High Volume Handloaders--How Do You Do It?

[Cosmoline]

I'm in the process of working through a 300 round backlog of 7.62x54R brass that accumulated in the dirty brass box. I am once again amazed by how time consuming the process is.

--Sort the brass (Win/Privi from Lapua/Norma)
--Lube the brass
--Resize and deprime it
--Tumble the brass
--Sort the brass out again and clean the crud out of the primer pockets
--Trim the brass
--Chamfer the brass
--Prime the brass
--Load the powder
--Seat the bullet
--Crimp the bullet
--Seal the primer or otherwise mark the round (only on my "keepers")

I understand that a multi-stage press will speed up the loading process, but for me loading is by far the easiest and fastest part of this. The laborious and messy part comes before that stage.

Is there some machine that will do the pre-loading steps? And if not, how on Earth do some of you go through thousands of these things a month? Then there's the added steps such as annealing which have to take ages.

 

[Fatelvis]

Don't bother cleaning the primer pockets, don't trim every loading, don't crimp. Just lube, size/decap/prime, dump powder, seat bullet, tumble or wipe lube off cases. When trimming/deburring/chamferring is needed, use a Giraud. It's not a Benchrest round, it's a battle round, shoot it and have fun! Good luck.

 

[ReloaderFred]

I process brass in stages, in large batches. I like to do a minimum of 1,000 rounds at a time. All my brass that I'm going to reload gets tumbled as soon as I get it home. When I'm in the mood, I'll size them all. I've made a tool that mounts to my bench that will clean primer pockets and chamfer and deburr case mouths really fast. It takes me about 40 minutes to clean 1,000 primer pockets, or chamfer, etc.

Then when I'm in the mood, I'll prime a batch of brass and store it, leaving a few of the primer package covers in the package with the lot number on them. (I record all lot numbers in my records for powder and primers loaded)

Then when I either need ammunition, or I'm in the mood to reload, I've got brass that's all ready to load by just adding the powder charge and bullet. For me, this process works well and I'm very seldom rushed. It makes reloading relaxing, as I can work at my own pace.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[W.E.G.]

Any time you reload in a hurry expect it to be drudgery.

Most folks just don't have enough work space to do it like its some sort of factory.

That means you gotta do it little-by-little for most hobbyists.

I bought a 9mm Glock mostly just for this issue.
Never have to even clean the Glock, and it eats steel-case factory ammo like candy.
No reloading required.

I don't mind reloading for my 32-20.
In fact, I like the fact that it takes a long time.

 

[Canuck-IL]

I do all the drudgery steps over the winter when there's virtually no shooting to be done this far north. All brass is segregated by caliber, sometimes further by specific rifle (semi vs bolt), into about 30 plastic shoe boxes (79 cents at dollar stores or occ Wallyworld) by stage of prep. Decap first on a Lee universal mounted in an old single stage. Then tumble and store ... when the mood strikes, lube, resize, tumble again, mostly using an x-die which really eliminates needed trims after the first.

Primer pockets, flash hole and trim - only once on new brass, again as time permits, in batches of at least 500. Chamfer, deburr, prime with an RCBS handheld whenever there's time.

Come spring, there's always a box ready for powder and bullet. Single stage loading for 600 yd fodder and finicky powders that don't meter well, a progressive for the rest.
/Bryan

 

[Slamfire]

I do not like accumulating unprocessed rifle brass. As soon as I can, it is in the tumbler, sized, trimmed, primed.

Brass that is ready to go can be stored in ammo cans indefinitely. Dumping the powder and seating the bullet is easy to do in batch operations on my Dillion 550B.

Today I fired 58 rounds in a 100 yard reduced Highpower match. The rifle is cleaned up before storage, the brass is rolling around in my Thumler’s tumbler.

It will all be sized, trimmed, primed before nightfall on Sunday.

If I am not shooting, I am reloading.

 

[jmorris]

I understand that a multi-stage press will speed up the loading process, but for me loading is by far the easiest and fastest part of this. The laborious and messy part comes before that stage.

Is there some machine that will do the pre-loading steps? And if not, how on Earth do some of you go through thousands of these things a month? Then there's the added steps such as annealing which have to take ages.

I have a machine to sort the brass (I don't sort head stamps though). Then tumble, into another machine to anneal, lube, size/deprime and trim on a 650 then load on a 1050 with a bullet feeder and auto drive (the video below is by hand though).

 

[Randy1911]

I shoot only the same headstamp brass at one time, so no sorting. I then resize and deprime. I then tumble to remove the lube and polish the brass. I only neck size for my bolt action guns, so trimming is not very often (I hate trimming witha manual trimmer). When I do, I use one of these for the chamfering and deburring and primer pocket cleaning.

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=565099

I then reload on a Hornady LnL progressive. I use a universal depriming die on the first stage to remove corn cob from the flash hole. The next steps are prime, powder drop. powder check and seat the bullet which is crimped at the same time. Except for the trimming, reloading is relaxing to me.

 

[_N4Z_]

I do it in stages. If I plan on a session Sat. or Sun. I work through the process during the week. Always keep fired brass in ziplocks, marked for specific rifle. Don't mix headstamps so sorting is already taken care of. I do not tumble brass, seems like a bother. If it's really dirty I wipe it down and call it good.
Usually deprime and neck size one night. Trimming and such next night. Prime up another night. Friday night is load/seat/crimp, or somrtimes it gets pushed to Saturday for a Sun morning session. And I don't do large batches of 300. Most I ever load at anytime is 60 for competitions. Rest of the time it's around 20 for load testing. ....This is for 7.62x54r.

When I load for .357mag I usually do around 100, but it's alot quicker than rifle.

 

[Cosmoline]

Thanks for the input. I guess unless I'm willing to invest in a major setup I'm stuck doing things the slow way. Just discovered *ANOTHER* 175 rounds of 54R brass at the bottom of the spent brass tote. And a bunch of primed stuff that for reasons totally unknown to me now simply won't chamber in my current Mosin. So it's all been resized again.

jmorris, that's mighty impressive equipment. Are the first two actually store bought, or did you make those?

 

[BADUNAME37]

I also do "batches" at a time. Yes, I agree it does take a LOT of time! I got a bunch of 5.56 cases last winter that were all crimped. I had to make my own center punch and holder in my workbench top to literally hammer out the crimped primers as my RCBS dies were breaking pins. After the second pin break, I decided I must do it another way. I had about 1,000 cases. It took a few weeks of going to the basement and hammering away for a while, until I would get sick of it. I promised myself after that that I would NEVER get crimped cases again, even if they are GIVEN to me.

I have Frankford Arsenal trays (hold 50 cases each) and I have four of these trays for each cartridge I load. I like them as I can stack them. I also like them as I can place a larger one upside-down over cases that may be primed and ready for powder or even cover (one with larger holes, that is) over cases which have been charged, ready to seat the 'pill' to keep two cats from possibly knocking something over (which they never do, I just try to be as safe as possible).

The only drawback is I am limited in my "batch" to 200 at any one time of a particular cartridge, which is OK, as I shouldn't sit longer than that in one position due to a back injury.

 

[qajaq59]

You really don't need to do them all at the same time. Take some breaks and relax, then do some more. Just whittle away at them and it'll go a lot easier then turning it into a pressurized chore.

 

[jmorris]

Are the first two actually store bought, or did you make those?

They are homemade. I like building stuff more than I like reloading.

 

[sonier]

I clamp a drill into my vise, and chuck the primer pocket cleaners into this, i prefer the lee trimmers that are caliber specific, the shell holder can attach to a drill so i just attach shellholder and turn the drill on trim the brass, chamfer everything using the drill to spin the case, speeds time dramtically. i hand prime watching movies or browsing THR. i then load everything on my single stage rockchucker, it works

 

[dmazur]

When trimming/deburring/chamferring is needed, use a Giraud.

I just made this decision. I believe it will help with the part of brass prep that I find most time-consuming, trimming and chamfering.

There are other motor-driven trimmers, but I believe this is one of the best. I intend to "break it in" with 1000 or so .30-06 this weekend. Then maybe I'll do some .243.

I'm already quite happy with the production I can get with a 550B.