Danged nickel cases

[dennishoddy]

Started the process of loading around 200 .243 WSSM cases yesterday. All are Winchester premium nickel cases.
Just finished resizing about 400 .223 in brass cases last week. The RCBS trimmer worked fine and had a nice pile of shavings under the cutter.
This is my first time trimming nickel bottle neck cases. I've had and reloaded/shot them several times in the past as they didn't exceed the maximum case length of 1.670. Of the 200 that were polished, about 40 were over max length by a couple thousands of an inch.
Once the electric/pneumatic trimmer was set up, got started and either the cutter got dull doing the .223, or the nickel cases are really tough. No cutting was going on. Had to put pressure on the motor head to "burnish" the case to length with a huge roll around the mouth of the case.
Don't know if they are too tough for a high speed steel cutter or what, so ordered a carbide cutter today.

Anybody experience the same with nickel cases?

 

[swampratt]

I must trim all my 357 magnum cases and I have trimmed 100's of nickle cases and my cutters do not dull any more than brass cases.
Sounds like a dull cutter.

Here is something else on trimming rifle cases.
When I was shooting my .308 to test brass to fail point i found at what length the .308 brass got into the neck and it was .030" past what the trim length was stated as being..so there was a very large safety window.
I do not sweat a few thousandths unless I am shooting for max accuracy and even then I found trim length was the least of my worries case mouth chamfer was more important.

You could even try chamfering the case mouth before trimming to add less stress to the cutter

 

[dennishoddy]

My carbide cutter will be here today so I’ll see how well it works.

 

[magna19]

If I remember right the first time that I ran into the dull cutter on my rcbs trimmer was after I tried to speed up the cutter speed. Bought the carbide and went back hand speed. The franford arsenal trimmer I have now has been great .

 

[DRC458]

Never noticed an issue with the nickel cases. My case trimmer (Forster manual) still has the original cutter from 40+ years ago!

 

[dennishoddy]

Never noticed an issue with the nickel cases. My case trimmer (Forster manual) still has the original cutter from 40+ years ago!

I bought this trimmer used and I’ve done several thousands of brass on it myself. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I put a brass .243 WSSM in the trimmer this morning and cut it to length nicely with little burr. Find out more in about an hour when the new cutter gets here.

 

[RedHawk357Mag]

Had a similar situation with nickled brass in 357. I gathered all mine bundled it up and sold to a guy who wanted them. I posted this question elsewhere a couple years ago. Most old hats said my trials and tribulations would go away buy lubbing the cartridge mouth and cutter. I had done culled the offending brass so never tried it out. Being I wet tumble anyways the cutting oil wouldn't cause me much heartache. Sent two cutters back for sharping and used a TiN cutter up to where it wore brass down instead of cutting. TiN cutters aren't able to be resharpened. Think I paid 15 dollars to have cutters sharpened. The old hats said most folks sharpened their own tools. Ordered some diamond sharpeners but haven't needed to touch anything up.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

 

[DRC458]

I bought this trimmer used and I’ve done several thousands of brass on it myself. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I put a brass .243 WSSM in the trimmer this morning and cut it to length nicely with little burr. Find out more in about an hour when the new cutter gets here.

Be interested to hear how this comes out. It might be worth it to order a new cutter shaft for my trimmer just for grins to see how they compare. I haven't noticed any diminished cutting ability even after all these years. Or, maybe it's changed so gradually that I just couldn't discern the difference!

 

[dennishoddy]

Be interested to hear how this comes out. It might be worth it to order a new cutter shaft for my trimmer just for grins to see how they compare. I haven't noticed any diminished cutting ability even after all these years. Or, maybe it's changed so gradually that I just couldn't discern the difference!

Got it, and the Queen decided to go out for the evening, so like a good husband, I agreed.
It's here. Report tomorrow.

 

[dennishoddy]

Well, the new carbide cutter worked like a champ. Trimmed 200 nickel cases today with very little burr left on the case mouth. Nice pile of shavings under the cutter.
Pretty obvious the old high speed steel cutter was dull. Clean, prime, charge and load them tomorrow with Nosler .55 grain BT ballistic tips.
Then start on 200 brass cases afterward to try some new to me 6mm Barnes 80 grain TTSX boat tail bullets.