Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 12

Thread: Poor Man's Giraud

  1. #1

    Poor Man's Giraud

    I'm not sure what happened but I don't have any ammo loaded for my old M1 Carbine. Seeking to rectify this I bought a big ziploc bag of brass off gunbroker.

    The brass was polished but otherwise unprocessed and all mixed head stamp. Much of it is Lake City from the early 1950s but there is also FA and WCC headstamps. Earliest is 1943. Latest is 1973. Thirty years of history all in one bag!

    Being a mixed batch of brass, case lengths are all over the place. Most I checked were 1.285-1.286" range. Some a little shorter and some at or even slightly over 1.290" which is SAAMI max.

    Being that I don't plan on loading a ton of this stuff I don't want to invest a bunch of money. Being familiar with and generally happy with some other Lee stuff I decided to buy the Lee Quick Trim die for 30 Carbine as well as the power adapter that let's me chuck the Lee cutter into a drill motor.

    Rather than use a bench press I'm using my old Lee Hand Press. It took a little fiddling to get the trim length set but it seems to actually be working pretty well. There's no real way to tell when a case is fully trimmed so I just count to five with each case. All the cases that were in the 1.286" range are trimmed to 1.280" while anything that's pushing 1.29 might take another second or two to be fully cut. I've found I can trim cases too short but pushing down on the drill so I'm just sort of letting it work under its own weight.

    The process actually goes pretty quick. I have sized and deprimed brass in a plastic bag. Once trimmed they get put into an empty butter tub. So far I've trimmed 300 cases and have only 700 to go.... Ugh!

    So how does it work? The Lee cutter is a flat bit with four cutting edges. Pinned into the bit is a couple little pieces of sheet metal with springs inside. The flat cutting edges do the actual trimming while the flat bits of sheet metal deburr and chamfer the case mouth. The Lee trim die is specific to whichever case is being trimmed. It is of a specific length. The cutter is the same across the various cases and final trim length is adjusted by a threaded collar on the trim die.

    Is it perfect? No. The deburring is a little rough and sort of has a wire edge afterward. I don't see how this will hurt anything and will likely be gone as soon as the case is actually loaded. Also, as mentioned, I can cause variation in OAL by pushing too hard or not letting the cutter run long enough.

    Of course the quickest way to go would be a short trim tool head and trim die for the Dillon trimmer. But the only place I can find making Dillon 30 Carbine trim dies is CH4D and he's out of stock. He says he probably won't run another batch of Carbine trim dies for 18 months....









    Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

  2. #2
    I love threads like these, thanks for posting.
    #RESIST

  3. #3
    Not that I'm not using the little plastic chip guard. It really doesn't do much.

    Most of the chips either fall inside the trimming die, inside the case or down through the flash hole into the press ram.

    I have a little garbage can set next to the bag of untrimmed brass. After each trimming I pull the drill out and tip the press/case/trim die into the trash can. Then about once every hundred rounds I take the shell holder out and dump the chips out of the ram and poke a rag down into the die to clean most of the chips out.

    Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

  4. #4
    456 cases trimmed, primed and ready to load. Why 456? Because the battery is dead on my drill.

    I also noticed a couple pieces of Korean brass dated from 1982. So 40 years of Carbine history.

    There are some USGI surplus guns now on the market that came back in from Ethiopia. I wonder if there will be any ammo coming back as well. Or did the Ethiopians shoot it all up before selling the guns on the surplus market?

    Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

  5. #5
    I think I've figured out the cause of the variance in overall length.

    The actual cutter is a flat blade and cuts cases off flat with no chamfer. The deburr and chamfer blades are seperate spring-loaded stamped blades that are sized to fit case mouthes of various sizes. The internal spring is quite strong and must be overcome to push the case all the way up against the cutter.

    I think the internal spring was giving me sort of a false positive so I drove the retaining pin out and took the chamfer and deburr blades out. Now the cases are cut quickly and cleanly. The handful I cut without the blades in place come out right at 1.282" with no variance.

    Of course now they aren't deburred. Does that matter? These are essentially pistol cases and will be flared before bullet seating and taper crimped thereafter.

    Tomorrow I'll trim up another fifty pieces without the deburr blades and see how consistent the trim is.



    Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

  6. #6
    So taking the chamfer and deburr blades out didn't seem to hurt anything. The drawback is the cases are whacked off flat. If I want to chamfer I'll now have to do that as another step.

    On the plus side this did seem to get rid of (most of) the variance in overall length. Cases are now cut at 1.281-.282 pretty consistently. Sometimes they are slightly shorter on one side vs another. I believe this is due to the inherent fit of the cutter blade into the die body. There's some slop there just by the nature of the design.

    My verdict on the Lee trimmer? It works okay. It is quick and works fine for something like 30 Carbine or probably any other range brass we'd want to trim for safety's sake. It is typical Lee in that it is inexpensive yet gets the job done.

    What I think Lee could do, as a value option, is sell a similar cutter and die affair but use the case length pin that bottoms out inside the case. This would not allow the minor length adjustment like the Quick Trim but it would be very simple and would work fine for cutting cases off at SAAMI minimum.

    ETA: since I'm no longer chamfering and deburring as part of the trim operation we need to change the title of the thread to "poor man's Dillon."

    Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk
    Last edited by Tokarev; 05-15-2020 at 08:17 AM.

  7. #7
    I have looked at these things and they always made me wonder about them. Now I wonder if something could be done to fix it up in a APP?

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by mmc45414 View Post
    I have looked at these things and they always made me wonder about them. Now I wonder if something could be done to fix it up in a APP?
    I think it would work with the cutter in the top with a small cordless screwdriver. That should clear the press handle. The operation wouldn't be too bad if the case feeder apparatus worked. Pull handle down. Activate screwdriver. Lift handle up. Pull handle down. Active screwdriver....

    I emailed Lee about using the powered trim adapter but they recommend against it. They say brass shavings will likely impede the smooth operation of the pass through shell holder. Maybe a can of compressed air could be kept on the bench to keep the shell holder clear?




    Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

  9. #9
    The R in F.A.R.T RevolverRob's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    Gotham Adjacent
    Quote Originally Posted by Tokarev View Post
    I think it would work with the cutter in the top with a small cordless screwdriver. That should clear the press handle. The operation wouldn't be too bad if the case feeder apparatus worked. Pull handle down. Activate screwdriver. Lift handle up. Pull handle down. Active screwdriver....
    I was literally thinking that exact approach last night might work. Not sure how compact a screwdriver one could get in there though.

    Still, I might try it for trimming .300BLK.

    Now...can I rig something up to hold a cordless screwdriver or a low RPM motor that turns the the pass-through shell holder and then run a pencil propane torch over and turn my APP into an annealing machine?

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by RevolverRob View Post
    run a pencil propane torch over and turn my APP into an annealing machine?
    Hmmmmmm...


    Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

User Tag List

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •