Drill Press for Case Trimming

[shortlegs]

I put my "Worlds Finest Trimmer" in my little Harboefreight drill press and shove to cases in by hand. This trimmer trims them as fast as I can stick them in. Trimming cases is no longer dreaded chore.

[wbbh]

This is my .223/5.56 trimming/chamfering/deburring setup. It's a Forrester Power trimmer with their three way cutter. One caution, make sure the drill press you use has a good depth stop feature that is stable, it's critical to a get a constant OAL.


There is one negative, once set up you will not want to use your drill press for making holes.

[owejia]

I use my Bridgeport mill to trim brass. Took the chuck off of a Layman trimmer and mounted it on a base that I clamp to the mill table and center up under the spindle and adjust table to get close and get fine adjustment with the quill stop. Just did 100 pcs 9.3 x 74R fireformed for 3" 410 brass shells can keep .001 to .002 thousands tolerance. The fireformed brass came out uneven across the end some as much as .015 thousands or more and plan on a small roll crimp to hold overshot wad in so the ends needed to be square and the brass the same length.. The lyman chuck locks the brass in place with pressure on a steel ball and the chuck jaws. Using a 2 flute end mill can cut as fast as can pull handle and remove and replace brass in the lyman chuck. Works well for making .380 and 9mm shotshells from.223 rem brass and 45acp shotshells from 308 win brass.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Been there and done this and I also have a Machine shop with mills and lathes. Used a collet closer on the mill with a Lee cutter with only a short pilot, that worked OK for .308's. That evolved to setting up a turret lathe to trim 9MM to 9x18 which sucked.

Ended up with a Little Lee Chuck in the cordless drill with the cutter and ball setup. It is by far the fastest and easiest way to do this.
I now have a small box of Lee Trim Tools and that's all I use now.

Randy.

[Tatume]

I first thought of chucking the shell holder into the drill press and clamping the cutter onto the base. Now I'm thinking it would be easier to do it the opposite way.

I've been doing it this way for years. Chuck the cutter, turn on the drill, and leave it running. Then clamp cases in the case holder and run them onto the cutter by hand. It's very quick and easy. Of course, I have a 1/2 inch chuck.

You could ask someone with a lathe to turn down your cutter so it will fit your chuck.

[trails4u]

I solved my bottleneck trimming/prep anger issues here:

https://www.frankfordarsenal.com/cas...20group%20%231

shop around....there are deals to be had. It's not cheap, but honestly, some of the best money I've ever spent on my bench.

[RedlegEd]

Hi all,
I recently bought some surplus .30-06 brass from Jeff at GI Brass and after fully processing it (except for trimming,) I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to use either my Lee or Lyman trimmers on this pile (about 1000 cases.) So, I bought a Giraud Tri-Way trimmer. It's more expensive ($114 shipped) than many of the solutions mentioned here, but cheaper than the FA Platinum Series. The best part is it's a "once and done" operation. It trims and chamfers the inside and outside of the neck (mouth) simultaneously. I can use it with my cheap table top HF Drill Press, and can rip through the brass pretty quickly. The catch is the brass has to be full length sized properly for this to work since it indexes on the shoulder of the case. The other down side is the trimmer is case family specific, which means the trimmer for the .30-06 family will only work on cases that use that cartridge as a parent (e.g. .25-06, .270, .280, etc.) Black Widow makes the Trim-It II that is a similar design, and is configurable to additional dies, but it's also about $60.00 more. So if you are doing a lot of volume of one or two types of brass, this might be a good option. Here's also a video of a gentleman using it.

Ed

[la5676]

I'd love to have a Giraud, but at my stage in life, and all the time I have retired, I sit in my manchair with tubs of brass and trim while watching movies. Use a cordless drill, with case chucked in the drill, but I go ahead and use my little RCBS inner and outer chamfer tool to finish the job so I don't have to chuck them back again and do this later. If you are trimming with the LEE system, you ain't getting by without this step.

[Nanook]

I have one of Giraud's Triway for .308, which I use in a small drill press.

For my benchrest rifles I use the World's Finest Trimmer 2, which has removable 'chamber's. I put it into a cordless drill, and away we go. I have a chamber for 30BR, 6BR, and 6PPC which need trimming often.

I've had an RCBS Trim Pro for years, but it kills my arthritic hands to use it too much. The WFT2 replaced it for my BR rifles.

[Three44s]

I was at a gun show recently and found a multi size brass holder made by Lyman that someone mounted on a small piece of wood, I chuck it in a vice to hold my 300BLK conversion brass while I cut it to size with "the world's finest trimmer" , really saves my fingers, the holder was originally sold to mount on a drill press.

I have this Lyman unit and it is the same case holding fixture as used in the Universal but my little HF drill press was not consistent as to depth (varied case length too much). So for a major trim like converting 30-30 Win to .30 Herret or .357 Herret it works fine.

When I get to normal trimming I rely on the LE Wilson. Nothing eclipses it in mouth squareness and trim to length consistency.

Three44s

[MrWolf]

Thought I was odd man out using the Wilson. I have it mounted on a board so can watch TV, etc while doing my mindless work.

[Three44s]

Thought I was odd man out using the Wilson. I have it mounted on a board so can watch TV, etc while doing my mindless work.

I have three or four of them. All mounted on former plastic food cutting boards with DIY risers and DIY clamps to hold the collets.

I set up one to trim 5.56, one for primer pocket crimp removal (actually bevel the swaging done by a RCBS Swager II) and a third if I get the LE Wilson inside mouth bevel cutter.

I can c-clamp those cutting board set ups to a work bench or table, or just hold it on my lap if I chose.

The cutting board material gives me a hard to miss area to tap cases in and out of the case holding collets as well.

I can run the tools with their respective hand cranks or spin them a hand drill because I used a “high” nut with 7/16” x 20 TPI (NF) and a stub of a bolt with its head cut off of the same fine thread. The case length cutter shaft on a Wilson trimmer is 7/16” NF. So the high nut is threaded onto the cutter shaft with enough internal thread left for the bolt stub to thread into the opposite end. Then the exposed bolt stub was turned down so a standard 3/8” chucked hand drill can run it.

The Wilson primer crimp reamer tools use 3/8” x 24 TPI (NF) so I built a second one but with 3/8” hardware.

Three44s

[JimKirk]

I Chuck the cutter and pilot in my drill press and use the drill table as the stop ....I hold the case with rubberized glove ....quick and easy ...

Then I Chuck the RCBS chamfer tool (3/4" chuck) .... Chamfer all my brass...

Then I Chuck the same RCBS tool with the deburr end down .... deburr all my brass .....

Quick and easy...

[Rockzilla]

Could go a B16 Drill chuck in a non-powder spindle, a 12v-24v DC motor, some gears a belt
can swap out for other things... use a couple setups.
you can locate things cheaper.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/No-Power-Sp...t/383752186900

-Rock

[Guardian]

I used a Forster power trimmer base and a WFT in the chuck on a benchtop drill press for a while. Two issues I ran into were:

1-inconsistent trim lengths due to the expander ball in the sizing die pulling the shoulder longer when the case was extracted

I fixed that by removing the expander from the sizing die and using a Lyman M die during loading

2-instead of chips, the pressure on the drill press handle produced long, curling cuttings that bound up inside the WFT housing.

It was a relatively quick setup for trimming, but then using the RCBS trim mate to do the inside and outside deburring was a pain. I ended up buying a Giroud trimmer that was self contained and ran with that.

[onelight]

RedlegEd that case trimmer is fast and easy , thanks for showing it.

[GBertolet]

I have the Forster case trimmer, and I purchased the power trimmer kit for it, some time ago. You use all the same pilots and collets, as the manual one does. I mounted the power trimmer base to a piece of plywood, and C clamp it to the drill press table. Line it up with the drill chuck, and use the quill stop to regulate depth of trimming. I run the drill press on one of the lower speeds.

For small batches of cases, I just use the manual trimmer, as it saves the setup time of the drill press. But for larger quanities, the drill press saves time, and eliminates sore fingers. I can even fit my deburring tool in the drill chuck, which saves the fingers even more.

FYI--Forster will sharpen cutters for their trimmers for $10, and this includes return shipping. Turn around time is fast also.

[RedlegEd]

RedlegEd that case trimmer is fast and easy , thanks for showing it.

Hi onelight.
You're most welcome. I did that big pile of brass the other day and averaged one every three seconds or so (about 20/minute.) Overall, including a break or two, it took me a little over an hour to do all of it (1000+ pcs.) I only had two rejects. One had a big nick in the mouth, and the other had a bulge in the shoulder and wouldn't fit into the tool. I also got hung up on a few pieces where the mouth had a burr and I had to deburr before it would fit into the tool, but for the most part, it went quickly and easily. The trim length was very consistent, so I'm really happy with the tool.
Ed

[onelight]

Hi onelight.
You're most welcome. I did that big pile of brass the other day and averaged one every three seconds or so (about 20/minute.) Overall, including a break or two, it took me a little over an hour to do all of it (1000+ pcs.) I only had two rejects. One had a big nick in the mouth, and the other had a bulge in the shoulder and wouldn't fit into the tool. I also got hung up on a few pieces where the mouth had a burr and I had to deburr before it would fit into the tool, but for the most part, it went quickly and easily. The trim length was very consistent, so I'm really happy with the tool.
Ed

I have both the Lyman and a Forester , they are both much slower .
Thanks again.

[doulos]

Here ya go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MRm-SCZvts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ7P3MabWlE

I just saw these the other day 2 different guys using a drill press to trim