Redding Instant Indicator in a progressive press?

[memilanuk]

For the match ammo in some of my fussier guns, I end up checking the seating depth (length?) of every round. 99% are either dead on, or within acceptable tolerance, but every once in a while, there's that one that is just a little 'off'. It'd *probably* shoot okay, but I'd rather not gamble a record shot on 'probably'.

Given that one of my goals with using the 550 is to reduce the number of times I have to touch each individual round (or components thereof), I'm looking to stream-line this portion a bit. It *seems* like a Redding Instant Indicator in station #4 of the charge/seat tool head would give me a quick check of the seating length, and I can catch anything that is 'off' when I rotate the shell plate and snag it before it ends up in the bin.

Anyone here using a similar setup?

 

[DellaDog]

Yep.

Works great. But I’m having a tough time holding +- .001 in a single pass. Usually seat a few thousand long, then reseat.

 

[memilanuk]

Cool!

Looks like you're using a sizing die in station #1? Do you have cases in stations #1 and #3 at the same time?

 

[DellaDog]

Expander, not sizer. The brass is prepped on another toolhead. Not sure if I’ll keep the expander in station 1 or move it to the prep toolhead. It might be contributing to my (slightly compressed) seating depth inconsistencies.

But it’s certainly capable of producing accurate rounds. 75 ELD-M, 24.2 H4895 -.010.

 

[memilanuk]

Interesting... I do brass prep on another tool head as well, with the sizer and expander in one, and then on the tool head for charging & seating I use a decapper in station #1 to clear the flash holes after tumbling the lube off.

Typically I don't have a huge problem keeping +/- 1 thou... but I have found, at least with my setup and nothing in any of the other stations to really 'mask' the feel of seating... that a lot of times the rounds that end up a little long were the ones that seated a little harder, and the ones that ended up short were the ones that seated a little easier than the norm. This is based off of pulling the rounds directly off of station #3 and measuring them with a good digital caliper (Mitutoyo) and the Sinclair tapered comparator insert right then so I can correlate what the seating force felt like with the resulting length base to ogive. Typically I set aside the ones that are 'out of spec', give the short ones a quick tap in a kinetic puller, and pull the button @ station #3 and run them all thru again - and put them in the practice/sighter/fouler box :/

Might be interesting to see what your +/- is without the mandrel there to interfere?

 

[culater]

Yep.

Works great. But I’m having a tough time holding +- .001 in a single pass. Usually seat a few thousand long, then reseat.


View attachment 7015149

Need to know where you got the powder funnel and tube at.

 

[spife7980]

Need to know where you got the powder funnel and tube at.

Down towards the bottom
https://www.area419.com/product-category/reloading/

 

[culater]

Down towards the bottom
https://www.area419.com/product-category/reloading/

Thank you sir