So it takes me about 2hrs to load

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Nothing wrong with starting out on a single stage and upgrading later, IMO you did it tight. Just keep the single stage when you do upgrade.

In the meantime there are things to speed up some of the stages (if you haven't already)....what kind of press do you have? I made a case ejector on mine and it really helped when depriming/resizing, flaring. Knocks them right off into a bin and frees my one hand up for just inserting a casing. Do you still hand prime or use some version of auto-prime?

I could load 100-150 an hour on the single stage in large batches.
 
I was thinking about a Dillon when I got back into reloading but only shooting a couple hundred rounds every couple of weeks did not make much sense.

When I get a much of brass in I will tumble it, the separate the calibers and deprime/resize the brass. I have a few 1000 cases/calibers in tubs at this state. When I am ready to start loading, I will use a RCBS hand primer to start the process.

Yes it take an hour to reload a couple hundred rounds but I do not mind it.
 
Wreck-n-Crew, I pre deprime my brass as part of my cleaning process. I'll clean the brass, then lube it, deprime and size, then clean again. I even measure the the brass and sort into two bins. Sometimes I'll hand prime the night before, but the two hours includes the hand priming.

The one area I could speed up is loading the powder, If I could figure out how to put my powder dispenser above the press, I could just dump the powder directly into the funnel on my flare and powder dispenser die. Now I use the the pan from my Lee Scale to dispense the powder into the pan, and then dump into the funnel. But that would probably only save me 5-10 minutes.

It does take me time to calibrate my scale, I use the Layman scale weights. And then getting the powder dispenser to dispense the right amount of powder.

The other areas that take up time are getting the bullet seating die adjusted just right.
 
Fatelvis said:
Me, I enjoy reloading as much as shooting. So when I run out of ammo, my "other" hobby kicks in!
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Yeah I kind of agree. I'm doing the same - knocked out 100 rounds of Super Dooper VooDoo .38 Special food for my Wife's Ruger LCR. Now that she has dialed in her 2 favorites (Glock 42 and Ruger LCR .38) she gobbles up ammo and grins like a maniac. Gotta get a pix of her with holding a target with the middle eaten out of of and a "sad face" while pointing at an empty range ammo box. :banghead:

I really enjoy loading one at a time and the accuracy and ability to obsess on rolling them "one at a time" but with both of us shooting 2X a month now I cannot keep up. :(

Shooting 800 rounds a month between the two of us in .32, .380, 9mm, .38, and .357 @ roughly 2 hours per 100 requires me to find 16 hours a month to make ammo...that's 4 hours a week. I'm still finding it maybe 1/2 an hour at a stretch but it's getting tight/frantic. I may need to go to progressive to keep up.

VooDoo
 
Get a muzzleloader. The time it takes you to load is the rate at which you shoot. ;)
I like to load in lots of short spurts. 15 minutes in the garage with my LnL AP or Mec 9000 for 100 rounds and over time, it really builds up.
 
I use both a single stage (RC) and two progressives. They each have their uses and good points. If I am loading rifle rounds and want to weigh each charge, I use my Rock Chucker. I does the job well and I don't normally load a large quantity of rounds for each rifle.

For my handgun rounds I use the progressives and crank out all that I want to shoot or store in a efficient way. I have 3 kids that shoot and 4 grandkids that shoot so I have to have a progressive to keep up with the demand if I want to have anything to shoot.

The bottom line is, you have to use the equipment that works best for your situation.
Anything else defeats the purpose, which is having fun and enjoying your hobby!
 
I can get 100 out in 1.5 hrs with the lee loader whack a mole set..

On a side note I bet I can drive a 16 penny common nail in oak with one smack now..
 
Vodoun da Vinci said:
Yeah I kind of agree. I'm doing the same - knocked out 100 rounds of Super Dooper VooDoo .38 Special food for my Wife's Ruger LCR. Now that she has dialed in her 2 favorites (Glock 42 and Ruger LCR .38) she gobbles up ammo and grins like a maniac. Gotta get a pix of her with holding a target with the middle eaten out of of and a "sad face" while pointing at an empty range ammo box. :banghead:

I really enjoy loading one at a time and the accuracy and ability to obsess on rolling them "one at a time" but with both of us shooting 2X a month now I cannot keep up. :(

Shooting 800 rounds a month between the two of us in .32, .380, 9mm, .38, and .357 @ roughly 2 hours per 100 requires me to find 16 hours a month to make ammo...that's 4 hours a week. I'm still finding it maybe 1/2 an hour at a stretch but it's getting tight/frantic. I may need to go to progressive to keep up.

VooDoo
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Yes, As your usage goes up you will be required to upgrade to a progressive in order to keep up. As long as I was shooting a revolver a SS was fine. Once I moved up to simi-auto it was taking all my free time. And since I have a tennis elbow I had to limit my time. I ended up the Hornady LNL-AP almost 6yrs ago. It has been a very reliable press. I did add the brass feeder when I was limited to 1 hand due to a broken wrist. After use the brass feeder I asked my self why I waited so long.

The down side of a progressive is feeding it. You go through a lot of supplies in a short time. But it gives you your free time back. When you can set down and produce 500/600 in 1hr it does not take long to build up your inventory.
 
Sheesh. I loaded on a single-stage for a few years, but no way I could deal with the time investment now. To be able to walk into the reloading area and walk out 5 minutes later with a week's practice ammo in hand is precious. Or to take a Saturday and make up a few month's worth? I've got a job, kids, club duties, and plenty of other hobbies. I don't need to kill the hours by sitting in front of a single-stage reloading press.
 
So it takes me about 2hrs to load
100 bullets with my single stage press, it takes me about 30 minutes to shoot a hundred bullets. The math ain't working out.
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It's not your math, it's your method. Takes me 2.5-5 minutes to load 100 rounds, the only math problem with that, is that the negative impact on the wallet.
 
Potatohead said:
I like to drag it out. So i think i'll keep my LCT.
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Same here, the LCT press is a good inexpensive compromise for me. I can blast out 2 or 300, but I dont "load when I need it" I process brass in spare time, decapping, cleaning trimming (if 5.56) resizing and reprimed. Then I usually have a pile thats deprimed and waiting to be cleaned, and a larger pile of unprocessed. This way If I need to load a particular caliber, all I need to do is charge, seat bullet, crimp (if required). This, and I keep plenty loaded up ready to go. By just processing a little in advance I'm good to go. At the range, I will generally go through 200-300 rounds.

That said, If speed is what you need, go progressive
 
Analogkid said:
I can get 100 out in 1.5 hrs with the lee loader whack a mole set..

On a side note I bet I can drive a 16 penny common nail in oak with one smack now..
Click to expand...
An automatic case feeder would really speed up your production rate.
 
While some are going from a single stage to a turret or a progressive, I've gone the other way. I'm now doing all my loading on a Lee Handloading press.

I find the process strangely therapeutic, and don't mind the time it takes. I usually do it in stages, one night I deprime/resize all the brass, another evening I re-prime and bell the the mouth, all this while I usually watch something on TV.

Then I set an evening aside for the final stage, dropping the powder and seating the bullets.

I usually do about 1000 rounds like that, sometimes all the same caliber, at other times a couple of different calibers. It seems to work for me.
 
If you do decide to buy a progressive, the Dillon 1050 is the only such press I've used that I would buy again. I tried Lee Loadmaster, I tried Hornady (ne Pacific), and found these two presses to be rather finicky.

Personally, I think the Dillon powder measures with the micrometer adjustable charge bar to be an amazing device, and the only powder measure I would choose to use on a progressive of whatever flavor.
 
Sheesh. I loaded on a single-stage for a few years, but no way I could deal with the time investment now. To be able to walk into the reloading area and walk out 5 minutes later with a week's practice ammo in hand is precious. Or to take a Saturday and make up a few month's worth? I've got a job, kids, club duties, and plenty of other hobbies. I don't need to kill the hours by sitting in front of a single-stage reloading press.
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That's where I'm at with it. Plenty of other stuff to do without killing hours and hours at the loading bench. For one thing, I'd rather be shooting than loading. Looking forward to doing all my volume loading on Dillons and only use the turret for development or small batches.
 
Yeah it is about the enjoyment of it all. I have come to the conclusion that I mostly shoot to reload. Always searching for that one hole group.:cool: AND the longer it takes me to reload a batch the less components I use up in the long run. A win-win if you ask me.:D
 
If I had many years of work left, I think I'd be more worried about time. Since I plan on retiring in a few years, I think the single stage press will be good. That and I can finally get back into making my own beer again.
 
I still use a single stage press, and will probably get a progressive at some point in the not too distant future. It certainly does speed up the process.
 
Sheesh. I loaded on a single-stage for a few years, but no way I could deal with the time investment now. To be able to walk into the reloading area and walk out 5 minutes later with a week's practice ammo in hand is precious. Or to take a Saturday and make up a few month's worth? I've got a job, kids, club duties, and plenty of other hobbies. I don't need to kill the hours by sitting in front of a single-stage reloading press.
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I agree completely.

jcwit has to right--it's not about "time" it's about "enjoyment
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Yea, it is about enjoyment, but when you have 1200 9mms sitting there that need loaded, It not very enjoyable doing it on a single stage. I like to enjoy my reloading time without taking away from my family. I find a good progressive much more relaxing to operate than trying to run a bumper jack at warp three.

I'm a lead maintenance trouble shooter and engineer at a facility that's growing rapidly, and I also have to take callouts.

With me, the efficiency of a progressive trumps a single stage every time unless I'm loading rifle or doing workups with my pistol loads.

I can usually come pretty close to telling who is retired or single and who is working and has a family from the way a lot of posts are written. These things all play into the decision of what kind of press you need, or have grown to need, if you want to truly enjoy the hobby of reloading and shooting.

If you have nothing but time, I envy you.

That's why I typically recommend new re-loaders to look at Lee Classic Turret presses instead of a single stage when they buy their first press. Buying one holds off the need for a progressive for a longer period of time and it will be a good addition to go along with a progressive.

Just better efficiency you can grow into as your demand increases.
 
Yea, it is about enjoyment, but when you have 1200 9mms sitting there that need loaded, It not very enjoyable doing it on a single stage.
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I have 9mm cases in the 10's of thousands, have even given some to friends and sold some at gun shows. No need to load them all up, no need at all. And I shoot 3 to 4 times a week now, the range is 5 miles from my front door.

But then to, all the kids are grown and I retired way over a decade ago.
 
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