Little Crow Gunworks WFT Trimmer Review

[ADMIN]

Perusing the Internet, I stumbled upon Dale Hegstrom and his Little Crow Gunworks WFT Trimmer. The WFT trimmer is similar in design to the Giraud except you power it with your cordless drill, or in my case, chucked in a 3 jaw chuck in one of my lathes that isn't being used. The WFT trimmer uses an ordinary center cutting end mill as the cutter and calibers are interchangeable by simply changing out the caliber specific insert that fits into the sealed bearing on the front of the trimmer body and is held in place with an 'o' ring. This is unlike the Giraud, where you have to change the entire head. The sealed bearing has basically no runout and the inserts are chamber reamed for a specific caliber. It's just like chambering a round in your rifle but without a bullet. You insert the brass (after resizing and cleaning of course), bring it to bear against the end mill and your cartridge is trimmed to length and the case mouth is square. Takes about 3 seconds. Read More...
This is a thread for discussion of the article, Little Crow Gunworks WFT Trimmer Review, By Daryl Davis. Here you can ask questions or make comments about the article.

 

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I realize this trimmer is a pretty radical departure from the normal 'lathe' type trimmer in as much as a machine tool (in my case one of the engine lathe's) provides the motive power instead of your arm or in the case of a power adapter, your power screwdriver, however..

Repeatability across a group of cases is much better, typically 0.003 and the case mouth comes out square in relationship to the body because the case actually locates in a chamber specific machined insert.

Additionally, it takes up much less room on your bench (goes in it's little shipping box in a drawer) and cutters are dirt cheap (typically a 2 or 4 flute centercutting mill (import) is about 4 bucks from Enco.

Dale recommends a cordless drill (in your left hand if you are right handed or right if you are a lefty) and that works fine too.

What most impresses me about this trimmer is it's fast (trimming can be drudgery with a lathe type trimmer, I know very well) and there is no side force applied to the case which is typical on a lathe type trimmer, no matter what brand it is.

When Len posted this review, I didn't know who 'Daryl' was either. Guess thats me. No brother named Daryl either, at least I don't think there is.........