I've been processing a lot of new and once-fired brass lately and I thought I'd pass along a tip that has saved me lots of time and lots of pain (and helped me do a better job). Several of the things we do to brass involve grabbing the case with our fingers and squeezing it while one tool or another is twisting and cutting on it. When you're talking hundreds or thousands of cases, this can get to be a real pain (literally) even if you don't have old hands that can get a little arthritic.
I'm using a Gracey trimmer (a poor man's Giraud) and it is just one more tool that requires me to grab and squeeze each case. If you turn necks, you can add that to the same category as primer pocket uniforming, flash hole deburring, chamfering and deburring after trimming - all steps that require squeezing and grabbing.
Sinclair sells a tool they call a <span style="color: #FF0000">Neck Turning Handle</span> for $20. This is the best $20 you can spend if you have a lot of brass to process. They sell a larger size for .338 Lapua and up.
The picture above is my set-up for doing several steps on each case. That's the Gracey front and center, an RBCS case prep center with flash hole uniformer and deburring tools, and a Sinclair pocket uniformer on the drill. Each case goes through all the tools before I reach for the next case.
I just stick a case into the Sinclair handle and twist the knurled knob. It holds the case tight without leaving any marks. It gives me leverage against twisting and it saves having to cram the other end of the case into my palm on the tools that require a lot of pushing. Mainly it saves me from the need to squeeze each case as hard as I can (it's even worse with .223 brass). The only negative is that the serrated knob can make a sore spot on your thumb when you're doing hundreds of cases, so I usually wear a cotton glove on one hand to avoid a blister.
This tool really helps in uniforming primer pockets. With the extra leverage, I can feel when the case head is not perfectly flat against the tool. And it mainly just lets me apply more force against the cutters to get a more uniform result each time. When I first tried using this tool for this purpose, I had already run almost 500 cases through the tool using the 'squeeze and push' method. I thought I had done a good job on all of them. After putting these same cases into the tool, I got more material out of each and every one. The flat, shiny look at the bottom of each pocket was something I'd never been able to get before, at least not consistently.
I'm using a Gracey trimmer (a poor man's Giraud) and it is just one more tool that requires me to grab and squeeze each case. If you turn necks, you can add that to the same category as primer pocket uniforming, flash hole deburring, chamfering and deburring after trimming - all steps that require squeezing and grabbing.
Sinclair sells a tool they call a <span style="color: #FF0000">Neck Turning Handle</span> for $20. This is the best $20 you can spend if you have a lot of brass to process. They sell a larger size for .338 Lapua and up.
The picture above is my set-up for doing several steps on each case. That's the Gracey front and center, an RBCS case prep center with flash hole uniformer and deburring tools, and a Sinclair pocket uniformer on the drill. Each case goes through all the tools before I reach for the next case.
I just stick a case into the Sinclair handle and twist the knurled knob. It holds the case tight without leaving any marks. It gives me leverage against twisting and it saves having to cram the other end of the case into my palm on the tools that require a lot of pushing. Mainly it saves me from the need to squeeze each case as hard as I can (it's even worse with .223 brass). The only negative is that the serrated knob can make a sore spot on your thumb when you're doing hundreds of cases, so I usually wear a cotton glove on one hand to avoid a blister.
This tool really helps in uniforming primer pockets. With the extra leverage, I can feel when the case head is not perfectly flat against the tool. And it mainly just lets me apply more force against the cutters to get a more uniform result each time. When I first tried using this tool for this purpose, I had already run almost 500 cases through the tool using the 'squeeze and push' method. I thought I had done a good job on all of them. After putting these same cases into the tool, I got more material out of each and every one. The flat, shiny look at the bottom of each pocket was something I'd never been able to get before, at least not consistently.
