If I have a couple pieces of brass that are .001 or .002 shorter than recommended trim length what should I do with them? Trash them or shoot them with a light load and see if they lengthen back out to what they are supposed to be? Don’t ask me how they got shorter than they are supposed to be, I must’ve had a brain lapse or something when trimming.
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Brass trim length question
- Thread starter ReloadKy
- Start date
Rangerrich99
New member
1 or 2 one-thousandths of an inch isn't significant (depending on whether it's pistol or rifle you can start worrying when you're talking about a several hundredths of an inch). Load 'em up.
I would load them and shoot them. Here is the logic to why I say that. The Trim-To Length is not a hard fast number. Let's look at the popular .223 Remington as an example. Max Case Length is 1.760" and the suggested trim to length is 1.750" and the actual minimum case length is actually 1.730" or 0.030" under the maximum. The cartridge and chamber can be found on page 70 of American National Standard
Voluntary Industry Performance Standards for Pressure and Velocity of Centerfire Rifle Ammunition for the Use of Commercial Manufacturers. So any case length between 1.730" and 1.760" is within .223 Remington cartridge specifications and should function fine in any properly chambered rifle. The .308 Winchester is another example with a suggested trim to length of 2.005" and a maximum length of 2.015" so again we see a trim to length which is 0.010" under maximum and the .308 Winchester minimum cartridge length is 1.995". The .308 Winchester can be found on page 112 of the above linked document. We could look at more examples but these two should suffice.
The "Trim-To" is merely a suggested length.
Ron
Voluntary Industry Performance Standards for Pressure and Velocity of Centerfire Rifle Ammunition for the Use of Commercial Manufacturers. So any case length between 1.730" and 1.760" is within .223 Remington cartridge specifications and should function fine in any properly chambered rifle. The .308 Winchester is another example with a suggested trim to length of 2.005" and a maximum length of 2.015" so again we see a trim to length which is 0.010" under maximum and the .308 Winchester minimum cartridge length is 1.995". The .308 Winchester can be found on page 112 of the above linked document. We could look at more examples but these two should suffice.
The "Trim-To" is merely a suggested length.
Ron
I once cut some .308 brass to 1.9355 which is .0595 under minimum and after being told by several reloaders to shoot them, I did with no problems. The neck holds the bullets tight enough with no crimp when fired from my bolt action rifle. I'm not sure how well if would work in a semi-auto and don't plan to find out.
Last edited:
m&p45acp10+1
New member
I trim all of .223 Rem short. That way I do not have to trim it again. If it gets too long it goes to the crusher, then to the recycle can. If it is a straight wall case that requires a crimp you can still load it. You will have to adjust your die to crimp the shorter round. Then set back to where it was so you do not crush your other cases.