Frankford Arsenal Case Prep Station.

Muir

Well-Known Member
I bought one of these today to lessen the tedium of prepping 308 cases. I shoot 308 a lot and find that it is the trimming/case prep that slows my reloading to a crawl. I set this up when i got home from the store and set it up to cut at cases 3.010" which seems to be the most common trim length I run into. It is pretty fast and very accurate so far a test of 20 cases proves.~Muir
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I brought one back (along with the rotary wet tumbler) on our trip over in Nov/Dec, pretty impressive and so far consistently accurate :)

I also bought a replacement cutter as a few reviews said the original one wore out pretty quickly, the spare cutter is an RCBS Carbide version so it should last quite a while :)

Hopefully by the time we come back over they'll have released a 230v version and I can do without using a step-down transformer.
 
Yesterday I had to install a new hot water heater tank in my house. My old one was at the stage where It could suddenly let go and flood the basement with water; a thought that has nagged me for the last few months. The heater was expensive but it's one of those things that gives you peace of mind once there even if you begrudge the cash outlay. This Case Prep Station gives me the same feeling. I will only use it for 308. I have a couple of thousand+ once fired Lake City Arsenal 308 cases and these usually require a lot of trimming after the initial SB/FL resizing. It is not hard to do with my Forster, just time consuming. I dreaded beginning the case prep regimen on each new lot of brass because I knew it would occupy a couple of my evenings when i could be reloading other things. I think this gadget will be a real time saver. I have set it and now I will forget it until it's time to prep the next batch of LC cases. My Forster will handle everything in between.

That's interesting about the cutter. Mine unit was a total impulse buy so I have read no reviews on it. Have you needed to replace the original cutter yet? The manual says that ragged cuts are usually from forcing the case onto the cutter with too much pressure. In my extremely limited experience, I have found that lightly pushing and simultaneously rotating the case clockwise produces the fastest, cleanest cut. I am glad to hear that you are enjoying yours. The sales clerk at the store (whom I trust) said she'd never seen one returned. Frankford Arsenal has come quite a long way over the last decade, product and engineering wise. Have you seen the hand decapping unit? I love that thing....~Muir
 
I'll have a look for the de-capping unit, I love toys that work nicely (RCBS Universal hand primer being a good example) :)

I've ran about 200 6.5 Creedmoor and 400 .308 through it so far and the only problem I had was with cramping of my hand (around the thumb) but I get that a lot quicker using anything else to trim to length repetitively. Still using the original cutter and the cuts are nice and clean, about the same as using my CTS trimmer. I also finish with a slight clockwise twist, great minds think alike :D lol

One thing I do find that helps holding the cases is a pair of "slightly sticky" gloves, these are cotton on the top side and have Dyneema/Polymide on the palm side, they were a gift from a friend and are made by Honeywell, http://www.honeywellsafety.com/Products/Gloves/PERFECT_CUTTING®.aspx?site=/uk
 
what's the bottom fitting? trimmer indexing off the shoulder?

looks useful, have never understood why these are so expensive though
 
Yes, it indexes off the shoulder, there's a range of shaped inserts supplied to match most popular cartridge neck diameters and shoulder angles, just pop one in, choose the appropriate sleeve to match the cartridge body diameter and off you go.

I thought it was quite reasonable for what it is, mine was about £95 from Amazon.com. My CTS trimmer was about £35 shipped from the US and a Little Crow WFT is around £75 over here.
 
Yes, it indexes off the shoulder, there's a range of shaped inserts supplied to match most popular cartridge neck diameters and shoulder angles, just pop one in, choose the appropriate sleeve to match the cartridge body diameter and off you go.

I thought it was quite reasonable for what it is, mine was about £95 from Amazon.com. My CTS trimmer was about £35 shipped from the US and a Little Crow WFT is around £75 over here.


oh thats cheaper than the last one I looked at which was closer to £200!!
 
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