Case trimmers

[five.five-six]

I have a Lyman hand crank trimmer and some trimz-it trimmers. The Lyman seems to slip and I keep ruining good cases. The trimz-it indexes off the shoulder which is great for headspace but guess what? My crimp die indexes off the headstamp. trimz-it doesn’t account for web stretching so on a 550 I have to trim between sizing and charging stations. Might as well just use my single stage in that case.

[OLD-skool454#3]

I use the LE Wilson/SINCLAIR trimmer and have been pretty impressed and happy with it.

[ar15barrels]

I have a Lyman hand crank trimmer and some trimz-it trimmers. The Lyman seems to slip and I keep ruining good cases. The trimz-it indexes off the shoulder which is great for headspace but guess what? My crimp die indexes off the headstamp. trimz-it doesn’t account for web stretching so on a 550 I have to trim between sizing and charging stations. Might as well just use my single stage in that case.

Buy a Dillon trimmer and setup a case processing toolhead with an RCBS lube/decap die in station 1 and the Dillon trimmer in station 3.
Make sure to set the lube die so it counteracts the trimmer in station 3 to eliminate the shellplate platform flex that you are getting while sizing.
The platform flexing while sizing is why you get variation in shoulder length which then translates into trim length variation that is messing up your crimps.
The Dillon trimmer references off the case head because it's mounted in a press.
The Dillon trimmer sizes and trims in one station.
You need to decap separately and then neck expand afterward.
The neck expanding gets done by another decapping die that you install in your LOADING toolhead to clear out primer pockets of any media from the tumbling that you do to remove the lube from the case processing toolhead.

[Spyder]

Giraud is the way to go.

[Sailormilan2]

I agree that the Dillon setup is the way to go. But then I use a Hornady LNL. I resize and deprime in position #1, and resize again and trim in position #3. This allows trimming with no extra effort, and works well for all my rifle calibers.

[ar15barrels]

I have both the Dillon and Giraud trimmers so I know the strong and weak points of each.
Giraud is the way to go if shoulder lengths are consistent.
Since the OP specifically said he has a shoulder length inconsistency, then the Dillon is the better way to go since it references the case head instead of the shoulder.
By getting the trim lengths exactly the same, the crimps are more consistent since the crimping operation also references to the case head.

[five.five-six]

Buy a Dillon trimmer and setup a case processing toolhead with an RCBS lube/decap die in station 1 and the Dillon trimmer in station 3.
Make sure to set the lube die so it counteracts the trimmer in station 3 to eliminate the shellplate platform flex that you are getting while sizing.
The platform flexing while sizing is why you get variation in shoulder length which then translates into trim length variation that is messing up your crimps.
The Dillon trimmer references off the case head because it's mounted in a press.
The Dillon trimmer sizes and trims in one station.
You need to decap separately and then neck expand afterward.
The neck expanding gets done by another decapping die that you install in your LOADING toolhead to clear out primer pockets of any media from the tumbling that you do to remove the lube from the case processing toolhead.

I don’t know much about those tools, would I setup one toolhead per necked cartridge I load or just adjust the same tool head back and forth?

[ar15barrels]

I don’t know much about those tools, would I setup one toolhead per necked cartridge I load or just adjust the same tool head back and forth?

You share one toolhead for all your lube/decap/size/trim work.
The Dillon trimmer has a sizing die that is cartridge specific so you buy one trim die per necked cartridge.
The Dillon trimmer sizes and trims at the same time.
The trimmer has a carbide cutter blade and the trim die holds the spinning cutter blade just above to top of the trim die so that the extra case length sticks out the top of the die and then the trimmer cuts it off.
You attach a small vacuum to collect all the trimmings. If you look in the picture below, I added a plastic mayonnaise jar inline with the vacuum to act as a trap for the trimmings so I am only using the vacuum as an air pump. The separate trap is much easier to clean than the vacuum because you just unscrew the jar and dump it.
The RCBS lube/decap die is case head diameter specific so you need one for 223 and a different one for 308/30-06 family and another one for magnums but each die will cover dozens of different cartridges within the same basic case head diameter.

[five.five-six]

You share one toolhead for all your lube/decap/size/trim work.
The Dillon trimmer has a sizing die that is cartridge specific so you buy one trim die per necked cartridge.
The Dillon trimmer sizes and trims at the same time.
The trimmer has a carbide cutter blade and the trim die holds the spinning cutter blade just above to top of the trim die so that the extra case length sticks out the top of the die and then the trimmer cuts it off.
You attach a small vacuum to collect all the trimmings. If you look in the picture below, I added a plastic mayonnaise jar inline with the vacuum to act as a trap for the trimmings so I am only using the vacuum as an air pump. The separate trap is much easier to clean than the vacuum because you just unscrew the jar and dump it.
The RCBS lube/decap die is case head diameter specific so you need one for 223 and a different one for 308/30-06 family and another one for magnums but each die will cover dozens of different cartridges within the same basic case head diameter.

The thing about you Randal is that you are right, it pretty much always turns out that Randal was right. I was looking at the RCBS pro power trimmer but I think the dillon setup will work better. I can load blasting .223 with what I have now, the lee factory crimp die is very tolerant of OAL variations, I'm trying to find a video on how the RCBS lube die works but came up empty. I think I'm just going to just buy one ans see how it works