Brass triming

Hey guys. I spent the night reading all the older posts on the forum. Some really great info. I just wanted to thank everyone who was posted and shared their knowledge with us beginners. Okay. Now on to my question...

I was curious as to how many of you reloaders trim your brass. My general reloading system involves depriming, sonic cleaning, media tumble, primer pocket clean, check length, trim if needed, than I begin to resize and reload. When complete I gauge check svery tenth round and chamber check every round. I also use a system of two single stage Hornady presses. I know general wisdom states that this is overkill, but In my head, it just makes sense that brass with different lengths would have a different seat, possibly a crimp that is holding a different spot of the bullet, and the possibility for different pressure build up.

So my long winded question is, how many of you trim your 45 brass? What do you trim it to?

Thanks

First 45 acp brass should not need trimming, trimming brass is mostly for rifle brass that grows or stretches with use, straight wall handgun 45 shrinks with use.

I think this is a rifle thing.    Most people who are really concerned about accuracy load new brass for the fifty yard line, but even this is probably unnecessary to achieve a ten ring group with a good bullseye gun.

     For the twenty five yard line, you can load uncleaned brass, with crappy bullets, and still achieve x ring accuracy.

Agree with David R.  45ACP brass shrinks with use.  Don't think I've ever seen a case too long.

I was reloading rifle cartridges long before I started reloading .45 Auto bullets, and old habits die hard.  I still measure every case before I crank up the Dillon Square Deal B.  Yes, I know to be accurate brass should be measured after resizing, but I set my caliper .005" below max allowable length, and measure after cleaning but before running through the reloader.  I only find perhaps one out of 500 cases that is too long.

My recipe calls for .888 case length. Very rarely do my cases meet that when I first get them.

Does anyone measure their long line brass simply for consistency?

If I were skilled enough and the Crown Jewels were on the line, I might trim my 50 yd cases to square them up.  But I will never be at that level. 
 Meanwhile I will work on my trigger finger and shoulder with the little time I have to devote to shooting

I've been reloading since about 1970. I've never trimmed straight-walled pistol cases. There are more important things that impact accuracy, the quality of the bullet, being number one in my book.

Mike, you mentioned quality of bullet. Do you sort bullet by weight? If you do, what range do you allow? I buy 2000 at a time and separate down to 1 grain. Usually ending up with four piles, 198, 199,200,201. I enjoy doing it, but in your experience, is 4gr in bullet weight really going to show in accuracy?

When I was shooting my best, I used the Nosler 185 gr. JHP or Winchester 185 gr. jacketed swc match bullet for the long line and Star LSWCHP for the short line. One can substitute the Zero for each type of bullet. IMHO, there is no need to weigh swaged bullets and they shoot very well from some guns at fifty. Frankly, although I did cast a 200 gr. Lyman SWC, I never used my own cast bullets for the long line. Even after separating them by weight, I couldn't get them to group satisfactorily to use them for slow fire. IIRC, I tried to keep my bullets within + or- 4 grains. Of course, one needs to weigh cast bullets before lubing them, to get a real accurate comparison of cast bullet weights, because lube weight varies quite a bit. I was considering going to an H&G mold, but before I did that, I discovered swaged bullets. The base of a lead bullet must be uniform. I'm a believer in using the Ransom Rest for testing and then only at 50 yards. Really, as has already been mentioned, just about anything load will shoot well (out of a good pistol) for timed and rapid fire at 25 yards.

You are over thinking things.
First, just my opinion, but you are working too hard cleaning your brass.
Next, straight wall cases tend to shrink with shooting.
Finally, cases that head space on the case mouth are most accurate the closer they are to max length. You don't work up a rifle load with excess head space, do you? Well, trimming .45 cases is only increasing the head space and your primer impact and the alignment of the case in the chamber are undesirably affected.
For shooting 4MOA groups, benchrest techniques are NOT of any help. The time you spend cleaning and prepping is better spent dry-firing and at the range.

2nd what noylj said.  In my last match I shot 6 tight 10s on each of my 50 yard slowfire targets with the crappyest mixed brass you have ever seen.  There were even a couple split ones in the mix.  With the cheapest 200gr tapered base Lead Semi-wadcutters I could find.

The rest of the shots were terribly executed called 7s and 8s....if I could only operate the setup a little better....

And that was with my stock Springfield.  I don't think that case length needs to be checked.