I've loaded thousands of rounds without the crimping die. But when I tried the wrong cast bullet that one time I ran into trouble when the settings "walked" a little somewhere along the way.
The loading in question was done on a Lee 3 hole progressive that I got stuck with using because my Dillon was packed up somewhere in a mountain of boxes pending renos being finished. But shooting events still beckoned so a buddy and I made do with a Lee. A few mods to fix issues later and we were running fairly well.
Again as long as you understand that the simultaneous seating and crimping in one operation needs to be given the proper attention to avoid issues it can be fine. Just keep a close eye on that sucker! The option of a separate crimping die is that it removes the need for this level of close monitoring. Also a taper crimp is less sensitive to the slight differences in casing length that strongly affects how a roll crimp die forms the ends. So at some point I'd say it's a wise way to go. But with care and monitoring the combo seat&crimp can do just fine.
Oh, my buddy is now the happy owner of the highly modified Lee. As for me I was happy to pass it along and give my Dillon a BIG hug when it once again showed up after unpacking.
As for you? Have you looked at some videos showing progressives in action? It might just ease your concerns over multiple operations in one pull. If it helps there's still lots of things you can check between lever pulls. For example my own loading goes something like this. Assume the lever was just pulled and then pushed to set a primer and the cycle starts.....
- Set bullet on charged and flared case. Set next casing in starting position.
- Index the shell plate manually (Dillon 550b). During indexing check primer ram to ensure primer is gone and that the old primer wasn't pushed back into the case.
- All being well the lever is now pulled to run the operations then pushed to seat the new primer.
- Cycle is finished and ready for the next repetition.
For .38Spl and .357Mag I add on a check of the case height because these get mixed up all too easily. But when placing the casings in the starting spot it's not that hard to compare and spot the wrong one. See? Having more positions with cases CAN be a good thing!
And I suppose with the small and large primer .45ACP I'll likely end up double checking each case before placing it as well.
So going progressive doesn't mean you give up the control and inspections. It just means you do them a little differently. You've obviously loaded a lot of ammo on your turret already. I don't think it's a big stretch to move on to a full progressive at this point. In particular if you opt for a manually indexed model. If you find yourself understanding and nodding at some of the videos I think it would be a very doable step at this point.
