Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Case Trim Length

+1

I've been trimming most all of my cases .010 short for the last 61 years, for the reasons Al mentions.
I'd don't trim Hornet and Bee cases that far back, but the rest of them I do; rifle caeses that is.

AL,

Excellent post! Good information as well as clarifying what the rest of us have been attempting to say.

Thank you,
M Bell

Trim them to the proper length otherwise you will get more erosion in the chamber and lose barrel life or so the experts tell me...How much difference in barrel life? who knows~! but trimming to proper length seems an easy enough trade off to me...

This has been the reason that historically folks in the know have used the 270 cases to make 338-06s and 35 Whelens as opposed to the 30-06. The case loses length when expanded and the .270 is longer in the neck than the 06 so you get better case to chamber fit..

I won't argue the point, just passing it on for what its worth.

That's why it's only a "rule of thumb"........

As with most things, there's always the exception..........

I spend many weeks each spring and summer shooting PDogs and gophers........trimming cases to the same length hasn't slowed me down one bit............

One only needs to buy a Giraud case trimmer or another such type device to realize that you can have both uniformity and as much trigger time as one can stand. Haven't reached that point yet, but I'm workin' on it and not at any expense as to uniformity/accuracy and/or time afield.

As it should be, not everyone's goals are alike, be it accuracy, career goals or golf scores. We all come from such different backgrounds/"places" as well which play into how and why we approach such matters the way that we do...or how we must approach such matters (financial considerations included).

I'm pleased and satisfied with my approach to all types of shooting/handloading while other's are just as pleased and satisfied with their own methods that seem worlds apart from my own....and vice versa. We should be thankful for these different methods/approaches to shooting/handloading, 'cuz these forums either wouldn't exist or would be so boring that many of us would gladly choose to watch paint dry rather than to listen to somebody espouse the exact same methods that we have all used our entire lives.

I'm never above makin' a few changes here and there if it might mean an enhancement in accuracy or a time saving move at the reloading bench. It has happened before and will likely happen again in the future, but not without informative posts on forums such as this.......and not without being different from my own approach to such things.

Good luck...........

Magnumb,

Your post is excellent! In general, I agree with all that you have covered.

I feel I am careful in my hand-loading but not so fastidious as some like yourself. I play about as "fast and loose" in regards to cleaning primer-pockets as I do to the exact over-all-length of cases, and I quit tumbling brass, to make it clean and shiny, a long time ago.

As you said, we do not all have exactly the same goals, and we come from a variety backgrounds; I think this makes the forum vastly more informative and interesting than it would be otherwise!

Here's wishing you some more good days in the gopher and prairie-dog patches before winter is with us once again.

M Bell

.....and my best to you when either afield or wherever you might find yourself enjoying our sport........

Best Regards,

magnumb

Exactly--all cases don't grow the same each firing/resizing......I'm not overly obsessive about neck tension, but having the same neck length/surface area gripping the bullet can't hurt.



Casey