Forster trimmer?

[TrxR]

Ive got a Forster original trimmer and was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to set this to length ? Or is taking a piece of brass and slowly working to where i want to be and setting it from that the best way?

 

[BW]

What I do is what you referred too. Find one of my longer pieces of brass and use it to set the collar stop. Then use the fine adjustment screw on the collar to fine tune the length.

 

[rockhound78]

Same thing, then I save one piece of brass to use next time I need to trim that caliber

 

[Kracken McGraw]

One other thing to do on the Forster is to wear a heavy leather glove on the left hand to break the collet mechanism loose.

 

[Rsadams]

What BW and RockHound said... I love my trimmer , it has worked great.... Just fwi some of the .22 pilots were not heat treated correctly... If you notice it cutting slowly and/or eating up the inside of case mouths , just call them and they will hook you up on a replacement....

 

[JayHHI6818]

I sent my cutter shaft to Forster a few years ago and they resharpened it.

 

[BW]

Another thing you might want to look into is the 3-way cutter attachment. They really work well and save you the extra steps of inside and outside chamfering. There caliber specific and not real cheap at around $70 but if you shoot and trim a lot they are definitely worth it.

 

[PhilC]

Have a couple LE Wilson trimmers but my Forster is the only one I use.

 

[Shaggy357]

My Forster is usually neck turning only. I have an early Lyman power trimmer that has done real well for me. It is noisy, but very easy and accurate.

 

[biggun2869]

I don't know a thing about a forester. In my earlier days I bought an RCBS, even bought a neck trimming kit for it. The thing that didn't work for me is that I could get that thing set precisely, then when I trimmed I would have to use some force after the operation and after a few of these I could measure a trimmed case and it would be terribly off because of the way they adjusted. there is a gross adjustment which is great , then a finer adjustment that is even better. But I could never (no matter how tight I could get the set screws on the adjustments) get them to stay where they were put.
I now have a Wilson and all of MY problems are solved. I love it, there is no way it can lie to you or change in midstream

 

[GNERGY]

Over the years I have acquired 5 Forster trimmers, 2 of them set up for just neck turning. I use a little piece of metal tubing to tighten and loosen the collet clamp.
Tarey

 

[dgeesaman]

I was just playing around with my Forster tonight to experiment with the same question.

I have the 3-way cutter attachment and that gives me a nice machined surface that I can mic across against the collet side. So on my setup there is a .160” difference: to get a 1.550 case length I set my mic to 1.390” and lock it down. Then I push my trimmer head against the mics and lock the collar. It gets me within .001” of where I want to be.