Trimming Carbine Brass

[shootnstarz]

I once made the mistake of measuring the OAL of fired carbine brass and came up with a bunch of different measurements. Since carbine rounds seat on the case mouth I would think that brass OAL is pretty critical but not many reloaders bother with trimming it all to the same length.

Though it's not all that powerful a round I would be concerned about the rifle firing out of battery should the length be excessive and not allow the bolt to fully close and lock. Of course my concerns were put to rest by some guy on the AR forum that is betting his life that a M-1 Carbine will not EVER fire out of battery, NOT.

So I will continue to trim all my carbine brass to the proper OAL before loading, but I've always been anal about my reloading procedures and so far it has paid off with my face still intact (and pretty), all my fingers and have yet to have a misfire or FTF on any of my reloads (knock on wood, rock maple to be specific).

So what's everybody else's opinion on this "lengthy" extra step to case preparation?

Rick

 

[Hunkyfish]

I measure, trim & chamfer ALL of my .308 brass
I consider this step essential to consistency

Mine fired out of battery with some reload tracer that I bought,,,,, scared the Hell Outta me,,,
but my SS Cetme was unharmed other than the alum mag that was trashed

 

[JohnAL]

I don't load for the carbine but I follow accepted reloading procedures pretty closely. I measure a sampling of a batch of brass in whatever caliber I am about to load and if I come up with even one that exceeds max. case length then the entire batch gets trimmed. If I were doing any kind of serious shooting I would probably be more anal but I'm happy with the results I get for hunting and plinking.

 

[daveb6332]

The Lee Zip Trim and Lee case length gauge makes pretty quick work of case trimming. Although I've never seen one that bad I suppose that excessive headspace could cause a bulged case due to failure to fully battery.

Another thing to consider even with rimmed cartridges is that with varying case length you are going to get inconsistent crimps. A case that's too long will be over crimped and may cause failure to chamber because of a bulge around the case mouth.

 

[JohnAL]

Very true but the only caliber I load that I crimp is .44 mag and I do keep them consistent.

 

[Khaot1c]

What caliber carbine was the OP referring to?
I just picked up the CX4 Storm in .40S&W. In an effort to make my reloads a little more accurate, I got the lee case trimmer for 40S&W and set out to do a batch of cases. 200 in fact. Of those 200, there were approximately 20 that were even long enough for the LCT to cut. The rest, were measured all over the place.
Until that little experiment, I never measured/cut semi-auto pistol brass. Then again, I don't reload/shoot "a lot" either. Maybe 200-300 rounds a month. But, rifle reloading showed me just how often brass needs to be cut. I started with .223REM and am just now cutting my teeth on 22-250 and .308 (bad pun) So I'm starting to do it with pistol brass too. Heck, I've even considered getting a single stage press JUST to put a decap-resize die into.

 

[TennJeep1618]

What caliber carbine was the OP referring to?

I believe he's talking about .30 Carbine.

 

[JohnAL]

For us old guys, the .30 M1 Carbine is the only carbine. All the rest just stole the name.