Planning my first prairie dog hunt for next spring and from what I have learned reading this forum I need to take plenty of ammo. I will load for at least 3 calibers. the 204, 223, & 22-250 and for those very very long shots, take my 7mm-300 WBY.
Loading all this ammo with my RCBS Rock Chucker will most certainly take a great deal of time which, as always, is limited. What press should I consider buying to load a volume (thousand or more) rounds in the varmint calibers listed above? The 7mm-300 WBY ammo will, of course be loaded, on the Rock Chucker.
Will appreciate all suggestions and comments.
Chief.

The only progressive presses I've used were Dillons. I have an old 550 and a Square Deal. Both are good presses for what they are intended.

You'd need the 550 style or its equivalent. You can get a tool head for each caliber and once its set, you are good to go. One of the hassles is changing over the primer feed from large to small. You might want to order two feeds to facilitate that.

I want to say that powders were limited to flake or stick. Ball powders were no-no's. They tell me that they are quite consistent, but I did not fire mine at targets in a manner that would permit assessing that. Kudude

PS: After reloading a zillion pistol cartridges on my Sq Deal, it began to have issues. I sent it back to Dillon and they reported that it was just worn out. They fixed (replaced) it and sent it back. They are or were a great outfit. K-d

IMHO Dillons are about the only progressive press to consider. I've made some expensive mistakes trying other brands. Buy a 550 or 650 and use their dies as they are made to work better in a progressive press.
I've loaded many kegs of ball powders and they shoot just fine. I have no idea why you would use stick powders in a progressive press.............DJ

Just give yourself some time. If you complete an operation at a time you can load a lot of ammo on a single stage.

Once you have your load developement done 1K rounds os only about 10 evenings at an hour per evening with a single stage.

Get the Dillon 550, Dillon or Redding dies and your in business.

Have used a dillion 450, then got a 550. Primer size change is a real pain though, so eventually just got a second 550. One set for small primers and the other for large.

Have no trouble with South African Ball powders in the Club Dillions - We use S121 for club reloads.

Not sure on accurate volume reloads though? I load .375, .416 Rem and .458 with cast bullets in bulk on my Dillon but always load my hunting ammo on the single stage - Need to trim cases, wash the lube off after resizing (cannot get water soluble lube easily so need to wash in petrol to remove oil) etc. For .308 target ammo, I always Pulled F.N. Millitary ball, resued the powder and just seated a 165grn match bullet- that works well on the dillon and no messing arround with case prep!

dillon 650 - no need to look back

quote:

Press for volume reloading

I have a Dillon 650 with a case feeder and after one gets used to it you can make several hundred good safe rounds an evening and even a thousand if you stay at it.

There is another excellent press I've used and it's Hornady's lock & Load AP.

Very smooth and works well with 223, 308, and 7 X 57 size cases. Long magnums get cramped a lot!

This press takes a bit of getting used to but it's worth the time to do so.

Have loaded thousands of rounds of 223, 308 & 30-06, not to mention various pistol ammo on two Dillons over the years (one set up for large primers, the other for small). Both started out as 450's, since upgraded to 550 specs. Both handle ball or stick powders (4895 or the SC powders) very well.

The Dillon measures are perfectly capable of throwing any of the above powders with sufficient accuracy to clean the NRA national match course of fire (200-600 yds), and the time saved can be used in practice or shooting varmints.

Regards,
hm