Speeding up the process

silverfoxdj

silverfoxdj

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Was thinking about how I could speed up the reloading process without adding a completely new press or duplicating equipment.

I have a Forster press and a RCBS Chargemaster that has sped up my reloading a lot, at least the measuring part so not sure what I can improve or speed up now.

Priming takes awhile, I hand prime with a Lee Ergo and it works but slow, so looking for ideas.

Anyone with this configuration and gone thru this without making the Forster & Chargemaster redundant and keep the accuracy I'm happy with both. (I load for 38spl, 45ACP 9MM and 223..)
 
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Loading hand gun ammo with a hand primer and single stage setup I found I could load 150 rounds an hour. But this was with a hand indexed Lee turret. So there's no lost time swapping the dies and re-checking to ensure that nothing moved. Also this was done using a hand dipper in a can of powder. But again for handgun loads this is "close enough" assuming one takes some reasonable care to move and level the same way each time.

With this setup I'd do 50 in a batch. But if you have to change and check the dies for each step then perhaps increase the batch size to 100 or even 150. Extra loading blocks can be easily made with some clean lumber yard wood and a Forstner drill bit.

Beyond this you're hitting the wall and it's time to start considering your progressive press options. And along that line having wrestled with the modifications needed to make a Lee Classic 1000 work well I'm going to STRONGLY suggest you save your pop bottles and beer cans up and go with a Dillon 550b. For all your handgun loading and most reasonable length rifle cartridges this is the last press you'll ever need. It can be used as a progressive or a single selectable stage machine all very easily.
 
You could change out the hand primer for an RCBS APS or a Forster Coax Primer Seater.

I have a Chargemaster and am actually thinking about going back to a powder measure and trickler to save time. I usually wind up trickling or removing some powder to get it perfect anyway..
 
HeavyTread said:
You could change out the hand primer for an RCBS APS or a Forster Coax Primer Seater.

I have a Chargemaster and am actually thinking about going back to a powder measure and trickler to save time. I usually wind up trickling or removing some powder to get it perfect anyway..
Click to expand...

I like that Forster Primer Seater as it directly addresses a problem of seating primers and how hard it gets with the Lee over time..

Thank you will act on that one..
 
silverfoxdj said:
I like that Forster Primer Seater as it directly addresses a problem of seating primers and how hard it gets with the Lee over time..

Thank you will act on that one..
Click to expand...

I have the RCBS APS desk-mounted unit and honestly sometimes it seems to be more trouble than it's worth. But when it's working, it goes fast. The Forster one looks great.
 
For me I always found it much more efficient to use a progressive press when loading pistol ammo. I use a Dillon Square D for loading 9mm. With that I can load about 400 in an hour.

For rifle, and to maintain accuracy everything is single stage, done in batches. I find batch processing cuts down on a lot of extra time switching operations or moving around between steps. I can load about 100 rounds of rifle in an hour that way. I have a Hornady progressive press that I use for decapping/neck sizing and priming cases, and otherwise use it as a single stage press for all other functions like shoulder bump, or seating, when loading rifle ammo.

I would get another Dillon in a heart beat. Best presses I have ever used as far as a progressive press goes.
 
I've been loading .357 and .45 acp with a single stage for a couple years. For the .45 I prep large batches of cases. I would size and deprive a few hundred cases at a time until I had about 1000 done, then flare and prime them later. When I'm actually loading the prepped cases, I use a powder measure instead of my charge master to save time. I would powder then seat the bullet in 50 round batches and put them I a bin until I had as many as I wanted, then pop in my factory crimp die. Once the brass is prepped, I could load about 200 an hour, even with seating and crimping separately.

I'm using the past tense a lot here, because my shiny new Dillon 550b should be showing up on Thursday. I've probably loaded 2000 .45 acp this way so far this year, and probably about the same for .357 in the last two years. I've decided that handling each case six times makes things way too slow. (Size/deprime, prime, flare, powder, seat, crimp)
Kristian
 
for pistol get a dillon
keep the single stage for rifle or load test
I have a Dillon 650 with quick change for each caliber witch save me a lot of time for 9mm, .40, 10mm, 357/38, 223, 45
and do my 308 on two single stage one redding big boss II and one lee Breech Lock Classic Cast
 
you just need to take more time off work!

nobody 'loves' work, but a lot of us 'love' reloading! ...problem solved!
 
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I do operations in larger batches basically I have cases ready for primers in quantity. I find that hand priming takes about 4 seconds per case and after that it takes about 8 minutes to complete 50 rounds of pistol on my RCBS Rockchucker. I move pretty quickly and am focused. I made up over 1000 rounds yesterday. I'd have to do a lot of shooting to justify a Dillon 650 and someday I may get there but for now I have the time and a single stage with some effort gets me all I need for little money.
 
Thanks FDC,

I really like my press and don't have a lot of space for (2) and the costs that go with it so I'm looking very carefully at all the processes and an trying to increase my batch sizes first and reduce the effort for each stage.

I think I may be a little slower than most but I do a lot of checks before and after priming .

I shoot and load a few calibers regularly so I may just increase my batch sizes to 200-300 before completing moving to the next batch.
 
Probably the single biggest way you could increase your loading speed would be with a quality powder measure. I have a charge master as well, bought it a few years ago to speed up from a balance beam and trickler. However after hanging out on a few bench rest and small caliber sites from down south as well as an article in hand loader magazine by John Barsness last year, it became apparent that a quality powder measure would not only speed things up considerably, but also can lead to greater accuracy. All bench rest shooters load from quality measures apparently. The other time saver which has been mentioned is large batches, one step at a time.
 
For pistol, just save up and get a dillon. Life's too short for single staging pistol ammo.



For rifle, I found SS pins in a thumler B really sped the early processing part up with was painful for me.

So, I size and trim, and then a batch goes into the tumbler. This cleans the primer pockets, deburrs the edges, and cleans all in one step. Getting rid of the RCBS case prep center for cleaning primer pockets and chamfering the case mouth was a great day!

For trimming I use a Gracey trimmer and that is way faster than manually turning a forster.
 
+1 on priming ahead. I have bins of 338 and 223 primed ready to go sitting in my cabinet. 338 I prime on press on an RCBS Supreme. Most 223 I run a batch thru my Dillon 650 and put them aside for later.

For trimming I use an RCBS trimmer with the shaft in a cordless drill. Lot easier/faster than cranking the handle. Also have the case centre for primer pockets/chamfer and debur.
 
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