Giraud Case Trimmer

[Johnw...ski]

My new Giraud power case trimmer came in yesterday and I got to try it today. All I can say is WOW.

I have been using a Lyman trimmer to trim cases since I bought it around 1978, it does the job but is a lot of work. I usually chamfer the inside of the neck on my drill press before trimming the case, then trim to length, outside chamfer on the drill press and lightly hand chamfer the inside. I find that a fairly heavy chamfer first reduces the effort of trimming and also eliminates the burr that sometimes forms under the pilot making it hard to remove the cutter from the neck. I still plan to use the Lyman case trimmer for short runs of trimming. The reason for the upgrade is that with the amount of .223 cartridges I have been shooting in NRA High Power Competition trimming cases was getting to be a real bore.

So back to the Giraud case trimmer, first of all it is almost obscenely expensive at around $450 delivered, but extremely well made and a joy to use. I am amazed at how quite it is even when trimming a case to length. The manufacturer advertises being able to trim cases to within .001 of each other and I can say that of the 10 cases I trimmed they were all the same length as measures by a vernier, any variation would have to be within a few ten thousandths of an inch. This is a tool I will enjoy using.

John

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk166/JohnWski/Giraudcasetrimmer.jpg

Here's a picture from the manufacturer.

[sdelam]

I really want one of these, I have about 4k (and counting) .223 cases to do and I just haven't been able to muster the will to do them on my RCBS trimmer, even with a drill attatched. But man $450, I could buy another gun for that.

[Johnw...ski]

I really want one of these, I have about 4k (and counting) .223 cases to do and I just haven't been able to muster the will to do them on my RCBS trimmer, even with a drill attatched. But man $450, I could buy another gun for that.

Yah, but $450 won't get you much of a gun, new anyway, it will get you one hell of a case trimmer.

4 thousand cases, you are still looking at a days work, even with the Giraud case trimmer.

John

[e15cap]

The Dillon trimmer is the bomb

[sdelam]

I can do about 200 at a time with the RCBS and the drill but it will take me a few hours. Thats about all I can stand doing at a time. It is the absolute worst part of loading .223. I used to be really good at staying on top of them but I switched ranges and now I seem to pick up 2-300 everytime I go.

When I loaded on a single stage I didnt mind only doing 100 or so at a time because that was all I really wanted to load at once anyway.

But with the progressive, only loading 200 isnt worth the time to change the set up.

When I bought the LNL, I thought man this is great, I was don there hours at a time. But now I have more 9mm, 45acp, 38spl, 22-250, 7.62x39 and 223 than I can shoot, so it dosn't get much use anymore. I guess I loaded myself out of reloading:shock:

All I have left is case prep and I hate it. maybe I need to stop picking it up so I wont have to prep it....Nahh

ohh and $450 will buy me another used Glock or new RIA 1911:bigsmyl2:

[Cherokee]

I love my Giraud: 223, 7.62x39, 7.62x51, 30/06.
Still have my old Lyman lathe for 30 Carbine since Giraud will not do straight walled cases, but I'm working on an idea for that too.

[anachronism]

I have a Gracey, which is only slightly slower than the Giraud. I've done about 5000 223 cases on it so far, and maybe a thousand 308 & 30-06.

[Johnw...ski]

I have a Gracey, which is only slightly slower than the Giraud. I've done about 5000 223 cases on it so far, and maybe a thousand 308 & 30-06.

I considered the Gracey, and strongly considered buying a Gracey without the motor and then buying a 1/8 hp 3000 RPM motor from e-bay and a carbide cutter from B Jones. There is a good write up on doing the upgrade on the B Jones website.

http://www.bjonessights.com/CARBIDE.html

The cost of doing the upgrade to a Gracey without a motor is about the same as a complete Gracey case trimmer.

In the end, being a former toolmaker I couldn't resist the workmanship of the Giraud.

John

[garandsrus]

I have the Gracey, bought without motor, upgraded the motor and bought the Giraud cutting blade. It works great. The price difference between what I bought and a Gracey was a couple hundred bucks at the time. Last time I checked there wasn't much difference.

Even with the trimmer, I am considering getting a .223 X-die so that trimming just goes away. The trimmer will still help a lot when doing the first and only trimming.

John

[Johnw...ski]

I trimmed a batch of .223 brass today on my Giraud case trimmer. First time I have really used it other than the few cases I did on it last week. This was a batch of 200 cases that at maximum length or over. The trimmer is set up to trim to 1.752. While I was trimming I timed myself three times for 1 minute each time and was able to do 19 to 21 cases per minute. It took me about 10 minutes to do the 200 cases, not bad for trimming and chamfering both inside and out.

I am not saying I am looking forward to a session of trimming 1000 or more cases at one time, but its way better than what I was doing before.

John