Who loads rifle cartridges with a progressive press?

[longdayjake]

Okay, so I just got the hornady lock and load ap and the shell plates are to come in this week. I have done thousands and thousands of .223 the slow and hard way with a single stage press and many hundreds of .308 and .30-06 that way as well. My question is how successful are progressive loads with a rifle and is there any secret to lubing the casing that wont make everything a mess?

 

[ReloaderFred]

I've loaded rifle cartridges on a progressive for years, but my approach is a little unconventional. I completely prep the brass prior to loading. I tumble, size, decap, clean primer pockets, trim and then reprime. This is all done on my single stage Rock Chucker press.

When I move to the progressive, I start with sized, trimmed and primed brass, which I know is all uniform. I do the final loading on the progressive and get excellent quality ammunition.

Some are going to chime in and say this is extra work, but since it's my shop, I get to set the rules............

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[longdayjake]

Well, since most the brass i use is military stuff, I am going to have to do atleast the depriming and sizing and swaging seperately. I expected that. Plus you have to trim the necks.

 

[jjohnson]

Yep

I've reloaded rifle cartridges (mostly .30 caliber) on a Dillon 550B for years.

Brass must be lubricated unless you're really handy with a stuck case remover.
I use Dillon's spray lube on the brass. I set 'em up in a rack, give 'em a shot on one side then flip it around and hit the other side. They resize without lots of pressure and without problems extracting the brass from the sizing die.

Once the reloaded round is out of the press, I remove excess lube with a cotton cloth or on occasion, tumble 'em for a few minutes to get the goo off of them. Yes, I said tumble.

If your brass had crimped primers, you need to fix that just like you'd have to do on a single stage press.

IF you properly adjust your dies and remove case lube, you should be in good shape. The only real problem I've ever had is metering 'stick' type extruded powder. I like spherical powder because the powder measure likes it. Again,
that's not a problem about the press.

 

[rfwobbly]

I load 223 on a Dillon 550, but a LOT of case prep takes place before the primer tube gets loaded.

 

[alfack]

What powder are you guys using for your .223 and does it meter well enough for you?

I'm looking for a decent ball type powder to use.

 

[Canuck-IL]

As everyone else noted - all case prep on a single-stage, hand prime (for rifle) and then I use the L'n'L for powder drop and bullet seating. For 600 yds or further ammo, I'd do it all on the single stage.
/Bryan

 

[loadedround]

I've been reloading 223, 308, and 30-06 cases on my Dillon 550B ever since I bought it close to 20 years ago.

 

[ReloaderFred]

alfack,

I use Winchester 748 for all of my 55 grain loadings in .223. It meters extremely well and is accurate in my rifles.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[Walkalong]

I do mostly like Fred does.

I size, trim, prime, etc before I load .223, but I size it first with the progressive instead of a single stage.

 

[jjohnson]

2230C and Data Powder 73 in .223

That's what I'm using for .223. Both seem to meter well enough and give good results. My range is only 200 yards so I don't get overly zealous about "plinking" rounds with milsurp bullets.

I bought a whole bunch of the Data Powder from powdervalleyinc.com and 55 grain milsurp from patsreloading.com - my Savage bolt action does well with 'em.

 

[dmazur]

I tried to find a lube that wouldn't mess up the powder measure or result in stuck cases and failed.

I have had really good results with RCBS case lube and removing the brass after resizing in station 1, so excess lube can be cleaned off, trim to length as necessary (& chamfer), then verify resized headspace and trim lengths with a Wilson gauge.

For the Dillon 550B, the wire retainer doesn't prevent removal at the same station, if it's adjusted correctly. So I treat station 1 as a single-stage press, no indexing involved yet.

Then, after I have a bin full of cleaned and prepped brass, I start off with the press again, but index before pulling the handle. No need to back out or remove the resizing die.

There may be some magic way to just "run the brass through" like pistol cartridges, but I haven't found it yet. I'm kind of used to the Wilson gauge check now, and I'm not sure I'd want to skip that...

 

[alfack]

Thanks, ReloaderFred.

I'll try some and see if I can use it confidently enough (w/o having to weigh every charge) for progressive work.

 

[30Cal]

Make sure you load some straight off the measure and compare targets with the hand-weighed ones. Everyone assumes charge weight consistancy matters, but in reality, it generally doesn't.

 

[Walkalong]

I never weighed a charge in my Bench gun, and it shoots pretty well.

Some folks just don't believe thrown charges can be accurate, but unless you are loading for a super accurate AR or Bolt gun with someone who can shoot it, thrown charges from a good measure will suffice just fine.

The long distance guys measure every charge, because good ES numbers are very important at long range.

 

[45ACPUSER]

Tis a poor carpenter who blames his tools for his work!

The keys to progressive reloading of rifle rounds is to use processed ready to load brass. Using prepped brass makes for a decent rate of production. If you are a head of the curve you will have brass that is ready to load. Meaning you have the brass size, trimmed, and detailed your loading will be easy. You have no way around the nasty parts of rifle reloading......trimming, dealing with primer pocket crimps, pp uniforming, flash hole deburring........scut work!

 

[Walkalong]

The keys to progressive reloading of rifle rounds is to use processed ready to load brass.

Gotta agree.

 

[taliv]

i've loaded maybe 40,000+ 223rem on a dillon 1050

i don't trim between every firing so that saves a lot of time. so i don't do any case prep other than cleaning 2 out of 3 times i reload a case. the 3rd time, if i need to trim necks, i'll run them through the sizing stage and then kick them out, trim, then run them through again for all the stations

i use a lot of lube, because most of the resistance pulling the handle on the press comes from the sizing die. if you don't lube, it jerks a little which makes the cases wobble and causes powder to fly out of the mouth and build up all over the shellplate.
you don't wnat to use 'excess' lube, but a moderate amount is fine, then toss the cases in a tumbler for 5 min after they're loaded to get rid of the lube.

 

[nofishbob]

It seems like we have two schools of thought on this question: one group who trims after resizing, and then uses a progressive press without the resizing die to load, and the others who do not trim after resizing, but measure case length before sizing.

I fall into the second group, but now wonder if trimming after sizing provides a worthwhile improvement in the ammo I load for casual target shooting with my AR.

Bob

 

[taliv]

you definitely need to measure case length after sizing.

now, if i'm planning to load 1000 rounds, i might size 10 of them and measure them and if they don't need trimming, i'll just run the other 990 of them through w/o trimming

 

[Walkalong]

One of the reasons I like to size first before running them through to load them is just what Taliv alluded to. The cases run so much smoother when the sizing is not being done, even with plenty of lube.

 

[NoAlibi]

RCBS - Trim only once die

I use a Dillon Power trimmer that trims while resizing the case, so trimming is not a concern for me.

However, I remember some years back RCBS was touting a resizing die that after you trimmed a resized case to the proper length it was never necessary to trim again if you subsequently used their special die.

Has anyone here used that die or know anything about it?

 

[30Cal]

The RCBS X-Die. Follow the instructions and it works as advertised.


I trim every other firing (more often than necessary, but in between, I don't need to bother checking). I do pretty big batches.

To do this, I buy a big batch of brass and keep track fo # of firings. Sort of a pain when you're talking about a couple thousand cases, and I can't get anything completed in a single sitting, but it works out. I write down all the steps that need to happen on a yellow sticky, leave it in the bucket and cross them off as I go (I do 2 stickies actually, since invariably, I'll be interrupted and have two buckets going instead of one).

 

[Floppy_D]

Similar to ReloaderFred and Walkalong:

1. Tumble and lube.
2. Deprime/resize on single stage RCBS.
3. Trim, debur, chamfer, remove primer crimp.
4. Prime and load on a Dillon 450.

I typically work the brass in batches of 500. I pick up lots of range brass, so to be sure, I trim every time.

 

[NoAlibi]

Just so I'm clear...

30Cal:
The RCBS X-Die. Follow the instructions and it works as advertised.

I trim every other firing (more often than necessary, but in between, I don't need to bother checking). I do pretty big batches.

Just so I'm clear - when you say that you trim every other time, I'm assuming that you are not using the RCBS X-Die.

Considering the amount of reloading that you do and that the X-Die works as advertised, why wouldn't you use it so you wouldn't have to trim?