Spinning Gold into Straw...

[Murphy]

Rumplestilskin would sure be proud.

Have I mentioned how much I like the Forster case trimmer. I hooked a small battery powered driver to mine and after forming the 375 Ruger basic cylindrical brass into 358 Nukalpiaq, I trim off about .130" of the case to get to my needed 2.570" trim length. This cutter has really had a work out with this project. Trimming, outside and inside deburring goes pretty quick and saves on the elbow grease with the driver.

A couple shots of work in progress.

[Murphy]

No..it was Straw into Gold...

There goes my first born.

The Basic brass has no taper and is extra long. This is a good thing. One of the failings of forming is case mouth splits. These splits are short and are easily trimmed away with the 1/8" or so trimmed away. The dent in the shoulde is from excessive lube when running into the form die. Those dents are harmless and easily hammered out with the first firing. Neck and shoulder wrinkles will cause the case to split.

The case mouth deburring and chamferring tool is the long taper type but use used just to deburr. We want a good case mouth for this brass.

The die set is a neck sizing die, a body die and the seater die. Case forming is done by first necking the cylindrical brass down to .423 in a sloping shoulder 404 Jeffery sizer die. You cannot form initially to a 30 degree shoulder. Then the next step is the body die which shapes the body taper, the 30 degree shoulder and the neck to .360" This leaves a ridge inside and out at the very mouth of the brass. The pilot on the trimmer fits tight at first but quickly cuts the ridge away and trims to length. I also have a neck reaming pilot and after this ridge is trimmed off I can if need be, with the body die sized neck, use the neck reamer pilot to thin the brass if needed to insure all neck dimensions are correct. This was needed when forming from factory 375 Ruger headstamped brass.

The trimmed and deburred brass is then run into the neck sizing die to establish the correct neck diameter for loading. The Body die is also used to establish the correct shoulder position (shoulder bump) based on the correct headspace from the reamer drawing, from which the chamber reamer, headspace gage and dies were made. Everything fits like a Swiss watch. I love it when a plan comes together.

[Smitty of the North]

Murphy:
My case trimmer is a Forster.

That looks like one of those Milwaukee cordless screwdrivers. I have one of those too.

I don't know how you adabted the driver to the Trimmer. I assume you hadda apply pressure with it too, because I have to push in on the crank when I trim cases. How did you do it? Did you make a special attachment?

Thanks
Smitty of the North

[Murphy]

Well, Redding and Forster sell the hex adapter to replace the handle, then bend the driver and push a little. This works very well with very little pressure.

The hex adapters come with the new Redding large and small primer pocket uniformer tools and I got extras for use with the Lyman deburring/chamfering tool and the Forster power driver attachment has the standard 1/4" hex shaft that fits the same little drill. I can order one of the Forster driver attachments for you if you'd like. It does a very good job when a lot of trimming is to be done.

[ADfields]

I have an old 4.5V cordless drill I use with my RCBS trimmer. I just removed the crank handle and chuck the shaft in the little drill. Case trimming is the only thing that little drill is good for, fast as fast can be.
Andy

Murphy:
My case trimmer is a Forster.

That looks like one of those Milwaukee cordless screwdrivers. I have one of those too.

I don't know how you adabted the driver to the Trimmer. I assume you hadda apply pressure with it too, because I have to push in on the crank when I trim cases. How did you do it? Did you make a special attachment?

Thanks
Smitty of the North

[Smitty of the North]

Thanks Murphy:
I'll check into that.

You too AD.

Smitty of the North

[Smitty of the North]

Murphy:
Thanks for the tip on the Forster Case Trimmer Power Adapter. I didn’t know it existed. I have one NOW, and it makes case trimming much easier and faster. Also, more certain. Thanks very much.

I’ll pass a tip along to you, in return, just in case you don’t know, and/or it could be of some value to you, or someone else.

I use one of the Sinclair Driver and Caseholder tools to spin cases, so I can clean the necks with steel wool. The TIP, is that I use one of the little Milwaukee Drills like in your picture. The on/off/reverse switch, combined with the rather slow speed, makes it easy to tighten or loosen the cases in the driver, making it practical to do it that way.

Smitty of the North

[Smitty of the North]

I have an old 4.5V cordless drill I use with my RCBS trimmer. I just removed the crank handle and chuck the shaft in the little drill. Case trimming is the only thing that little drill is good for, fast as fast can be.
Andy

Yeah, Thanks AD.
Smitty of the North