Straight wall pistol brass.

[lightman]

I do!

[jdgabbard]

New (whether new or new to me) brass always gets sized/deprimed, trimmed to length, and chamfered. After I have shot it I generally don't worry about straight wall cartridges. They don't really stretch enough to be of any real concern. I've got 38spl brass that I've loaded dozens of times, and was hand-me-down brass from when I first got started loading. It's still fine, and close enough to spec to not be an issue. That said, I rarely use a heavy roll crimp. Which reduces the amount of split necks and stretching. In my experience, your necks will split before you need to trim a second time.

[45_Colt]

I always though chamfering was really 'deburring.' As in after trimming to length need to get rid of the burrs on the out & inside on the ends of the mouths.

On pistol brass, is there any need to chamfer? The expanding/belling die takes care of this for you. Unless of course cases are trimmed, then chamfering/deburring would be required.

I dunno', needless to say haven't yet chamfered a straight wall pistol case. Just crank 'em through the press.

45_Colt

[firefly1957]

Only if I need to trim the brass .

[georgerkahn]

Do you guys chamfer your straight wall pistol brass?

For at least the past twenty years I ALWAYS trim all brass for a loading to exact same length and -- I use the term "de-burr" which, to me, is the same as what is accomplished by use of a chamfer tool. Primarily for any calibre I crimp, to me, it is imperative that all cases be the same length to afford uniform crimping. Further, to enable ease of belling and bullet seating in the loading process, as well as the crimp -- said "chamfering"-- I always do.
geo

[Big Boomer]

Several years ago I decided to see if I could wring the last bit of accuracy out of my revolvers & pistols. Had never trimmed a single .45 ACP case for length but decided that i would give it a try with my Forester case trimmer and see if it made a difference. I trimmed about 25 or 30 rounds of once fired same headstamp brass, chamfered the mouths & loaded a 230 gr. Lee rn boolit lubed with FWFL for an old SS Chas Daly .45 ACP. Since everything was the same, I did get the smallest groups I'd ever gotten with that pistol. Did the same thing for a really good older S&W 5" nickel plated M27 and new Starline brass. Was surprised at the different case lengths in the 25 or 30 rounds of the pieces of new brass I had bought. Trimmed the cases for length & chamfered the cases, having run them through the sizing die and loaded RCBS's 158 gr plain base boolit lubed with FWFL. Again, smallest groups I had ever fired from a sandbag rest from that revolver. Outside that & other experiments with .41 Mag., .44 Mag. & .45 Colt, chamfering case mouths seems to be extra work, though I regularly chamfer the mouths of all rifle rounds whether for lead boolits or jacketed bullets. When I used to deer hunt, I gave all the ammo I planned to use that extra treatment. Big Boomer

[Winger Ed.]

I load every round to hunt , even if the quarry is the savage and dreaded paper target . .

That's pretty much how I do it.
Those black dots are easy to kill if you hit them pretty hard, and in the right place.
Otherwise-- after dark, the Target Kong will come in and drag off their wounded.

I trim & de-burr straight wall cases for rifles, like .45-70, but not handguns.

[SoonerEd]

I trim my straight wall cartridges to a consistent length as I've found a consistent length is important for accuracy especially if roll crimping. Since I trim my brass i have to chamfer the inside to debur. The plus is the chamfering decreases the flair I need on the brass to prevent shaving the lead especially if using just a flair on the brass as opposed to using a mandrel sizer like NOE sells.

[BobT]

I chamfer every piece of new brass and if I trim I chamfer then also. I have found repeatedly that consistency is important to accuracy and accuracy is important to me every time I pull the trigger.

[georgerkahn]

Several years ago I decided to see if I could wring the last bit of accuracy out of my revolvers & pistols. Had never trimmed a single .45 ACP case for length but decided that i would give it a try with my Forester case trimmer and see if it made a difference. I trimmed about 25 or 30 rounds of once fired same headstamp brass, chamfered the mouths & loaded a 230 gr. Lee rn boolit lubed with FWFL for an old SS Chas Daly .45 ACP. Since everything was the same, I did get the smallest groups I'd ever gotten with that pistol. Did the same thing for a really good older S&W 5" nickel plated M27 and new Starline brass. Was surprised at the different case lengths in the 25 or 30 rounds of the pieces of new brass I had bought. Trimmed the cases for length & chamfered the cases, having run them through the sizing die and loaded RCBS's 158 gr plain base boolit lubed with FWFL. Again, smallest groups I had ever fired from a sandbag rest from that revolver. Outside that & other experiments with .41 Mag., .44 Mag. & .45 Colt, chamfering case mouths seems to be extra work, though I regularly chamfer the mouths of all rifle rounds whether for lead boolits or jacketed bullets. When I used to deer hunt, I gave all the ammo I planned to use that extra treatment. Big Boomer

What you wrote makes SO much sense! Just a wee difference in seating depth seems to make quite the significant difference in pressures, all else being the same. By trimming to EXACT same lengths I should think this assures said firing pressures to be pretty close. This alone may make for smaller groups on target? I have the Wilson trimmer, and have found it, for me, to be both most accurate as well as repeatable.
geo

[jdgabbard]

While sorting through my brass from the range the other day I found this gem. This is one of the first brass cases I ever got when I started reloading. THIS is the hand me down brass I spoke of before….

This has been loaded more times than I can remember. To be honest, I don’t recall if it’s ever been trimmed. It was before I really knew to. But here it is… 1972 Military Contract 38 Special brass.

[dondiego]

I figure that if you trim, you need to chamfer................

[cwtebay]

One of my earliest reloading lessons: measure your cases, trim to the shortest case as long as it is within spec, chamfer. I have loaded this way since the Lee Loader days of my teens.
I purchased a very small ammunition company several years ago and we would get in batches of 10,000 pieces of brass for a given caliber so I had a precision brass tolerance gauge made that each piece of brass had to be placed through before acceptance. My eye is still twitching from what our reject bucket looked like after a shift of 45 ACP or 9mm brass sorting.
Each piece was chamfered and deburred prior to loading.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

[Hanzy4200]

No. If you bell your case mouth properly I've never had issues.

[RogerDat]

I mostly use previously fired brass so I trim to length for more consistent crimps. The Lee hand crank trimmer that is used on a single stage press does a slight chamfer on inside and out. So yes I chamfer but as a by-product of trimming.

After the initial trim I figure straight walled cases won't need it again. Crimps will stay consistent enough for punching paper and busting clays on a dirt pile.

[dverna]

What you wrote makes SO much sense! Just a wee difference in seating depth seems to make quite the significant difference in pressures, all else being the same. By trimming to EXACT same lengths I should think this assures said firing pressures to be pretty close. This alone may make for smaller groups on target? I have the Wilson trimmer, and have found it, for me, to be both most accurate as well as repeatable.
geo

Seating depth is not affected by case length. The seating stem pushes the bullet into the case and is not referenced from the case length. The volume of space between the base of the bullet and the head of the case is the same.

I can see case length having an effect on accuracy if roll crimping. Especially if it is a "good solid crimp". Varying resistance to launch the bullet will affect pressure...it is why a "good
crimp" is needed for light loads...to get more pressure.

Back in the day, Star offered a tapered crimp for the .38 Spl so people could load without having to worry as much about the effects of differing case lengths affecting crimp when loading .38's for Bullseye shooting.

We did a lot of Ranson Rest testing and never trimmed cases. In hindsight, we should have tested trimmed cases, to check it out, but we got such great accuracy it was moot. 50 shots into 2.5" at 50 yards was good enough. We did use only one brand of case and that may have helped. We got loads of CIL Dominion wadcutter cases form a police range at the time...decades ago. I still have some...50+ years later.

[blackthorn]

dverna;---"The volume of space between the base of the bullet and the head of the case is the same."

I am having trouble visualizing the above. I could see that the space between the forward tip of the bullet and the head of the case would be the same, but if we push the bullet deeper into the case how can the space between the base of the bullet and the head of the case be the same? Am I missing something?

[jdgabbard]

dverna;---"The volume of space between the base of the bullet and the head of the case is the same."

I am having trouble visualizing the above. I could see that the space between the forward tip of the bullet and the head of the case would be the same, but if we push the bullet deeper into the case how can the space between the base of the bullet and the head of the case be the same? Am I missing something?

I think what he is saying, and I agree with this, is the case's length, and squareness do not matter for the purposes of case volume when seating to an identical overall length of the cartridge. In other words, if one case is 1.155", and another is 1.157", but the bullet's in each are seated to a length of 1.540", the internal volume of the case is identical.

With that said, depending on the load, the amount of crimp applied to a case can affect how much pressure is generated. The taper crimp dies he mentioned are designed to apply similar amounts of crimp to cases of varying length. Which serves to minimize the difference in pressure from one round to the next when case lengths are not 100% identical. How well these work, I have no idea. I've had almost zero case stretch of straight wall cases over the years, with a substantial amount of loadings. It's been my experience the case splits before they need to be trimmed again.