Suggestions on a powered brass trimmer!

jmiddy

jmiddy

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Ok ive taken all i can, trimming brass ,by the hand, one at a time bit!

So i have bought a 120v motor and i need suggestions on how to build a rig to trim brass, I have my own ideas but any others out there would help.
I mainly will be doing 223 cases for now and probably 308 in the near future so it has to be able to change back and forth.
What i want is a feed chute to load up and the brass works its way through the cutter head no one time cutting like the Giraud,

Now the good part the best suggestion WIN'S meaning i will duplicate the machine and send it to them.
 
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Great deal, but I figure the perfect machine is gonna cost you a couple grand a copy! Automation, and operating system, some redundancies. Heck. It's your money, so maybe an industrial robot and a couple machining cells.... :D

Set up the motor to spin a Lee Case trimmer at about 100 rpm. Sit self down in front of same, place towel under chin to catch drool, and proceed. Listening to radio or watching TV helps.

I use a small metal lathe to turn the cutter/spacer combo, while I hold the chuck that grips the case. One large bowl full of brass to trim, one to receive the 'done'.

A drill press would work, but I have the lathe, so use that. Was seriously considering modding a pair of pliers, maybe some vise-grips, to grip the case holder, to relieve the sore fingers from constantly tightening and loosening the knurled locking ring. Ran out of brass first, though.

Same basic process for deburr. The cutter and pilot ride in the lathe chuck.

Goes pretty fast. One op, repeated many times. Muscle memory at work. Then do another op.
Beats heck out of trying to run one case through all the ops, then starting over.

Cheers
Trev
 
Have a look at the Dillon stuff. Looks like they have a monster trimmer in line with their progressive. Might give you an idea of how to make this work.

I use an electric screwdriver with my Forster trimmer. Easier on the hands and the cases are well aligned.

Not as mechanised as you are wanting but the cases are consistent and true for little set up and design work.

YMMV

Jerry
 
The motor and cutting action/cutter isnt the problem ill have that put together tommorow,
like a Giraud but cost under $100.

Im having issues trying to get a feed mech from a hopper so its pretty much automatic, feed the hopper and out pops trimmed brass. What im thinking is a small motor with a small belt to help push/pull the brass through to the cutter.
 
jmiddy said:
Im having issues trying to get a feed mech from a hopper so its pretty much automatic, feed the hopper and out pops trimmed brass.
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That's easy then - a progressive press with case feeder, a lube die, and a Dillon 1200B. Voilà, sized and trimmed brass. If you tumble it afterwards you don't even need to chamfer / debur or wipe the lube off.

On-press trimming is hands-down the fastest way to do things.
 
acrashb said:
That's easy then - a progressive press with case feeder, a lube die, and a Dillon 1200B. Voilà, sized and trimmed brass. If you tumble it afterwards you don't even need to chamfer / debur or wipe the lube off.

On-press trimming is hands-down the fastest way to do things.
Click to expand...

That's almost what I used to do.

Using a Dillon 1050, I had a prep toolhead set up. The first station was a carbide size die, and the Dillon RT 1200 was adjusted to just hold the presized neck and trim the case.

For lube, I used the Dillon spray lube and had fantastic results with it.

There is no reason why the same method couldn't be used on a smaller progressive.

The only downside to my method that I found was I tumbled the cases in fresh corn cob to get the lube off. As such, I would install a Lee collet die in the toolhead when loading ammo, with the mandrel polished undersized. It both made sure the case mouth was open enough (as the RT1200 doesn't have an expander ball) and also proved the flash hole wasn't obstructed with media.
 
I am using the Dillon RT1200 as well. You resize and trim at the same time. You don't need to chamfer inside and out of you are loading boat tail. The downside of that setup is the sound. The trimmer and vaccum makes a lot of noise, wear your muffs.
 
i know this guy who was telling me about how he trims his brass. he was making .577 snider blackpowder cases, I think he was turning down 24ga shot shells to match length.
What he did was, he took a proper shell holder and chucked it in a lathe, the he set up a micrometer depth stop on the ways set to the right size, with the shell in the holder and the lathe up to speed, bring the carriage over till it stops at the right offset, turn power off, then he would turn the chuck so the open end of the shell holder dropped the shell on a catcher underneath, turn chuck to replace with next part, repeate. he said that he was able to several hundred a hour.

Now i understand that this will be a bit different in your case(rimmed to rimless, larger to your smaller cases) but i think a drill or that motor(with a foot peddle control on/off) with a chuck or a coupler with the right size for a shell holder, a simple "lathe" like bed could be made out of wood or welded out of angle iron cheaply, and a cheap dial indicator attached to a rig with a screw depth stop, and some kind of arm with a cutter for the trimming. I think that something like this might be a start.
 
There is nothing faster than a Giraud trimmer. It does the best job of all of the above options to boot.

That mod'ed RCBS case center is ass, and incredibly slow...
 
beltfed said:
There is nothing faster than a Giraud trimmer.
Click to expand...

That's not correct. On-press trimming with a case feeder is faster - and that means a 1200B. The brass is trimmed at the same time that it's sized.

For off-press trimming, the giraud and similar (anything indexing on the shoulder with trim/chamfer/debur all in one, like the Gracey) will be the fastest, as you've indicated.
 
acrashb said:
That's not correct. On-press trimming with a case feeder is faster - and that means a 1200B. The brass is trimmed at the same time that it's sized.
Click to expand...

Trimming brass is not complete if one doesn't clean up the rim, so imho the 1200b provides for half the solution. If one does enough loading, they are going to shave enough copper jacket off their bullets so that every hundred rounds or so (if not more often) they'll have to stop and clean up the mess. Add the vacuuming and it really is a band aid solution that gives the illusion of being faster.

Separating out the brass prep is the best way to do loading of bottle necked cartridges - and ultimately costs no more time to do it right the first time, than trying to do it all at once on press - again, mho.
 
beltfed said:
There is nothing faster than a Giraud trimmer. It does the best job of all of the above options to boot.

That mod'ed RCBS case center is ass, and incredibly slow...
Click to expand...

It costs too much for me and I can do all the steps at one place. I don't need to do 10,000 at a time.
 
beltfed said:
Trimming brass is not complete if one doesn't clean up the rim, so imho the 1200b provides for half the solution.

[...]
Add the vacuuming and it really is a band aid solution that gives the illusion of being faster.
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On the first point, two pictures. The first is brass straight off of a 1200B, the second after tumbling that has to be done anyway to remove lube. Note that the tumbled round is ready-to-go, since the tumbling "cleans up the rim". Having loaded thousands of rounds this way I can assure you that there is no noticeable bullet shaving. I've pulled bullets that have marking similar to those on hand-chamfered cases - and no shaving at all.

Regarding vacuuming - the case shavings from any trimmer have to go somewhere, and if they go straight into a vacuum I don't know how you can call it a band-aid since most of us would use a vacuum to clean up the mess anyway. I just empty the vacuum as normal, and without worrying about build-up in the trimmer itself (as one would have to in any other trimming solution). It's faster than a regular trimmer, because shavings management can be done very infrequently - even a small vacuum can hold a lot of cases-worth of shavings.

After trimming:
brassAfter1200B.JPG


After trimming / tumbling:
brassAfter1200BandTumbling.JPG



The only downside to the 1200B is cost and ultimate precision (for which one would use a Wilson trimmer anyway and which is not an issue in bulk ammo) and perhaps noise (for which I wear ear muffs while trimming). For raw speed, the subject of the OP's question (given that he wants "feed chute to load up and the brass works its way through the cutter head no one time cutting"), it is unbeatable by design because it is on-press. When someone else comes up with an on-press design, we'll have a speed competition - until then, it's the 1200B for speed.
 
acrashb said:
On the first point, two pictures. The first is brass straight off of a 1200B, the second after tumbling that has to be done anyway to remove lube. Note that the tumbled round is ready-to-go, since the tumbling "cleans up the rim". Having loaded thousands of rounds this way I can assure you that there is no noticeable bullet shaving. I've pulled bullets that have marking similar to those on hand-chamfered cases - and no shaving at all.

Regarding vacuuming - the case shavings from any trimmer have to go somewhere, and if they go straight into a vacuum I don't know how you can call it a band-aid since most of us would use a vacuum to clean up the mess anyway. I just empty the vacuum as normal, and without worrying about build-up in the trimmer itself (as one would have to in any other trimming solution). It's faster than a regular trimmer, because shavings management can be done very infrequently - even a small vacuum can hold a lot of cases-worth of shavings.

After trimming:
brassAfter1200B.JPG


After trimming / tumbling:
brassAfter1200BandTumbling.JPG



The only downside to the 1200B is cost and ultimate precision (for which one would use a Wilson trimmer anyway and which is not an issue in bulk ammo) and perhaps noise (for which I wear ear muffs while trimming). For raw speed, the subject of the OP's question (given that he wants "feed chute to load up and the brass works its way through the cutter head no one time cutting"), it is unbeatable by design because it is on-press. When someone else comes up with an on-press design, we'll have a speed competition - until then, it's the 1200B for speed.
Click to expand...

Your first picture is more ragged than it should be. The cutter blade has three edges, so you may want to rotate it to a fresh blade for a cleaner cut. The nice part is, a "used" blade that's no longer suitable for .223, will still work fine for .308.

If you need new blades, I believe I have a few.
 
Got this Forster PT1010 ($US 60.00) and a cheap drill press at CT (the unit was on sale for $150.00 and cost me $39.00 + bongo points). Works great for .223 and other high volume stuff. I can use the press to make holes too :).

ht tp://www.forsterproducts.com/catalog.asp?prodid=623138

Now you still have to twirl the little chamfer thing-ey lightly around the case mouths a couple of times but for plinkers this amounts to a quick and dirty touch up and goes really fast. "Even without this the brass looks better than those photos above, Christ, they look like they've been done with an axe :D."

Anyhow, for a hundred bucks, I'm happy with this system. I've modified a little plastic paint pail so it mounts between the adjustable press table and the Forster unit with a cutaway at the front. This catches the copper shavings while allowing access to the unit,,its a must.
 
acrashb said:
After trimming / tumbling:
brassAfter1200BandTumbling.JPG


Note that the tumbled round is ready-to-go, since the tumbling "cleans up the rim". Having loaded thousands of rounds this way I can assure you that there is no noticeable bullet shaving.
Click to expand...

I suppose it all depends on what people view as acceptable ammunition and loading techniques.

That 'after prep' shot looks like hell, and you've pulled the brass off the press anyhow to tumble it. The fact you did that makes it no faster, but actually slower than doing it with a trimmer like the Giraud.
I've run brand new brass that has gone through the sizer to straighten out the rim, and it still shaves copper - the brass in your photo above is way worse than new stuff. I personally, would never run brass that looked like yours through my presses or dies.

To all those looking for a faster, better solution to do lots of brass - there is the Giraud trimmer, and then there are compromises as posted above. To the OP - good luck with your project!
 
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