Another thing that works (but you have to be careful) is to use an xacto
knife to cut the leads using the uncut leads as a "stop". At the point
most of the leads are cut, you can use a standard cutter to clip the
last lead on each side.
(Still trying to figure out how this is related to chip equivalence.)
If I slip, that would be no good... nevertheless,
that's probably
what I'll end up doing (the cutting, not the slipping part!)
Joe.