Modified a cheap case trimmer!

TaterTot

TaterTot

New member
I've been trimming my 20P brass on my Lyman universal trimmer. It works well, but with 1000 cases sitting waiting to trim, I decided that I needed a faster method. I know I could have bought the power adapter for the trimmer, but I'm a cheap skate! So I went to Sportsmans and picked up the Lee case length trimmer for less than $7.



I grabbed my drill and a little triangle file and chucked up the little spindle into my drill. I filed on the spindle for 3-4 minutes while periodically checking them with my calipers until they were at .200. This seems to slide in and out of my cases without having to force it in. That means no messing with my neck tension!



I may spend a little more time with some fine wet/dry sandpaper to polish a bit more, but this thing works way faster than the hand crank on the Lyman trimmer and cost almost nothing.
 
That's pretty slick. I did the same thing to the Universal Decapping die. Turned the rod down to 17 with a drill and a file.

Greg
 
Thanks for the tip TaterTot!

I just trimmed 600 20P cases in the last week on my RCBS trimmer. I finally took the handle off, cut the head off a two inch bolt, threaded it in and locked it down with a nut. Chucked it up on my cordless drill and it worked perfect!

Your way looks simpler, I'll have to keep my eyes open for one.
 
I know there's faster methods out there, but for a cheap solution, it worked well. I could have used a drill with my Lyman trimmer, just the same as I used to do with my Forster trimmer. The only thing there is that I'd still have to remove each one and then chamfer and deburr separately. Using the Lee trimmer, I could trim and then grab my VLD chamfer tool and deburring tool while the case was still spinning in the drill. I wish there was a 3 way cutter head for the Lyman trimmer.

After my rifle is finally finished, I plan to start getting some tools to make case prep a little faster. I want a case prep station, may try out stainless tumbling, and will likely build myself an annealing machine.
 
I had a Lee trimmer cutter end, drill and tapped to fit in my RCBS case prep center. Allows me to fully prep a case without resetting the holder end. What I really like is that all my cases are exactly the same length whether this month, next months or 5 years from now, without spending any time with calipers making sure their the the same length.
 
That video reminded me.......

One small idea about the Case Prep Center is that if you take a piece of duct tape and wrap it around the front of the unit, it will form a fence that keeps the powder and brass shaving trash on top of the Prep Center instead of letting it spread out over the top of your reloading table.
 
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