? Most hated job in reloading ?

[felix]

Yep, me too! Solution: Genuflect and while picking up the brass, say a prayer in thanks to the Boss that you are still able to do both. ... felix

[qajaq59]

After 70 it's time to shoot levers and bolts only. Either that, or get really good at catching the flying brass.

[Moonie]

Bring kids and grandkids for brass patrol, works for me.

[Mal Paso]

Inspecting Boolits for flaws. It's not hard, rolling them from the pile a couple inches and into a bucket, but it's boring.

[blaster]

Brass prep, hands down.

[FAsmus]

Gentlemen;

Lots of folks have addressed case trimming as the most ornery of tasks in this shooting game. ~ I was semi-amazed by that since I have not hunted up my case trimming tools in years .. and I shoot 5000+ rounds annually.

Don't get me wrong, I do measure case lengths and assure that all is well in a timely fashion but trim? Well perhaps in every 25 to 35 loadings on an individual case and this includes things like rear locking actions as in Marlin 336s or SMLEs.

Tell me then, why is it necessary to trim all that much? Hell, my cases just don't grow very fast at all with cast bullet loadings, and the straight cases pretty much hold right on spec for load after load. For example my 444 cases, used in various single-shot actions, have been loaded 60 times apiece and never seen a trimming operation.

The bottle necks do receive some care in that I lube the inside of the necks when I neck size them ( Never, ever does a cast bullet case receive full-length sizing! ) This prevents the case from going through the stretching that it otherwise would do as the expander ball were to pull through a dry neck ID.

So, enlighten me; why is trimming done so much and grown to be hated so greatly?

Me? Well I really do dislike cleaning primer pockets ~

Good evening,
Forrest

[John Guedry]

Smelting by far.

[Linstrum]

Continuing this thread after 3661 days of inactivity - - -

I hate dropping primers on the floor. Why? Because I have to go look for any and all primers wherever they roll to out of sight under the other chairs, or behind the boxes of somebody else's junk that doesn't belong here in MY man cave but had no other place to go. I MUST recover that primer no matter what!

So, you ask why is it so imperative that I find just ONE primer right NOW, and not just look for it later? As of September 25, 2020, primers are next to impossible to find, so losing (actually misplacing) just one primer is close to a catastrophe! That, and the primer count in the box is an aid that helps me keep track of how many cartridge cases I've just processed. Plus one more thing (besides being a bit, uh, hmmm, what was it that they accuse Ronald Reagan of being? Yeah, bad memory. Hey! If it was good enough for Ronald Reagan, then I guess I'm that, too!), if I don't find that primer right now, when I find it later I might not remember what type of primer it is - magnum or not-magnum. The other types - pistol or rifle, and small or large, can be found by quite simply measuring height and diameter, but manufacturer and magnum not-magnum cannot. Find that primer NOW before its identity is lost! When I find an unidentified primer on the floor, I can certainly take it outside and have fun with it by heating it with a propane torch at arm's-length, open-side-down sitting on a brick (while wearing eye protection of course), and watch it disappear, probably skyward, when it pops, but I can't use it in a cartridge because I have no certain way of identifying if it is a magnum, or not.

So, I just LOATH looking for just one stinking lost primer (or actually any number of them), because it means lost time while I crawl around on the floor on 70-year-old-knees, looking with eyes of the same vintage. Doing that ALMOST takes some of the fun and enjoyment out of what those of us who partake of The Silver Stream do.

I've been having fun for 56 years now, I started in 1964 with a 91/30 Mosin-Nagant purchased from Sears and Roebuck for a day's wages working 8 hours a day, at the time $1.25 per hour, and an aluminum mold block with the mold cavity machined in a drill press using a cutter I ground from a 5/16" drill bit that dropped a non-gas check 0.313" wheel weight boolit at about 175 grains. My powder was 10 grains DuPont 700X. I was 14 years old, and one of my dad's machinist buddies at Abex Aerospace Division of American Brake Shoe Corporation, who was an avid shooter, gave me safe loads and procedures. The brass I was using was 1939 and 1940-dated Finland VPT 7.62X54R that I had to drill out the primer pockets and counterbore the cartridge head faces in a lathe to take shotgun primers. The 10 grains DuPont 700X pressure was low enough so the primers didn't blow through. I've tried shotgun primers with full house rifle loads and the firing pin indentations blow through operating at ~50,000 psi. My dad and his buddy were both highly-skilled, first-rate, top-notch machinists doing prototype work on the Gemini and Apollo Moonshot Programs for NASA, and they were good mentors when I was a kid just starting high school!

But I sure hate chasing primers around on the floor or looking for them, but it is just something that has to be done because the consequences of not finding primers are, are, are - - - bad!

[Targa]

Wheel weights!! I hate collecting them, sorting them and most of all melting them into ingots. With that said, it sure beats buying your lead.

[Went2kck]

Picking up fired rounds, looking for them in the grass!

[Mal Paso]

Inspecting Boolits for flaws. It's not hard, rolling them from the pile a couple inches and into a bucket, but it's boring.

10 years and 10 days later I still hate inspecting boolits.

[Bazoo]

Going into tire shops asking about weights. I'm not good at social things like getting some weights and offering a pizza in return. I end up buying weights and going almost empty before I work the gumption to go back.

[Kylongrifle32]

Removing primer crimp from mil brass to use in all my 223 parent case wildcats.

[dragon813gt]

Brass prep, hate it. I’m currently going though about 5,000 5.56 cases. Have almost all of them deprimed. About 800 are completely ready to load. Maybe 1,500 are deprimed and swaged. Normally I’d do one step at a time. But I bought a Lee APP and have been making sure it works. Definitely made depriming easy. Swaging, not so much compared to a Dillon 600. And I won’t even bother trying to FL size on it again.

[Txcowboy52]

I have to agree with dragon , i mortally hate case prep !!

[dragon813gt]

I left out trimming in my first post. Hate that part as well

[MT Chambers]

Case trimming is bad but not as bad as making shot, for the whole day you just watch the shot drop.

[dragon813gt]

Case trimming is bad but not as bad as making shot, for the whole day you just watch the shot drop.

You know you can buy shot, right
Cases, rifle, will always have to be prepped unless you just don’t care

[poppy42]

Well i really don’t dislike any aspect of reloading. But I shoot a lot of Makarov (9x18). Makarov brass is at least five times more expensive than 9 mm Luger brass (9x19). Considering the only real difference is one’s a millimeter longer than the other I make my own Makarov brass out of 9 x 19. And when I say a lot of Makaroff I typically make about 500 cases at a time. Being poor and cheap I’ve tried all the economical ways of trimming brass lime in trimmers Leigh trimmers, As a matter of fact I’ve actually worn out for five Lee trimmers. About eight months ago I would’ve answered this question with trimming brass. But I got a file trim die! All I can now is woohoo! So all the Furrer back to my original statement I really don’t dislike any aspect the reloading.

[lightman]

I hate dealing with primer crimps. I've tried about every method and tool that there is and I've found that no one method will work on every case or crimp. I prefer to remove it vs swage it.

Some of the things that you guys posted that you hate doing I actually enjoy;
I like the successful feeling I get when I score free lead and I enjoy the search.
I also like sorting things and wheelweights don't bother me.
I actually enjoy smelting scrap lead. I usually get together with a buddy once a year and do both of our years scores.
Case trimming doesn't bother me. If I trim more than 100 cases I use my Giraud trimmer. I can do 15 to 16 per minute.
I do hate looking for a dropped primer or a dropped case.