. Thousands? No way...

 

[MCgunner]

Well, I can't find that danged arbor, so I'm going to try the zip trim. I only have 50 rounds to try, first. I've got to work up a load before I get any kind of serious with it. I don't plan on doing more than 100 at a time. Monarch factory steel case stuff at Academy will supplement my reloading. I probably won't shoot the gun all THAT much, anyway, but it's fun cause it's so boomin' accurate for a small pistol.

Sounds like the zip trim should work okay for rifles. I neck size my stuff, too, though. Usually, I just stick the trimmer/length gauge in by hand and rotate it. Most times it doesn't cut anything. The 7 mag does take a cut now and then even with neck sizing, though.

 

[helg]

I have found that the trimmed cases tend to shorten after first firing in a new 9x18 life. I ended up trimming then slightly longer, to 18.1 mm by putting a thin handmade washer to a pilot screw of the trimmer. After the first firing they became perfect 18mm.

With fixed barrel on the caliber, accuracy is amazing. I make a single hole from a magfull at 10yds.

 

[HOWARD J]

I went to a Lyman universal trimmer many years ago--crank handle, etc.
I received their catalog last week--I can't believe the prices on these.
I guess if you look around you could find a nother unit for a better price.

 

[MCgunner]

I have found that the trimmed cases tend to shorten after first firing in a new 9x18 life. I ended up trimming then slightly longer, to 18.1 mm by putting a thin handmade washer to a pilot screw of the trimmer. After the first firing they became perfect 18mm.

With fixed barrel on the caliber, accuracy is amazing. I make a single hole from a magfull at 10yds.

Thanks for that. I'll look around the shop for something 0.1mm thick to make a washer out of. Stuff ain't here, yet, so I have a little time. The 9x19 is more tapered than the 9x18. I guess taking out the taper when firing shortens it, stands to reason.

Yeah, I was amazed at the accuracy of this little gun. It's a Polish P64 Radom. I got a 3" high x 2" wide group first 6 shots with cheap Silver Bear ammo. It's as accurate as my M85 Taurus revolver, the most accurate pocket gun I've got. My Kel Tec will shoot 3.5", probably would do better, but the radom has a sweet SA trigger and the KT's is a long DA. Either gun will mow down the 6" steel plates off hand at 25 yards, but I seem to miss fewer with the Radom. I really like this thing. It was under 200 bucks. Man, talk about VALUE! It's very little used, too, in great shape.

 

[helg]

In the process of conversion, I use 9x18 neck expander die twice: before and after trimming. Unfortunately, it is needed because the expander insert does not go into the brass deep enough to expand the whole brass to the size of 9x18. Even after these two operations, the final expansion is made by fireforming.

I was thinking to get a custom mandrel instead of expander die insert that will go deeper into the shell. This should eliminate the second expansion operation, and would not require trimming on excess of 18mm. Extra .1mm does not create problems with closing the slide in my Bulgarian. The extra .2 almost does. The slide does not close completely, and safety feature prevents the longer round to be fired.

Due to the fireforming, and shortening the brass, I can not make the brass that perfectly fits chamber headspace, which will make the most accurate (but not that dirt-resistant) round.

 

[MCgunner]

Well, in my experience, if it's a tad short, it may still headspace if on the extractor claw. The little gun has a beefy extractor. I will strive, of course, to get the head space right. I may just cut them down to 18mm and consider 'em sacrificial, make once and don't bother picking up ther fired stuff. I collect a LOT of 9x19 out at the range.

I'm going to try to make 'em fit right after fire forming, though. Thanks for the advice.

 

[MCgunner]

Well, this 9x19 to 9x18 thing didn't work out quite as planned. Stuff came in today. I set up the zip trim and the case length gauge wouldn't go in the case all the way. It has a .365" diameter mouth size and my 9x19s are .355. DUH. So, I used an angle grinder to take several cases down to around 18.2 or so mm length. That's not very desirable as the mouth is hard to square off and the operation is tedious.

So, I'm thinking I'll sacrifice the case length gauge and grind off the step down to .355 so I can trim 'em right. Don't have a lathe, so that will be an operation in itself. But, I figure so long as I can get the case over the gauge to the cutter, I'm golden.

 

[MCgunner]

Well, grinding off the step on the length gauge, however crude, seems to have worked. I sized 10 pretty quick. It's a bit of a pain, but it works.

 

[Duckdog]

I just cut some 9mm luger down to 9mm makarov just this morning with a lee trimmer. What you need to do, is either run the 9mm luger through the 9mm makarov sizing die, OR just decap it and then use a lee universal expanding die to bell the 9mm luger brass a tad to allow the lee 9mm makarov trimmer to fit the 9mm luger case. It will and does work excellent! You guys are definitely right that the final sizing is done when it is fire-formed. I also took a Lee champfer too($2.00) and ground some of it off so that while the brass is still mounted in the trimmer arbour, I could chaper the outside and de-bur the inside of the trimmed brass really easy. For the price, I would get a couple of the lee champfer tools.

 

[R.W.Dale]

Duckdog beat me to it

size the diameter to 9x18 then address the length

 

[MCgunner]

I ran the brass through a Lee 9x18 sizer, but there doesn't seem to be an expander ball on the die. It doesn't expand. Oh, well, it works as is. I've got to cast some bullets before I can finish. I have 50 rounds sized and primed. It's going to be interesting loading the bullets, probably have to bell the mouth a little larger than I normally do.

 

[Duckdog]

The sizing die wil not flare the case mouth enough to allow you to cut the case down to 9MM Makarov, as the flare will be wrong when you have it set for the Makarov and not the Luger. It sounds like your going to cast bulets, so you might just think about getting a Lee universal expanding die for less than $20. If you ever shoot cast in rifles, you;ll need it, as they do not have a powder through expanding die like the pistol dies do.

Like I said above, I jus deprime, expand, trim, and then champfer and I have 9mm Makarov brass. I spend less the 10-15 seconds a case. I then color the headstamp with fishing lure color changin laquer, but ink would work too.

Now, that all being said, you can just set eh powder through expanding die that came with you Lee dies and base it on the 9mm Luger for your settings for cutting off the brass, and hen just re-adjust it to load 9mm Makarov brass. I did it that way, too... until I remembered that I had 2 universal expanding dies.

Trust me, you'll never look back once you get it set up to re-form these cases. Also, unless you have another means of champfering, a Lee champferer will need to have about 3/8" ground off of the end to allow the brass to remain in the arbour/holder for this part of the process. Sounds wrse than it all really is.

 

[MCgunner]

I've already run into the problem of chamfering the outside of the case with the Lee chamfer tool. And, thanks for reminding me what that feral (compression fitting feral) is doing in my box. I'd forgotten and was wondering, but it was a do it yourself case mouth belling device for loading lead bullets in rifle calibers, .30-30 IIRC. I tried it, but wasn't real impressed. I'd also tried paper patching .308 to .323", didn't work very well, either. I gave that up for lint, too. Just thought I'd try it after reading a technical article on paper patching. But, that's another story.