Thread: Do you always need to case trim?

G'day team,

I've got a question around case trimming I hope for some good discussion around.
I've just got myself a case trimmer and trimmed up my latest batch of .308 brass. I have already loaded this brass and they have been fired twice.

I was told the brass stretches most after the first firing. So basically this 'stretched brass' has already been into my gun and is fine. Even though it was about 3-4 thou longer than the max SAAMI length.

I also load 7mm08 and have the same issue. The brass is longer than max but the loaded cartridge fits inside my weatherby mk 5 ultralight.
However it doesn't fit inside my cousins new tikka t3.

My .308 is a BSA CF2 and I have read that both the weatherby and BSA have quite a generous throat length. Whereas the Tikka is quite short.

So basically, should I be trimming back to Max SAAMI lengths for my brass.
Or do I need to spend more time trimming then working out the correct seating depth to reduce the bullet jump to the lands?

Hope ive got that terminology right. I do have the Nathan Foster book and its awesome but unless I have read it wrong I can't quite understand this bit.

Cheers
Dan