No More Case Trimming?


RCBS X-Dies Thomas C. Tabor


I began the X-Dies testing project by selecting and marking four once-fi red Federal .22-250 cartridge cases. Two were labeled for use with the X-Dies and the other two were labeled for the standard RCBS dies.


prefer to avoid. I am quite sure that I am not alone when I say that I take great pleasure in participating in any type of


T


here always are things in life that we as humans would


shooting or hunting activities, but when it comes time to wash and clean out the hunting rig or stow all the shooting gear away I would clearly prefer to do some- thing different. And, another facet of


shooting that falls into that same general love/hate relationship for me is a major part of my handloading activities. After nearly four decades of stuffi ng almost every possible type of cartridge, I still get a great deal of enjoyment out of the process. I thoroughly “love” developing my own loads and then watching while one of those handcrafted rounds smacks a prairie dog or ground squirrel so far away that it barely can be seen with the naked eye. But of all the activities that go into handloading there is one particular aspect that is about as pleasant to me as having my teeth cleaned by the dentist. When it comes to trimming my cartridge cases – that is when the “hate” portion enters into this “love/hate” relation- ship. It doesn't really matter much to me whether I'm using an electric trimmer, or manually working through the pro- cess with a hand-operated unit. Given the choice, I would rather sit in a hard seated stool and be forced to watch some moronic rerun of “The Bachelor” on television than to have to face the task of trimming a huge pile of fi red cases. So, when I got wind that RCBS was producing a new series of full length resizing dies that eliminates, or at least reduces, the frequency needed for trim- ming, I jumped at the chance to test and evaluate a set. I have to acknowledge that I was a


bit skeptical over the new dies that RCBS calls their X-Dies. At the onset I simply couldn’t fi gure out how a full-length re- sizing die could stop, or slow, the frontal expansion of a metallic cartridge case. But, if there was any possible chance that I could lessen, or eliminate, this labor-intensive pain in my posterior, I was going to look a little deeper into the matter. Before long my eagerly awaiting sweaty palms were holding a set of the new X-Dies. One of the rifl es that I shoot a great


For the testing, Tom’s Remington Model 700 VL SS TH rifl e chambered for .22-250 was used.


Page 108 October — December 2011


deal, particularly for the larger and longer-range varmints, is my .22-250 Remington Model 700™ VL SS™ TH. So, it was natural that this particular


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