Hi All,
I am new to reloading. "Inherited" a few things from my wife's grandfather. Using his Lee Classic handloader for .44 Mag and his shell casings, I reloaded my first small batch of rounds using 7.0 gr Red Dot with a Speer 240 gr jacketed soft point bullet and Remington large pistol primer. What a thrill to handle your own handloaded ammo!
Anyway, my question is in regard to case trimming. Bought some dial calipers last night and started measuring cases....they are ALL different lengths! Picking 5 up at random I got 1.272, 1.270, 1.280, 1.277, & 1.278. So obviously I need a case trimmer, BUT these lengths are all UNDER the length of 1.285 specified in my Lee Modern Reloading manual for the .44 Mag cartridge. So will a case trimmer trim to any length I choose? (looking at the Lee trimmer it appears that it trims each shell to a standard length by a spacer inserted in each case. Would my cases even get trimmed at all since they are all under 1.285?)
I also got curious about the case length and measured the case lengths on a box of factory new rounds I have......1.274, 1.278, 1.276, 1.278, & 1.276 on the first 5 rounds pulled. All within 4 thousandth's of each other, but definitely under-length to the case standard 1.285 listed in the LEE manual. Would love to see folks weigh in on this and describe your process of case trimming and what equipment you use.
David
I am new to reloading. "Inherited" a few things from my wife's grandfather. Using his Lee Classic handloader for .44 Mag and his shell casings, I reloaded my first small batch of rounds using 7.0 gr Red Dot with a Speer 240 gr jacketed soft point bullet and Remington large pistol primer. What a thrill to handle your own handloaded ammo!
Anyway, my question is in regard to case trimming. Bought some dial calipers last night and started measuring cases....they are ALL different lengths! Picking 5 up at random I got 1.272, 1.270, 1.280, 1.277, & 1.278. So obviously I need a case trimmer, BUT these lengths are all UNDER the length of 1.285 specified in my Lee Modern Reloading manual for the .44 Mag cartridge. So will a case trimmer trim to any length I choose? (looking at the Lee trimmer it appears that it trims each shell to a standard length by a spacer inserted in each case. Would my cases even get trimmed at all since they are all under 1.285?)
I also got curious about the case length and measured the case lengths on a box of factory new rounds I have......1.274, 1.278, 1.276, 1.278, & 1.276 on the first 5 rounds pulled. All within 4 thousandth's of each other, but definitely under-length to the case standard 1.285 listed in the LEE manual. Would love to see folks weigh in on this and describe your process of case trimming and what equipment you use.
David