Reducing time spent reloading

[riverrat13]

I wanted to get some opinions from the forum on different avenues to reduce time spent precision rifle reloading.

My current setup/steps:

1) Deprime - This is what it is nothing really to improve here.
2) Anneal (if needed)
3) Tumble - Using a Hornady Tumbler.
4) Trim(if needed)/Chamber/Deburr/Clean Primer Pockets - I am currently using a Franklin Arsenal Case Prep Center. This is probably my least favorite part of reloading. Any pointers or suggestions on a better product is appreciated.
5) Lube - I use imperial wax putting it on my hand. This is another time consuming process that I think I could be more efficient with. However, I really like the wax over one shot style lubes.
6) FL Resize - Forster Press and Redding Comp Dies. I am little to anal here I check my shoulder bump every other round.
7) Clean - I clean the wax by hand after every resize. Another time consuming process. Maybe I should just tumble again?
8) Prime - I am using an RCBS table mounted primer. It is pretty efficient.
9) Charge and Seat - I do this simultaneously with my A&D Scale, Auto Thrower, and Trickler. I seat with Forster MM Dies. This scale drastically reduced my reloading time and was probably by best investment to date. I check each round for COAL OGIVE measurements. I try to stay within a +/- 0.005 range.

Currently I am spending around 3-4 hours per 50 rounds. Any critics/suggestions to improve/reduce my time spent reloading?

 

[Jrb572]

Use this as lube. Imperial wax is awesome but takes forever

Brass Case Resizing Lube

Is the time you spend resizing brass significantly slowing down your reloading process and turning it into a tedious chore? The 6.5 Guys tested a technique that significantly speeds up resizing, i…

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[cdeiglmeier]

Get a Giraud trimmer - trims, chamfers, deburs in one step. That and an AD Fx120i are the best reloading room investments. Stop worrying about primer pockets. Using most quality brass (lapua, Alpha, Peterson) no need to uniform primer pockets nor clean them after you tumble. I've never found a difference between clean or dirty primer pockets. Use a different lube like said above. I use Hornady OneShot and never had a problem. Imperial wax takes forever. Stop checking every round or every other round when sizing or seating. If your die and press are setup properly they will be within spec. Check 1 in every 10 or 20 if you so please.

 

[918v]

Don’t reload fired brass. Instead, load new brass.

 

[Huskydriver]

Dillon...Dillon... Dillon

 

[Dthomas3523]

Get a brass catcher. Then:

Wipe brass down with rag (it didn’t hit the dirt, don’t worry with cleaning)
Anneal
lube
Size/decap (shouldn’t need to measure every other)
Mandrel if applicable
Trim/chamfer/deburr
Prime/powder/seat
Wipe wax off loaded rounds with rag or tumble loaded rounds.

Done

No need to decap first and no need to clean primer pockets. Neither will help with your load.

 

[Steel head]

I anneal about every fifth loading.
I clean out the primer pocket about every tenth loading
I prefer imperial as well.
I just wipe it off.
My most tedious step is throwing charges, need to get a V3 eventually.

 

[1moaoff]

Primer pockets rarely
Annealing every 2nd or third time, amp with auto feed and dillon case feeder
Spray lube in a bag or box
X2 chargemaster or x1 v3 ( or like me I go back and forth)
Dillon with case feeder for de prime size and mandrel
Faster trimmer

 

[1moaoff]

Measure the first 5 or 10 to verify then about 1 in 50

 

[1moaoff]

And you shouldn't need to trim each time

 

[Jayhawkhuntclub]

Lose the tumbler. Just not necessary.

 

[LostInJersey]

And you shouldn't need to trim each time

I've got two sets of 6.5 Creedmoor brass. Half are Starline small primer and the other half are Lapua small primer. Some of the brass is on like it's 5th round of being loaded. I load at 40.3gr H4350 so the brass is hardly stretched. None of it has needed to be trimmed yet and they all are consistent lengths.

1. Spray with Dillon Case Lube (Just started this on my last batch. It's worked insanely well.)
2. Deprime/FL size
3. Prime
4. Charge
5. Seat bullet
6. Have a beer.

Doesn't take too long even on my single stage press.

 

[Steel head]

And you shouldn't need to trim each time

I rarely have to trim my brass more than once or twice in its life unless it lasts crazy long like my last batch of 260 brass did.

 

[Rocketmandb]

5) Lube - I use imperial wax putting it on my hand. This is another time consuming process that I think I could be more efficient with. However, I really like the wax over one shot style lubes.
6) FL Resize - Forster Press and Redding Comp Dies. I am little to anal here I check my shoulder bump every other round.

Not sure if you are lubing up all the cases at once time, but I do these two steps together for each case. Pull one out of the tray, run my fingers over it (tap lube prior if necessary), then put it in the press and resize.

 

[Powder_Burns]

Get two buddies that shoot the same load you do, then split up the work load for brass prep.
Split up the work load for powder and bullet seating. You can bang out 1000rd in a few hours on a single stage that way.
For case lube I use a lube pad, do 10 pieces of brass at a time.

 

[lightman]

A few suggestions from looking at your list, by number.

1. Theres no need to deprime as a separate step unless you plan to wet tumble those cases. Let your sizing die do it.
2. You don't need to anneal every time. Maybe every 5th time.
3. You don't have to tumble every time. Shiny is nice but not necessary. Its a personal preference.
4. You don't have to trim or clean primer pockets every time. Look at getting a motorized trimmer. I like my Giraud.
5. Get a spray lube and lube them 50 at a time. Use an old towel and brake cleaner to remove the lube.
6. Adjust your die, check the first few and forget it. No point in checking and rechecking.
7. Addressed in #5. Spray them with brake cleaner, roll them around on an old towel and let it evaporate.
8. Your priming method looks fine.
9. Your charging method looks fine. I use a tray and charge 50 at a time. I look at each one before I seat a bullet.

Everybody has a method thats comfortable to them. I uniform primer pockets with a tool from Sinclair and use the same tool to clean them. I also use another tool from Sinclair to debur the flash hole. Some shooters consider both things to be a waste of time. I use Dillon's case lube spray and put 50 or 100 cases in a ZipLoc bag, give them a few squirts, roll them around some and dump them out to dry. I hand prime with a Sinclair hand tool, usually in the living room where I can be around thee family. I use a ChargeMaster to weigh powder, backed up by an old beam scale. I'll charge 50 cases and then look down into all 50, verifying that all have the same level of powder in them.

I hope these suggestions at least give you something to think about.

 

[wpgk58]

I wanted to get some opinions from the forum on different avenues to reduce time spent precision rifle reloading.

My current setup/steps:

1) Deprime - This is what it is nothing really to improve here.
2) Anneal (if needed)
3) Tumble - Using a Hornady Tumbler.
4) Trim(if needed)/Chamber/Deburr/Clean Primer Pockets - I am currently using a Franklin Arsenal Case Prep Center. This is probably my least favorite part of reloading. Any pointers or suggestions on a better product is appreciated.
5) Lube - I use imperial wax putting it on my hand. This is another time consuming process that I think I could be more efficient with. However, I really like the wax over one shot style lubes.
6) FL Resize - Forster Press and Redding Comp Dies. I am little to anal here I check my shoulder bump every other round.
7) Clean - I clean the wax by hand after every resize. Another time consuming process. Maybe I should just tumble again?
8) Prime - I am using an RCBS table mounted primer. It is pretty efficient.
9) Charge and Seat - I do this simultaneously with my A&D Scale, Auto Thrower, and Trickler. I seat with Forster MM Dies. This scale drastically reduced my reloading time and was probably by best investment to date. I check each round for COAL OGIVE measurements. I try to stay within a +/- 0.005 range.

Currently I am spending around 3-4 hours per 50 rounds. Any critics/suggestions to improve/reduce my time spent reloading?

For me Cleaning prior to Depriming thru Resizing take about 20 minutes per 50 rounds.
Then into wet tumble which is 4-4.5 hours of tumbling and drying and inspection.
Then Trimming/Deburring/Chamfering with Giraud Trimmer take about 5 minutes per 50.
Then Priming thru into the box takes me an average of 40 minutes (little as 35 minutes, as much as 45 minutes)
So actual action time is about 65 minutes with cleaning time excluded. I usually have several batches or calibers to reload, so I am doing a couple of loading sequences while batch is tumbling. I love my A&D 120fx with Autoloader and Autotrickler. It has been one of the biggest time and frustration fixes in my shop. I have mine tuned to 8 seconds from pan on to finished load. It take longer to pull the pan and dump the powder into the funnel and return the pan, than to drop the powder.
I batch lube with 10:1 alcohol:liquid lanolin. Couple squirts and a couple of shakes and done. Then I take a break for a few minutes to let the alcohol evaporate and off the sizer. The 20 minutes stated above includes 4-5 minutes evaporation time (usually a good time to get a beer or get rid of a beer).
I am always like you looking for ways to improve timing and precision, hence all the specialized tools.
Happy Loading

 

[never_summer]

I use to measure every 5 cases until I realized unless I’ve done something wrong, the measurements don’t tend to change. I’ll measure every 25 rounds just because it’s in the back of my head, but every other is wasting time. This is for both sizing and seating, if you’ve got quality bullets the runout should be minimal and if it doesn’t shoot with that little variation in seating depth then look for a different setting.

Use to deprime then tumble and found no benefits in it, now just deprime and size at the same time. That should save a little time along with not cleaning primer pockets.

The imperial wax you probably are being too anal with as it can be pretty fast as you move brass to sizing, but the spray on lubes are super simple.

If you want to speed up trimming, shoot an Ackley cartridge

 

[Greg Langelius *]

I wanted to get some opinions from the forum on different avenues to reduce time spent precision rifle reloading.

My current setup/steps:

1) Deprime - This is what it is nothing really to improve here.
2) Anneal (if needed)
3) Tumble - Using a Hornady Tumbler.
4) Trim(if needed)/Chamber/Deburr/Clean Primer Pockets - I am currently using a Franklin Arsenal Case Prep Center. This is probably my least favorite part of reloading. Any pointers or suggestions on a better product is appreciated.
5) Lube - I use imperial wax putting it on my hand. This is another time consuming process that I think I could be more efficient with. However, I really like the wax over one shot style lubes.
6) FL Resize - Forster Press and Redding Comp Dies. I am little to anal here I check my shoulder bump every other round.
7) Clean - I clean the wax by hand after every resize. Another time consuming process. Maybe I should just tumble again?
8) Prime - I am using an RCBS table mounted primer. It is pretty efficient.
9) Charge and Seat - I do this simultaneously with my A&D Scale, Auto Thrower, and Trickler. I seat with Forster MM Dies. This scale drastically reduced my reloading time and was probably by best investment to date. I check each round for COAL OGIVE measurements. I try to stay within a +/- 0.005 range.

Currently I am spending around 3-4 hours per 50 rounds. Any critics/suggestions to improve/reduce my time spent reloading?

I often or sometimes always skip the highlighted steps.

I never anneal, mainly because I don't keep reloading the brass at the point where it's needed. Brass at that stage is used for one more reloading. That ammunition is for stockpiling.

Tumbling is usually not needed for my brass, since it's normally collected in a brass catcher. Soot is an issue, but a wipe with rubbing alcohol generally cleans the brass well enough to reload just fine.

In the 25 or more years since I started reloading, I've never trimmed my brass. When the brass gets close to trim length, it gets used for stockpiled ammunition, as above.
However, since the proliferation of AR's in my collection, trimming may become an option. I just bought a World's Greatest Trimmer in 6.5 Grendel, as well as a W's G Trimmer II with inserts for 260 and 308; so I can do the task when the need becomes apparent.

Ditto the above about depriming and resizing as s single step. I don't clean primer pockets. There are steps regarding concentricity and other fine points that are really irrelevant with SAAMI chambers, which is the only chamber spec I'll ever use.

Simplicity is the key to my reloading process. I'm not a benchrest shooter, and I gave up formal competitive shooting a few years back; so the more extensive additional accuracy steps are not my thing. Of course there's an accuracy sacrifice. This can be minimized by dedicating significant care to the details of the fewer steps I still perform. The accuracy criteria I embrace are about 'defeating' the target, or achieving a meaningful hit on the chosen target. As long as I'm not wasting ammunition, I'm doing adequately well for my simpler purposes.

Greg

 

[BCMulx]

Some ideas:

Dedicated depriming press. Always set up with a depriming die. Inline Precision Case Ejector System. (Lee single stage works)

Don't stainless tumble. There are advocates for leaving the inside of the necks dirty, and having that give you more consistent ES/SD

Redding T7 Turret press with extra turrets. Dies are always set up for your given rifle, rarely need re-adjusting (unless Throat lengthens, want to try a different seating depth)

Micrometer seating die, very quick and easy to switch seating depths

Inline Precision Mounts if you don't have the space to leave everything set up


Expensive Stuff:

Annealing Made Perfect MKII for annealing. Haven't used their AMP Mate yet.

Autotrickler/Autothrow with A&D FX120i for charging

Henderson or Giraud for Trim/Chamfer/Deburr

Primal Rights Competition Primer Seater