So. Let's get one thing clear. I'm probably as cheap as you, maybe cheaper, thus me wanting to load my own rounds. I load my 9mm at around .16c a round, which is a hell of a lot less than what you'd pay for said round. I do however like the fact that I am able to load them super light, around 3.2gn of Titegroup on 147gn RNFP.
I think what scares me is exactly what you pointed out. Having to trim after resizing and depriming. I also heard of instances where people will actually deprime first, then clean brass in tumbler, then go resize, trim, etc. Seems like a drawn out process. If i buy another press, it will most definitely be the Lee, as I cannot afford $1000+ press after the SDB. I even have some Lee dies for 9mm as I had purchased them thinking I was going with the classic turret press for my 9mm rounds, but ended up finding a great deal on the SDB.
A man with a Dillon cannot be as cheap as me!
I Googled around on "trim cases before or after sizing" and found lots of discussions on the web.
The consensus seems to be that you trim after sizing. This makes sense to me based on my own experience: if I take a once fired round and run it through my Lee case trimmer, the cutter often does not touch the case. But after I resize the case, the cutter will indeed take off a tiny amount of brass. So I think I have to trim after resizing.
I did try neck sizing or collet dies and found that I did not have to trim the cases. But I also found that with four rifles in 223 and with kids shooting those at least half the time, I found it a hassle to keep track of which brass goes with which rifle, which is necessary when using neck sizing dies. So I just stopped keeping track and now I resize and trim everything.
I'm not too worried about case life longevity. I understand that my cases will wear out faster doing things this way, but I have not had any problems so far.
Now, those Google searches also turned up something interesting. I came across several comments where guys say they have
never trimmed straight-walled pistol brass. I thought that was interesting. I'm not sure how that works but several commentators were saying that they have never had to do it. That might deserve to be looked into a little more.
About depriming and tumbling first: I've done it that way in the past. I used to deprime then ultrasonic clean then dry in an oven then tumble then polish by hand with Brasso and a jeweller's virgin chamois silverware cloth, all while muttering
"My precious! My precious!"
I'm over all that now.
I now tumble with spent primers in the cases and that gives me pretty clean brass for the most part. I like to deprime in bulk with a Lee Universal Deprimer and brush out the primer pocket. That leaves the cases ready to rip for the other operations, which I usually do in another session or sessions.
I have a Lee Classic Turret on the way to me. I am hoping it gets here this week but it will probably be next week. Will post some thoughts on that when it gets here.
