Frankford Arsenal Platinum Series Case Prep and Trim Center review

[Jenrick]

I picked this up yesterday at Cabela's, and paid $169 before tax.

Got it home, and set it up. Setup takes maybe 10 minutes tops and thats reading all instructions and setting the trimmer up.

Pro's
It's electric - no more cranking, pulling etc
It's sturdy - if you are using this in any sane way it's rock solid
It's easily adjustable - the cutter setup is very quick to change. Need a .0025 more or less, just unscrew the locking ring and move the index a mark over.
It works with pretty much any caliber from .17 -.460 - It's nice being able to trim .223 one minute and in 2 minutes be trimming .308.
It works with any 8/32 thread accessory out there so plenty of different tools are available

Con's
The non-cutter stations have a little wobble to them. If you want a truely concentric case neck for instance this can be a problem.
The cutter isn't 100% repeatable. It'll get you to within a .002 or so every time, but if you want it dead even there is a little bit of play in how the system works. Also it doesn't work with straight wall cases.
The motor has plenty of torque but not a lot of speed. If the cutter station revolved about 2x-3x faster it would cut brass like butter. As is it can take a bit if you need trim a lot off a case. Forget reaming primer pockets. Taking a military crimp out takes about 1 minute per case at the the speed it turns.
It is bulky - it does take up some real estate on your bench.

Overall I like it. I wish it had a high speed shaft for the cutter and for 1 accessory, and the other 2 at lower speeds. For the moment I'm just using my drill to ream the primer pockets out, as it's a 5-10 second process that way instead. For cases where I don't have to ream primer pockets, it's an all in one process that takes maybe 5-10 seconds to do everything to get a case that's as close to perfect as I care to get them for High Power service rife competition.

I've been doing some reading, of folks upgrading to carbide cutters from Lyman or similar, and they have reported a marked improvement in trimming speed. I may do that in the future if I have a large volume of cases that need significant trimming. Currently almost all of my cases are within .1 of being where they need to be after resizing, so it works fairly quickly with the little bit of brass that needs to come off.

Feel free to ask any questions and I'll answer them the best I can.

-Jenrick

 

[1KPerDay]

How does the trimmer stop work? Is it an internal stop shaft like the Lee zip trim?

 

[Jenrick]

There is basically a tapered washer that sits about halfway down the shoulder of the case, that acts as the stop. There is a plastic collet that is used to ensure the case is held square. Both of these sit in the case holder portion of the trimmer. The case holder is threaded and moves in and out from the fixed location of the cutter itself. Due to system being largely plastic and not a machined precise fit there is a very minor amount of play. Depending on how hard or soft you push the brass forward to the cutter you get a little variation in length. One you get a feel for it though, you can be pretty consistent with it. To change calibers you just change out the tapered washer (I think there are 6 of them to choose from), and if need be the plastic collet that holds the case body (there are three). If you have a case already trimmed to your desired length you can set the trimmer very quickly. Just screw the case holder in till the cutter just touches the case, tighten the lock ring, and you're done.

I was actually pondering that you could use a cutter with a pilot, so long as the base had the correct threads. There'd be some pro's and con's to that, but it would work just fine.

-Jenrick