Bulk 223 case prep, how you guys doin it?

I bought the FA prep center but quickly learned I hated it. Bought a Dillon trimmer and made up a case prep toolhead that works amazingly now. Here's my process:

1. Tumble dirty brass in FA SS Pin tumbler with only blue Dawn for 2 hours, no pins. Dry on a towel for several days.
2. Case lube with Lyman Quick Slick
3. Process in the 650 with decap in #1 and Trimmer in number #4. I have a SwageIt installed in #2.
4. Tumble processed brass in FA SS Pin tumbler with blue Dawn, Lemishine and pins for 2 hours. Dry in brass dryer for 1-2 hours.

At this point my brass is prepped. When I load, I have a Lyman M die in #1 and the rest of the stations are the remaining Dillon dies. I do use a powder check on this toolhead simply because I cannot see the powder when the case rotates from #3 to #4 like I do with pistol.

Everything runs beautifully and in the end I have pretty, perfect loaded 223. With all that said, using CCI SR primers, 24.5gr of H335 and 55gr CamPro's my cost is about 34c per round. If I didn't enjoy reloading, the cost of the equipment wouldn't be worth it for me.
 
Clean in Lyman 1200 with 50/50 corn cob/walnut for 1 hr.

Lube Dillon case Lube

Deprime / size On Lee Classic Cast

Swage primer pockets with RCBS pocket swagger on Lee Classic Cast

Trim with Lee .223 quick trim and a drill attachment on the Classic Cast * Note, I have a modified little electric screw driver with a latching switch to turn on and hold the drill on.

This was a compromise between cost and speed.
 
I see you guys give a lot more love to your case prepping than I'm willing to do. Most of these methods would do at most 150-200 cases per hour. It's kind of a pity to prep 150 cases per hour while you can load close to 500 on a progressive.

For 223 I'll most probably go the easy way and buy from black sheep, but the question still remains for other mass-used calibre such as 300blk or 308 (for cqb or 3guns). These calibres are outrageously more expensive to get prepped, if possible at all. And ammos can be really expensive compared to reloads too.

Thanks everyone for your infos. I see no one has a silver bullet of low-cost and fast prepping.
 
I find,the nastiest part of brass prep ,is the trimming,chamfering,.
If you can combine these three things,accurately and fast, then the rest is gravy:)

The only way,I can see,to do this, is the Giraud.

$600 cad though.

You would break even at about 5000 cases,less your time.
 
Last edited:
Brianma65 said:
I find,the nastiest part of brass prep ,is the trimming,chamfering,.
If you can combine these three things,accurately and fast, then the rest is gravy:)

The only way,I can see,to do this, is the Giraud.

$600 cad though.

You would break even at about 5000 cases,less your time.
Click to expand...

How many cases do you prepare per hour with the Giraud? Cause I agree with you, the trimming/chamfering/deburring is the nasty part, and I'd rather spend one hour loading than 1 hour trimming, so the amount of case/hour is of importance there.
 
I'm seriously considering something like this, but with some mods to make it more efficient:


The mods I would make is to use 2 quick trim, one without the debur/chamfer, just to get to the right length, and the 2nd one with the debur/chamfer. Station 1 would be resizing, 2 would be trimmer, and 3 would be trim/debur/chamfer. That way I could let the motor run without interruption between cases. I'd use some custom motor instead of a drill, and place a gearbox on the trimmers. I'd also use the case dispenser, so I'd only have to push the handle at a regular rythm to make the cases flow. It could even work with a cheapo Pro1000 since it's just 3 stations. And it would work with any calibre, as long as you have the right quick trim dies.

Is there some kind of lubing die that exists? Like a die with a lube reservoir, and when the case comes in it lubes the case? If it exists I could just use one before the sizing die and not even have to manage lubed cases.
 
VinnyQC said:
How many cases do you prepare per hour with the Giraud? Cause I agree with you, the trimming/chamfering/deburring is the nasty part, and I'd rather spend one hour loading than 1 hour trimming, so the amount of case/hour is of importance there.
Click to expand...

I don’t have the Giraud yet. I’m thinking I could sell my FA platinum$200, and get a Giraud.
 
I do not have a progressive press and my loading is done on a 45 year old Rockchucker press. And all my case prep is done by hand using a battery powered drill.

"BUT" I wet tumble so I trim and deburr my cases after tumbling to remove any case mouth peening.

And if you use a Lyman type "M" expander on your progressive press you can improve straight in-line seating and decrease neck runout and improve accuracy. And bumping the case mouth on to the .226 section of the expander decreases the need to trim and deburr each time.

ohIUcpd.png
 
Last edited:
Been a while since I had to mass produce plinking AR ammo. FOr the amount of time it takes, and the deals that can be found for bulk purchase, I usually just buy it ready made.

Brass is so cheap and easy to find that I rarely use any batch of it enough times to have to do any detailed case prep after the first one.

For a first time reloading that case, I will tumble if required, trim whether it needs it or not, deprime with full length resizing on a single stage press and then quick wipe to remove lube, chamfer primer pocket if swagged, ream primer pocket, and clean up flash hole. I do this only the first time I reload a batch of brass. I have the RCBS case prep centre and motorized trimmer.

First I tumble, THEN I deprime. Fishing corn cob out of flash holes gives me nightmares and is such a time waster.

I take one case out of the trimmer with right hand while loading a new case in the trimmer with the left. With the case in my right hand I then run it through the 3 or 4 stages on the prep centre while the left hand grabs a new case from the un-prepped bucket. Right hand then drops the prepped case in the prepped bucket while moving back to grab the freshly trimmed case from the trimmer. I can do about 4-5 cases a minute with this method if working steady without distractions.

At this point my brass are ready for the progressive press re-loading, (I keep the bushing neck sizing and should bump dies backed out as these cases have already been sized.) After they have gone through all of that case prep once, they will never go through it again.

For firings 2-5 I have a sinclair shell holder that I run on a power drill. Cleaning is achieved with a Krazy cloth as all the fouling on the outside of the case is limited to the shoulder and neck. I could care less about internal fouling. With the neck sizer and shoulder bumper dialed in, straight onto the progressive press for reload. Easy Peasy. I have never had a case need to be retrimmed or anything else before loosing it, denting it, or needing to anneal it, which I haven't yet gotten into.
 
Prep for plinking 223? ha! I trim after 2-3 reloads and that is about it. Takes me less time to prep/load 200 plinking rounds then it does just to prepare 50 pieces of 223 brass for my precision gun. Never had a single issue, and I'm getting 2moa easy out of it.
 
Brianma65 said:
I don’t have the Giraud yet. I’m thinking I could sell my FA platinum$200, and get a Giraud.
Click to expand...

Report in when you get the giraud. I'm curious to know how fast it can work.

I think the FA platinum sells for 240$ new shipping included. Maybe 200$ for used is a bit much. Just sayin.
 
Guys, "I trim every x reloads then tumble in magic fairy dust" isn't helping. The important thing is how fast the process is, with very little regard to quality, and zero importance on tumbling, since it's an unattended process (well, I hope nobody is staying in front of his tumbler looking at it for hours as it's tumbling!)

How do you trim, and how fast is it? If you debur and chamfer, how and how fast is it? In 1 hour, how many case can you take from 1Fired to ready to load, excluding tumble time. And how/which tools do you use?

So far we have:
todbartell: a few hundred in 40 minutes, using a FA platinum
BSB: about 5k/hour using a camdex.
oppy: never timed himself, but estimates 100-150/hour using a single stage and a FA platinum
Stranger: 1000/hour using giraud, but that's only trimming, not the resizing part (still quite impressive imho)
Cameron SS: 240-300/hour using an RCBS case prep center.
Me: Slow AF.
 
Vinny,if you can trim ,champferr all in one step ,it’s going to be faster.

You only have a couple of options for this.
WFT = cheap , but consistent length is questionable.
Giraud= expensive, but it’s accurate.

So if you don’t mind inconsistent trim lengths,then WFT or the Giraud attachment will be the fastest option
Don’t use the pins in your wet tumbler, don’t need them,and it saves time.

But hey, I got all this from google,so who knows.
 
Brianma65 said:
Vinny,if you can trim ,champferr all in one step ,it’s going to be faster.

You only have a couple of options for this.
WFT = cheap , but consistent length is questionable.
Giraud= expensive, but it’s accurate.

So if you don’t mind inconsistent trim lengths,then WFT or the Giraud attachment will be the fastest option
Don’t use the pins in your wet tumbler, don’t need them,and it saves time.

But hey, I got all this from google,so who knows.
Click to expand...

There's also the lee quick trim. Trims, chamfer and debur all at once.
 
Guy in a youtube video does 13 cases in 30 seconds with a giraud. He hurries so I don't think he could keep that pace for hours, but that's over 1500/hour. Pretty much in line with Stranger's 1000/hour.
 
I tumble as many brass as will fit in my tumbler, then wipe them all off in a towel to get the dust off, then using a wax type case lube applied by hand to each piece as I run them through the sizing/decapping die, then I wipe them off and measure/sort them by length.
The ones that are short get thrown in a box for loading plinking rounds, the ones that are at the right length go in a box after inside/outside chamfer on the case prep center, then the ones that are too long go in another box to be run through my Frankfort Arsenal case trim/prep center where they are also inside/outside chamfered then into a box before priming.
I hate case prep so spending money on the machinery to make it easier is worth it to me. I also have an RCBS chargemaster combo to speed up the powder charging stage.
One of these days I'll be selling the RCBS case prep center my Frankfort Arsenal trim/prep center replaced.
 
Other than buying fine brass from Black Sheep Brass I am pretty sure my setup is the fastest and most consistent. I sized, primer pocket swaged and trimmed 400 pieces in 14 minutes the other night for a friend. Yes, I timed it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom