Can a Hornady progressive press load match grade 308 ammo?

M

Markit

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I have used several single stage presses in the past 20 years or so to load for precision bolt action rifles in multiple calibers with excellent success. I never reloaded more that 50 or so in one session after case prep.

For the past 3 years I have used a hornady lock n load AP progressive loading only bulk pistol cartridges for ipsc and some 223 for range plinking at 50 m, and while this press has its drawbacks it can reload pretty consistent pistol ammo. Before that I have about 4 years using another progressive.

With a new NR semi 308 I want to reload quantity and quality in the least amount of time.

Is a hornady lock n load ap progressive capable to loading precision quality 308 if I drop powder off the press once brass is prepped, or am I better off just buying another single stage?

My hope is to do around 300 per hour with the progressive - is this feasible with 308 and this press.

I am all set up to load with match grade projectiles the right dies, FCD, case prep tools and decent powder and primers so the ingredients are not an issue, the limiting factor would be the press.

Any first hand experience with this press would be appreciated.

Marc
 
Short answer... NO

Two problems... sizing cases.... powder dispensing.

With a bottle neck rifle case, it would be best to do the sizing with lube and you may as well do that on a single stage press. Then you remove the lube. For my accuracy AR, I actually use a Redding body die set to the AR's chamber headspace.

Once brass is sized and cleaned, then I put it into my progressive for neck sizing and so forth.

Now the next bottle neck, dispensing powder. If you use a ball powder, you can make ammo as quickly as a HG. Problem is many ball powders are temp sensitive so tuning is likely to change from season to season. As long as you are aware of this and adjust your load accordingly, it works.

If you want to use extruded powder for temp stability and better accuracy, you should consider weighing the powder charge. Some will argue that powder variations of up to +/- 0.2gr will not affect their accuracy, then a powder measure will work. My testing has shown otherwise and weigh my charges to 0.1gr accuracy which is not possible with any "on press" dispenser.

If you use a digital scale and an auto trickler, you will get much faster then a conventional beam scale and Chargemaster... and far more accurate results BUT costs are high and you may not want to go down that rabbit hole.

So, you end up with a combo of presses... at least I do .

For my AR15, I will use a ball powder and just adjust load as needed... but then I am not looking to shoot out to 1000yds as I might with a NR AR.

Jerry
 
Mystic Precision said:
Short answer... NO

Two problems... sizing cases.... powder dispensing.

With a bottle neck rifle case, it would be best to do the sizing with lube and you may as well do that on a single stage press. Then you remove the lube. For my accuracy AR, I actually use a Redding body die set to the AR's chamber headspace.

Once brass is sized and cleaned, then I put it into my progressive for neck sizing and so forth.

Now the next bottle neck, dispensing powder. If you use a ball powder, you can make ammo as quickly as a HG. Problem is many ball powders are temp sensitive so tuning is likely to change from season to season. As long as you are aware of this and adjust your load accordingly, it works.

If you want to use extruded powder for temp stability and better accuracy, you should consider weighing the powder charge. Some will argue that powder variations of up to +/- 0.2gr will not affect their accuracy, then a powder measure will work. My testing has shown otherwise and weigh my charges to 0.1gr accuracy which is not possible with any "on press" dispenser.

If you use a digital scale and an auto trickler, you will get much faster then a conventional beam scale and Chargemaster... and far more accurate results BUT costs are high and you may not want to go down that rabbit hole.

So, you end up with a combo of presses... at least I do .

For my AR15, I will use a ball powder and just adjust load as needed... but then I am not looking to shoot out to 1000yds as I might with a NR AR.

Jerry
Click to expand...

Hmm, he could still use a passthrough die without an automatic powder dispenser. At least with the lee passthrough, you can just place a cap that holds a funnel on the charging die instead of the powder drum, and then you pour a weighted powder charge through the funnel. You still need the setup to weight the charge (fx120, beamscale, chargemaster, whatever he uses and had success with, he should keep using...) and the time to weight it (this will be the bottleneck), but at least the case stays on the press and moves to the next station to get the bullet seated and then crimped. If he has an automatic case dispenser, then it's that much more time saved.

That's how I operate when I want to work up a load and my dies are all set up on a turret head. I'd say it takes about 80% as long as on the progressive, mostly because weighting the charge is the longest operation, but that 20% gain in speed is better than nothing.

It won't let him churn 800 rounds/hours like HG ammos, but it'll be a little faster than going at it step by step on the single stage.
 
VinnyQC said:
Hmm, he could still use a passthrough die without an automatic powder dispenser. At least with the lee passthrough, you can just place a cap that holds a funnel on the charging die instead of the powder drum, and then you pour a weighted powder charge through the funnel. You still need the setup to weight the charge (fx120, beamscale, chargemaster, whatever he uses and had success with, he should keep using...) and the time to weight it (this will be the bottleneck), but at least the case stays on the press and moves to the next station to get the bullet seated and then crimped. If he has an automatic case dispenser, then it's that much more time saved.

That's how I operate when I want to work up a load and my dies are all set up on a turret head. I'd say it takes about 80% as long as on the progressive, mostly because weighting the charge is the longest operation, but that 20% gain in speed is better than nothing.

It won't let him churn 800 rounds/hours like HG ammos, but it'll be a little faster than going at it step by step on the single stage.
Click to expand...

By doing stuff in batches, I have found that I am not really losing a huge amount of time vs a progressive. If you care about cleaning your primer pockets, you can't do that on a progressive. You do save a bit of time by have 2 other operations going when you dump in the powder BUT will the seater be as straight in a progressive vs a single stage press?

Just boils down to what does accurate mean to you and the ammo you want to make. For a BCL, I would love to say they are sub MOA rifles and the testing to follow should shed some light on that and how sensitive they can be to powder charges.

If they operate on a wide charge node, progressive away.... if not, not sure if the cost of a progressive is worth it especially if you are loading with extruded powder, doing a step or two off that prog and need to stop everything for each powder charge.

And when you spill all that powder... yeah, been there... was a big mess.

For me a progressive means making alot of ammo and I am willing to give up a bit of peak accuracy. Ball powder in many current dispensers is surprisingly accurate. My Lee powder measure is working close to the same 0.1gr dispensed so that is excellent. Some new gen powders can be quite accurate too so it can be done but tweaking it for temp may be a pain....

I would definitely consider a ball powder receipe if I wanted a lot of ammo for my BCL.... and an adjustable gas block. But then I am more interested in accurate fire vs lots of rds fired.

Jerry
 
I used to use a progressive to load for an accurate bolt action .223. There wasn't much of a difference if any in accuracy between it and my single stage press. This certianly isn't a definitive answer as the rifle was pretty darn accurate with any reasonable ammunition. And I wasn't trying to win competitions with this ammo either, more wanted it for hitting gongs at longer ranges as cheap trigger time practice for hunting.

I suppose you could try. Come up with an accurate load and see how the progressive press deals with it.

But it really depends on what your standard for accuracy is and what you want to do with the progressive made ammunition. Win competitions? Probably not. Use it for what I was using my .223 ammo for, sure.
 
My idea was more to send 100% prepped (trimmed, sized, clean primer pocket). So up until that point, there's no difference between progressive or single stage. So if we suppose the LnL primes as correctly as a hand-primer or a ram primer on a single-stage, and that there isn't any difference either between dispensing powder through a charging die or directly through the funnel (again, we suppose the equipment used to measure the charge is the same), then as you say, the only difference would be how straight the seater is on the progressive. Given the size of the ram on that press, I'd say pretty straight, even if the seater isn't completely in line with the force being applied.

I guess we'll know soon how accurate the BCLs are, but I really, REALLY doubt they'll be bolt-rifle accurate. I think at best they'll be modern-hunter accurate, and a worst some people will be really sad with their purchases. I think you'll get 3 BCL to test, right? If 1 out of 3 is sub-MOA and the other 2 are sub-2moa, I'll consider getting one, but I'm not betting on that.
 
As far as the accuracy of the powder dispensing on a progressive, and temp stability of ball powder. I am using 8208xbr for my .223 reloads on my lnl ap and it meters within .1gr consistently. No temperature issues with that powder. I have not used it yet for .308 but there's lots of load data out there for that caliber.
It's not a ball powder but a short grain extruded one.
 
Yes. I loaded .223 match ammo for a custom AR 15 match rifle on my Dillon 1050. That rifle would shoot 1/2" groups at 100 yards. Used the Dillon measure and H4895 stick powder, Dillon dies, 53 gr. Sierra hp.
 
I have loaded over 500,000 match 308 rounds in a Dillon 650.

BUT, all the brass was factory new and primed brass. Did not use the press to "re-load" - just to load.

Used ball powder, which measured perfectly.

This would be considered factory match ammo. Custom match ammo might involve weighed power charges, etc.

The first die set a small flare on the case mouth, so bullets would not get scratched. The seater die gave a tiny crimp to take off the flare.

This ammo grouped about 1/2" at 100 out of most target rifles. Good enough at the time for Target Rifle, and it replaced using military ball that grouped at least 1.5".

I mostly used ball powder, but a fine extruded powder like RL-15 also worked well.

Is your objective ammo that is "good enough" or ammo that is the "best"? A progressive can make "good enough" ammo, if you feed it prepped and primed brass.
 
I should have also noted that for rifle brass, it goes into the progressive resized and trimmed beforehand. So it's a loading operation after that.
 
I am looking for MOA results if possible so I guess it is worth the $40 or so for a #1 shellplate for the LnL to give this a try.

I have everything else I need including a couple lbs of RL15 and will prep brass off the press and weigh the charge every 5-10 rounds or so once everything is dialled in.

Thanks for the input fellas.
 
Keep us posted on your accuracy results. I'm kind of curious myself on the difference in accuracy (if any) the same load would be when loaded on a single stage vs a progressive.
 
Will do

My only real serious concern is throwing accurate powder charges.

I have a feeling the hornady case activated powder measure won't be that accurate with RL-15 and I might just pick up some more ball powder if that doesn't work.

The other concern is that the first and last round loaded may not be as consistent in terms of COAL and seating depth due to the shellplate not being fully occupied but I think I can work around that. I found this to be an issue with 223 bulk loading.
 
I load ammo for my match barrelled AR that consistently shoots under half moa with my lnl ap using varget. Randomly checked throws are never more than .1 grains out and usually bang on,just be deliberate with your strokes to ensure that no powder gets got between the insert and the powder drop. I do it the same way you are talking about with prepped brass but I prime with the progressive and I've started sizing on it as well and find it faster than on a single stage.as for the seating yes you will have to set it with a full plate.
 
Ok, can anyone recommend a good ball powder for a 308 gas gun that will meter consistently and gives good accuracy? Projectiles used are 155 AMAX and Hornady 168gr HPBT Match. Barrel is a 1 in 10.

Thus far all my accuracy testing and load development for the BCL 102 has been using ammo I loaded on a single stage and I have worked up several loads that are very very close to being consistently MOA.

Over the past week I tried to use the LNL AP with the intention of running several large batches and had absolutely no joy throwing accurate powder charges using RL15 with the LnL powder measure on the press. It just wont meter consistently, at least not consistently enough for accurate ammo.

I should note that the crappy lee powder measure I have been using when charging cases for loading on the single stage has been absolutely crap, with significant fluctuations - so I have it set low to throw 30 grain or so charges, and trickle the last 14 - 16 or so grains of powder to reach the desired Charge.

Any first hand recommendations from gas gun loaders on a ball powder would be hugely appreciated.

Looks like I am going to have to start my load development all over again with ball powders.

Marc
 
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