Guys, I am preparing a ton of 243 and 308 once fired brass for reloading. I am doing a full length resizing, my question is the case length. The case length on most of this brass is within 10.000 of an inch of each other. Now I know that it is best to have every case the exact length but how important is it really? I have been told that if you have a cannalure they must be all the same length but what if the bullet does not have a cannalure? What if I decide not to crimp or use a roll crimp? I have over 1000 pieces of brass and I dread having to trim all these cases by hand.
Have at it guys I am all ears.
Thx for all the help.

.......Honestly, Doug, I would trim them all to the trim-to-length spec. I'm kinda anal about some of the "little" things, and I'm sure some will disagree with me. You need a base standard to start with. I then pick a "lot" size, maybe 25 or 30 casings, and shoot them all the same number of times until they're scrap. Then discard the entire lot. If accuracy and precision are your goal, uniformity is the key.....

.......As far as crimping goes, I see no need to crimp any bullet in a 243 or 308 case. The only crimping I ever do is on pistol rounds or heavy recoiling big boys like my .338 WinMag or 45/70....

Trim to length to keep them uniform.The beauty of reloading is u control the quality control.

Guys, thx for all the help, my problem is I have over 1000 cases, what I did was my Dad and myself went and bought a RCBS power case motor that fits our RCBS case trimmer and after some trial and error (my error mostly) the thing works great! I cannot believe how accurate and easy it is to use, I did have to go out and replace a clamp but other than that it is nuts on, I trim 10 cases and measure the last one and if it is on,and it is always on with this machine I go to the next 10. It works fine on nickle plated cases as well, can't say enough of good things about RCBS. I cannot say how many man hours of work that this thing will save but I know it will be alot

Great choice on case trimmers imo got mine last year and love it. Accurite, consistant, and easy on the fingers.

Just because you have 1000 cases, doesn't mean you have to trim them all at once. Trim what you need when you reload. Maybe 20-30 at a time.

I don't know where this comes from but case length is not as important as some here make it out to be.....

Unless you're going to crimp the cases and there's very little reason to do so....but some folks do so anyway!!!.....the only requirement is to have the case length not exceed the maximum.

.010 variance is not a problem at all!!!!....as long as they are short enough!

.......... A lot of people put a lot of stock in neck tension with the bullet. With a picked OAL and uneven lengthed cases, I don't think you can maintain that factor. Length of time in the neck at a given tension and point of tension is unreliable. Again, my advice is to trim. Period.

Its just another part of the equation of consistency and quality ammo.

One would be much better off spending his time floating the barrel or bedding the action or many other things as his mileage will be far better than trimming to overall tolerances less than .010.

I've heard this neck tension argument many times and it just don't hold water.....maybe if the trim variabce was a quarter inch.....but .010?????

Consistency is a great goal.....but somethings just don't pay back...

Among them are weighing every powder change to .1 grain!!! Uniforming flash holes and uniforming primer pockets.....turning necks for hunting rifles that don't have a tight neck chamber....and trim lengths to "exact" lengths.

Layne Simpson reported it a long time ago....unless your rifle is already shooting 1/2" groups....these things do nothing for you.....and I looked at what he said and thought....yup....this matches my experience exactly.

Further.....the huge majority of hunting rifles that shoot 1/2" groups are shot on the internet.....not at any range!