It takes me a long time to clean, resize, trim, primer pocket clean, prime, drop powder and set a bullet with my one stage RCBS press and my manual RCBS case trimmer. I'm not looking for 1000 yd accurate loads, but safe and reliable loads. What equipment and manufacturer would you suggest to speed up my process?

I'd reccomend a good case trimmer- not sure what you mean my a hand trimmer. I use the RCBS trimmer with the handle on the back to release the cartidge. I'd look hard at a Redding or a Forster because the quality is better.

I really like the RCBS prep center which has 5 stations to mount different tools on. You only handle the case once to do several jobs rather than picking up cases or tools over and over again. I have a flash hole deburer, outside neck, primer uniformer, inside VLD neck, neck brush. THis really made it faster to do all the steps and I now do the steps on all the cartidges each loading rather than skipping a loading or two between due to laziness.

The next thing that made things faster for me was a good electronic scale. I use the Lyman LE 1000. I would like to ge the RCBS chargemaster combo though. Other than that, just get into a rythom.

rcbs x-die end the need for trimming

clean primer pockets? I don't it's self-limiting IME.

get a good turret press. lee's classic, lyman's t-mag, or redding's are all nice.

DILLON !. 550 or 650 progressive loader .

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dr.K:
DILLON !. 550 or 650 progressive loader .QUOTE]

+1
I have no personal experiance with them other then playing with a buddies for a couple minutes but, I have NEVER heard a bad word about them from any who do.

Definetly need to upgrade your press to at least a turret, even a preogressive like the Dillon. I don't trim every firing, jsut haven't seen the need. You don;t really need to clean primer pockest every firing either. Your ammo is likely to be every bit as accurate off a turret or progressive as a single stage for plinking or big game hunting.

I don't know what your budget is, if money is not an issue I think you'll be quite happy with a Dillon, I've had a 550 for a few decades and am very pleased, it loads most everything fast enough for me.

Here are some time savers-

To clean, the biggest time saver is to not be picky. Clean brass looks a lot nicer but it is not absolutely necessary. If you don't have a tumbler then put all your brass in a pot of hot water, give it a squirt of dish soap and a pinch of salt, swish it around, let set for 30 minutes then swish a bit more and rinse.

Resizing, biggest godsend here is use a spray on case lube. I like to use a 1 or 1/2 gallon plastic ice cream tub. Drop the brass in, spray, shake around, then hold the tub at a 45 degree angle and shake it a bit more, all the cases will line up with their mouths upward, make another pass with the spray to get the case mouths and you're done.

Case trimming, I don't trim that often but when I do I use a lyman trimmer. To trim up a bunch of shells get a lee case trimmer and have someone turn the back half of the cutter down to 1/2". Now chuck that into a slow turning drill press and hold the lock stud part in your hand. Chuck a shell up in the lock stud and slip it over the pilot on to the cutter. Takes only seconds to do it this way and your hands don't get tired. Maybe you can hook a drill up to your trimmer to do the same thing.

Priming, if you don't have a progressive press then a hand held primer with a feed tray is fastest IMHO. The priming arm on the press is great in an emergency but dang if that doesn't seem to be the slowest process of everything. If you resize and deprime before you clean, you don't have to monkey with primer pockets usually (except to pick out tumbling media)

If you stay with a single stage press, get a second and possibly 3rd one on your bench so you can move right along and leave the dies in them most of the time. I have a few lee dies but I've changed all my lock rings to hornady rings so I don't have to monkey with the lee lock rings shifting.

Breaking the process up helps it not be so tedious too- resize and clean one day, reprime the next, then charge and seat the bullet as the last step.

Hope that is usefull to you.

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by Dr.K:
DILLON !. 550 or 650 progressive loader .

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...

Make that +2.

I live in Phoenix, not far from Dillon's factory/retail store. About a month ago, I went down to their shop, talked to their sales staff, and went home with everything I needed, including components. Two days later I was at the range with 500 hand loads, and I put 400 of them through my pistols with no problems...even though I shot the first couple with my eyes closed and head turned.

If a complete noob like me can get up to speed that quickly with a Dillon 550 then old pro's could probably tear out 500 good rounds in an afternoon.

I haven't done any rifle rounds with it yet, but the .40 S&W I've made have been spectacular. I would even venture to say that I shoot tighter groups with them than I did with Magtech or Winchester White Box.

I haven't had to trim any of my cases yet, since they've only been fired once or twice each. However Dillon makes an attachment that fits on the sizing die that could trim while the round is being sized. It's kind of pricey though.

I'll probably just get an old fashioned "by hand" case trimmer and prep cases while I'm watching T.V.

"...clean, resize, trim, primer pocket clean, prime, drop powder and set a bullet..."

Try this before you change equipment just to speed things up:

1. Do you tumble the cases? If so, don't, or do it perhaps every third or fouth loading.

2. Make sure you are setting the shoulder back only enough to allow easy chambering to reduce stretching and decrease the need to trim rifle cases. Pistol cases rarely need trimming after the first, and that's done mostly to even them up for crimping.

3. Trim to the "trim to" length. You should not have to trim again for the next three or four loadings, or somethings wrong.

4. Skip primer pocket cleaning, it adds little or nothing to accuracy or reliablity. Progressive presses skip this step too.

5. Develop what I call the "two finger shuffle" for saving time when exchanging cases in a single stage press. While working the press lever with my right hand I pick up the next case in my left hand and exchange it for the processed case, all in one smooth action.

6. Use a Lee Auto-Prime tool for capping, it's faster.

7. Assuming you have a quality powder measure, use it to best advantage by not bothering to weigh each charge to a tenth grain. A spread of .4 grains in most mid to large size rifle cartriges will have vertually no effect on accuracy or trajectory inside 300 yards. Fine powders, especially spherical types, measure quite accurately if you really want better consistancy in your charges.

If you had a progressive press and continue to do as you are now really won't save you much time. And all a turret press does is keep you from removing and replacing a die between processing stages. That change makes for one swap for bottle neck cases and two for straight cases; not much.

A die swap only takes me about 10 seconds to complete so there's little time to be gained with the turret, cause the turet has to have the dies screwed in when you start anyway, right? I rarely use my turret any more, just stick to my single stage press for everything.

With the amount of time being spent with case prep, a progressive set-up will be more of an impediment than an asset. A single-stage press will prove more efficient.

Concentrate on expediting case prep.

One of the steps in reloading I dislike the most, and which takes the most time, is trimming. So anything that will safely minimize the amount of trimming you have to do, is a godsend.

The good news is that most (factory) chambers are a good deal longer than SAAMI max specs for cases. You can measure the actual length of your chamber (and thus the actual length at which you have to trim your cases) with this gizmo:

http://www.sinclairintl.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=RESDTCL&type=store

Another time saver for me, is the RCBS Media Separator.

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?s...id=176956&t=11082005

It comes into play when I prepare a lot of cases in one go. After using a spray-on lube, sizing and cleaning in a tumbler, the Media Separator speeds up the job of getting the cases out of the tumbler again.

Cleaning the primer pockets can be speeded up a bit with mechanisation. I use a primer pocket cleaner in a hand drill, and also use the drill with a brush inserted to clean my case necks.

Like others here, I have found the Lee Autoprime

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?s...id=807875&t=11082005

to be the fastest priming tool. I keep two on my bench - one set up for small and one set up for large primers. Saves me having to change over from one primer size to the other. In addition, it is nice to have a backup for this tool, as parts have been know to break (e.g. linkage gizmo), and a spare may keep you working under such adverse conditions.

- mike

I also apply many of the afore mentioned techniques, with one addition:

As I don't have a tumbler (and don't want one) but still want neat cases, I clean my brass right after coming home from the range.
I lock a neck brush in my power drill, slip the case onto it and let it rotate. Now I clean the outside of the case with a cloth with some cleanung solvent on it. Then shortly grasp the case so that the brush will rotate inside the neck and pull it off.
This way all my fired cases are clean already and I can start resizing whenever I feel like it.

get a tumbler, it will knock alot of time off.. with a "spinning bucket" or media trap or whatever you want to call it..

i do NOT want to speed up reloading, as i like spending the time reloading... not only from a safety and accuracy POV, but from a "focused on a critical task" form of meditation, as my wife calls it ... helps me to relax

Mark ; I would also like to add to the " Wet " cleaning method . Borax and Boiling hot water CLEAN like few have ever seen . Also Auto dish washing soap added to it works well Like White King or Calgon . Ultrasonic is the Real way to fly how ever a Decent sizable unit isn't exactly inexpensive these days .

Any of you who have ever tried to remove tree or wood resin sap from chain saw blades or saw blades , remember BORAX and Boiling water . It will remove stuff Acetone lacquer and Mek wouldn't touch !.

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...

quote:

Originally posted by Winchester 69:
With the amount of time being spent with case prep, a progressive set-up will be more of an impediment than an asset. A single-stage press will prove more efficient.

Concentrate on expediting case prep.

Not entirely true... if you are "sneaky"

To best make use of a progressive for loading say... 223Rem in bult requires two toolheads.

the first to size, deprime* and trim (with Dillon's power trimmer.

the second toolhead to prime, charge and seat

you do a quick tumble first to get any range dirt off the cases, then spray lube and run them through a second time
the difference is that in each "stage" of the two passes you are doing three operations at once.
And on the second pass each pull of th ehandle produces a finished round.

*deprime, if you are using military brass the first time I'd deprime and SWAGE (NEVER TRIM!) the primer pockets as a seperate operation.

If you wish to crimp military style ball rounds with a Lee Factory Crimp Die this too will be a seperate operation, best performed on a single stage press afterwards.

the progressive press pretty much restricts you to even metering ball propellants but in the 223 for use in a semi this really isn't a hardship as you are most likely to be using H335 or similar anyway...

Even going through the progressive twice that this will have many times the speed of anyone attempting to produce the same ammount of ammo on a single stage (or turret) press.
50rounds an hous on a single stage is the highest consistant rate you can hope to maintain
even going through twice on a progresive a total rate of around 300rounds an hour is entirely within reason.

AD

With a Dillon progressive, if it deprimes, resizes, and reprimes, then drops powder, bullet, etc.,

1) do I resize with lubricant
2) do I need to remove the shell after resizing to clean off lubricant then reload shell to press

I have been using RCBS case lubricant which is messy. After resizing I tumble the cases to get the mess off the case. Sometimes I use a Q-tip to remove lubricant from the mouth of the case. It sounds like there might be a case lubricant that I don't need to tumble or clean off.

Please address this lubricant issue as well as my questions with the case after resizing on the dillon

You will never go wrong with a Dillon.

Dennis,

To address your lubricant issue, use a spray case lube as I mentioned or else use Imperial Resizing wax, keep some on your fingertip and give each shell a swipe as it gets put under the die. Either one is no big deal to wipe off, either by hand or just roll the batch in a towel when they are loaded.

I really, really like Hornaday One Shot spray case lube.

Mark, am I able to lubricate the spent rounds, then load them on the Dillon for sizing, priming, powder drop and bullet placement, then after completion wipe off the lubricant? Also swill the Imperial wax bother the powder or mouth of the case?

quote:

Originally posted by Mark:
Dennis,

To address your lubricant issue, use a spray case lube as I mentioned or else use Imperial Resizing wax, keep some on your fingertip and give each shell a swipe as it gets put under the die. Either one is no big deal to wipe off, either by hand or just roll the batch in a towel when they are loaded.

I use Imperial but did in the past use RCBS lube and have never removed any of it from case mouths prior to seating a bullet. I do wipe my ammo after assembly with a paper towel if needed and, have retumbled brass after sizeing if I`m not going to load it in the near future.. I don`t however go crazy with lube in the case mouths, a touch of lube on my finger from handling the brass is normally enough wiped across the mouth on every three or four cases and offers enough to prevent the ball from dragging.

I talked with Dillon reloading today. They suggested to spray the shot cases with their lube, let set for 15 min load onto their progressive press and never have to touch the case until it comes off the press ready to fire. No tumbling or case cleaning after resizing. Also no need to clean primer pocket as we no longer have primers that leave I believe he said Magnesium residue.
Does this sound right to you guys?

The trick is to enjoy the time.
I cleaned, removed the primer pocket crimp, sized, and primed 6,000 rounds of .223 on a single stage press.

I was listening to the radio.
I was watching TV.
I was talking on the phone.
I just made up my mind to enjoy myself.

Speeding up reloading is a relative term !.
Preparation can be minimized to a certain extent !.

If one is a bench rester than NONE of the above apply !. If one is a hunter than what's the point of speeding up anything ?.

How ever if your a person with limited time and wish to weekend spray many many rounds , then a progressive loader works for you .

A progressive loader works for " ME " for all but the latter Scenario .
I like the quick changing tool heads for doing SEVERAL different calibers , I also like the # of rounds I can produce in a hour . I've counted in excess of 500 pistol rounds per hour , and more than 375 in Rifle .On a 550 !.

How ever ALL my prep was pre done , so it was crank the handle keep the powder measure full recharge the priming tube and an ample supply of projectiles in my holding trays !.

Some calibers I load for I'm less picky about than others . Then some weapons don't seem to care reguardless of preparations !.

I'll clarify that last statement ; After working up loads for certain weapons they just don't do any better or I don't either so it's a toss up !.

Shoot Straight Know Your Target . ...

After talking with Dillon, it sounds as though the only case prep I may have to do before loading the spent case on their press is maybe tumble or wipe off any dirt or powder and spray on lubricant. Assuming the case needs no length trimming, it can then be loaded on their progressives and in a few passes through the stages, come out a ready to fire round.
Does this make sense and work for you?