Giruad or Dillon trimmer?

[jrainw]

I have alot of .223 brass that needs trimmed, I also am tired of making my own 300 whisper brass with my hand crank trimmer. I have a case feeder on my Hornady lock-n-load progressive so I'm leaning to the Dillon. I keep hearing the Giraud is the only way to go.

Anyone have any input?

 

[hornadylnl]

I have no personal experience with a Dillon trimmer but I have a Giraud. The Giraud trims, chamfers and deburs all at once. I'm not sure that running a dillon will save you all that much time unless you are running it the same time you are sizing. I've asked and never gotten a really straight answer as to how smooth of a cut that the dillon trimmer makes. I've been told that the Dillon trimmer spins so fast that it pretty much takes the burs off of it. I'd take some pics of the brass I've trimmed with the Giraud but I don't think my camera will really show it. You can move the cutter to adjust the amount of inside vs outside chamfer on the Giraud.

With the Dillon, you trim by case length. With the Giraud, the trimmer indexes off of the case shoulder so your case length will vary just a hair. I would think that if you were running a specific brand of brass shot from the same gun, I don't think there would be much variance at all though.

I like my Giraud. It takes 3-4 seconds by the time you reach for a case, trim it, drop it and reach for another. You can use the same cutter for any caliber but you can get spares so you only have to adjust the cutter blade for initial adustments. There are 3 cutting edges on the blade so you can rotate it 3 times before you have to replace it. A 2nd case holder is only $30 and a second cutter head and blade is $45 so if you want a quick change set up, $75 per caliber. It looks like Dillon's trim dies are about $50 each.

If you still plan to chamfer and debur after you trim with the Dillon, I'd say go with the Giraud simply because it will save you 2 extra steps. I don't know from experience, but I'v heard that the Dillon is very loud plus the sound of a shop vac if you want to suck the shavings off. The Giraud is relatively quite. The sound of the cutting is louder than the motor. Even with a shop vac, I think the Dillon would still leave a mess on your press.

Send me a pm with your location. If you are near me, maybe we can meet up and I can show you the Giraud first hand. The guys on Arfcom say this about the Giraud. Buy once, cry once.