Like said above, you will have little need to trim pistol brass. I have never trimmed any handgun brass.

I like Federal and Winchester handgun brass best but almost any "name brand" brass will work fine. I've loaded Federal, Winchester, Remington, S&B, Fiocchi, Magtech, Speer, CCI, Norna, Starline, Hornady and a host of other pistol brass and all worked just fine. The only brass I won't reload is A-Merc brass.

As for how long brass will last, well, it lasts as long as it lasts... I have been reloading the same 1,500 pieces of Remington .38 Special brass for the past ~5 years and none have split yet. My .45 Auto brass has at least 8X reloads on it and all of it's still fine. (mostly Winchester, Fiocchi and Federal)

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