How many rounds per year before a progressive makes sense?

[scooter123]

MN2944, you can save a LOT of time on how long it takes to produce 100 assembled rounds. If you were to take a look at my stored brass stash you would find that my cleaned brass has been sized, de-primed, and flared. Look further and under my loading bench you'll find a stock of cases that are stored by caliber, primed and kept in ziplock bags with the primer used noted. When I want to load up a batch of ammo all that needs to be done is charge the cases and press/crimp the bullets in place. If I'm using an excellent metering powder such as H110 that doesn't take very long at all.

 

[blujax01]

Having a progressive press made sense for me from the get-go. And my decision had absolutely nothing to do with how many rounds per our I could produce.

For others, it never makes sense. And their decision is based on the same logic as mine.

 

[blujax01]

MN2944, you can save a LOT of time on how long it takes to produce 100 assembled rounds. If you were to take a look at my stored brass stash you would find that my cleaned brass has been sized, de-primed, and flared. Look further and under my loading bench you'll find a stock of cases that are stored by caliber, primed and kept in ziplock bags with the primer used noted. When I want to load up a batch of ammo all that needs to be done is charge the cases and press/crimp the bullets in place. If I'm using an excellent metering powder such as H110 that doesn't take very long at all.

Uh, Scooter...you need to take into account the time it took to size, deprime, and flare those cases.

Anyone can post a faster lap time if they don't start the watch until after the second turn!

 

[old&slow]

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I timed myself the other day and made 100 rounds of 38spl on my Rockchucker in 1:06.

Wow. a 100 rds. and hour , that seems like a pretty good cycle rate. I have two Dillon 550's and a RCBS single stage. On the Dillon's I figure I do about 300 or so an hour. On the single stage I have no idea ( it seems like it takes forever,, to load a hundred rds. )

What I suggest to folks that ask me. If you shoot a couple hundred rounds a year, a single stage is fine. If you shoot a couple thousand rounds a year, you may want to consider a progressive.

In the 80's my brother and I started shooting bowling pin matches once a month. That's when I got my first 550. About the same time we started NRA Action Pistol and IPSC. I don't know how many tens of thousands of rounds I have loaded on my Dillon. But I do know I would Never give it up.

Except for the .223, most of my rifle stuff is loaded on the RCBS because I may only shoot a few, to a couple hundred rounds a year with them. And I don't have the dillon set-up for those calibers.

So, I've been a smurf blue cool-aid drinker for years.. And I Like it.

 

[brucev]

Re: OP. For handgun rounds, the pay off in time is immediate. I like to shoot my handguns. I like to shoot them a lot. It takes a lot of time to produce 500 rds. or so, much more for 1K...2K. I have a Hornady LnL AP. It dramatically speeds up loading for my routine shooting.

For rifles... I still use the single-stage press some. I just have not yet AP loading for a rifle. I shoot .30-06 in my 03 and 03-A3 rifles and prefer to neck size the rounds, etc. I shoot a good bit of cast lead bullets in these rifles using pistol powders. Sooner or later I'll be loading the rifle rounds on the AP. I've just got to get used to it.

 

[MN2944]

Wow. a 100 rds. and hour , that seems like a pretty good cycle rate. I have two Dillon 550's and a RCBS single stage. On the Dillon's I figure I do about 300 or so an hour. On the single stage I have no idea ( it seems like it takes forever,, to load a hundred rds. )

Even at that rate, it's a heck of a lot of motions on a single stage. Size-Flare-Prime-Charge-Seat-(crimp separately?). 500 or 600 strokes of some kind of press. Gets a bit tough on the shoulders, and thats just 2 boxes.

 

[old&slow]

Even at that rate, it's a heck of a lot of motions on a single stage. Size-Flare-Prime-Charge-Seat-(crimp separately?). 500 or 600 strokes of some kind of press. Gets a bit tough on the shoulders, and thats just 2 boxes.

500 strokes = 500 rounds. Got my first 550 in the 80's and have never regretted it. Never used the 650 it's suppose to be a lot faster. And have never used the progressive red or green presses. They may be just as good , don't really know.

The only problem is, when I was loading on the single stage I would get a couple hundred primers, a pound of powder,, and a couple hundred bullets.

With the progressive, I started getting 5 to 10 thousand primers at a time.. and ordered enough bullets at a time that my mailman & my UPS man now hate me....

Good luck on what you decide to do..

 

[Rule3]

It is all a matter of how much ammo you need and how much time you have or want to take to load ammo. Quality is up to you regardless of what press you use.

Only you can answer that.

I can live with a Turret press. (I started on a regular single stage) My primary reason was I load about every handgun caliber and 4 rifle. I do not need mass quantities of ammo but I do need caliber changes fast and easy. So the money that would have gone to just a Progressive press (machine) went to more dies and turrets. I also do not have the room for a bigger press.

Sure a progressive would be nice for the majority of say 9mm and 45 ACP but I would still shoot the same amount that I do now.

After some surgery I had to lay low for a few weeks, so I just used the turret as a single stage and it was therapeutic

The difference in quantity for me between a single (batch loading) and turret is only about 50 rounds and hour.

If I shot competition and needed a gazillion rounds a week then that would be another story.

 

[calmex]

Thanks for your excellent post, calex.

How is it that you can shoot 10,000 rounds yearly in Mexico? Are you a civilian, or military or law enforcement? I thought that possession of firearms by civilians in Mexico was illegal.

Thanks in advance for the explanation.

Do not think that it's easy. But the stories you've heard about firearms possession by civilians in Mexico being illegal are somewhat wrong. You have to jump through a lot of hoops and there are a lot of restrictions but yes, you can have some guns. 15 years ago, powder and primers were still sold here over-the-counter and it's still legal under the law, however the Mexican Army says "No, we will not allow it." Like anything Government does not want people to have, those who want it find ways to get it. There's more than one border, there's more than one way.

Being in a Gun Club down here -- well, any sort of progressive-type club that shoots IPSC, the PPC and stuff like that (and promotes reloading and other "BAD" things) is like being in the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club. I can't tell you whether I'm Jax or Clay or Piney, but I'm one of them. It's more exciting than needle-work.

There are some good posts with information about the Gun Laws in Mexico and stuff in general in these threads (the entire thread may not be dedicated to the subject, but thread-stealer that I am I have posted within them on the topic):

http://smith-wessonforum.com/lounge...col.html?highlight=International+Law+Protocol

http://smith-wessonforum.com/lounge/341666-mexico.html?highlight=International+Law+Protocol

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-ha...sit.html?highlight=International+Law+Protocol

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-ha...47-penultimate-pre-postwar-magnum-mexico.html

Part of the problem down here was that the Mexican Shooters didn't tend to trust each other -- after many years of Government oversite since the 1972 - 73 Draconian gunlaw came into being. Now, we've grown up quite well and have small factions of IPSC/IDPA/NRA Action shooters here, in Queretaro, Guadalajara, Leon, Mexico City and Merida. It looks like the Mexican Shooting Federation is seriously looking at approving the IPSC and NRA Action rulebooks (translated into Spanish).

Things are moving ahead. But one must still be careful. The Mexican Army still doesn't want any reloading, so one needs to be very careful here. A person with registered guns is permitted to buy 200 rounds (at super inflated prices) per month per caliber registered.

Unlike the Sons of Anarchy, we do not "bump off" rats who run to the Army with information. They are simply exiled from the Clubs. After about 6 years of this policy, most people coming in these days understand that working with the Club instead of trying to benefit personally by being a "rat-middleman" is probably a good idea because the Mexican Shooting World is a pretty closed fraternity and getting kicked out of it means you're pretty much done with Sport Shooting while you live down here. A sort of "fear us more than you fear them..." sort of atmosphere that has allowed Civilian Sport Shooting to take a nice foot-hold in the last decade down here.

It is not perfect (although the weather pretty much is). But like Edmond O'Brien said on the same topic about the same place at the end of The Wild Bunch, "...but it'll do."

 

[johngalt]

I switched from a single stage to a progressive when tedium of using a single stage made me question the value of reloading at all. I was only shooting about 200/week.

I disagree with statements that 'a single stage gives better quality control'. A progressive adds mechanical safeties and is less susceptible to human error from attention wandering. For example, an RCBS lockout die checks every powder charge, whether or not I forget to look myself. Auto-indexing lessens the chance of double-charging a case. It also adds consistency and repeatability.

If you are cranking out 100/hour, start to finish including deprime, resize, prime, etc. how much 'quality control' is really going on? Can you guarantee that your attention never wandered, even once, in all that time?

A tedious process does not necessarily equate to 'better quality'.

 

[Doubless]

I believe the "point of decision making" is determining how many calibers you load for. In my own case, I have handguns in 32, 9MM/.380, 38/357, 41, 44, 45 Colt and ACP, and 454 Casull. To feed them all loading single stage would take all my time. I also load for the .223/5.56 and 6 X 45 on the AR platform, and have a 358 Gremlin upper in the works (waiting on a barrel).

Then there are the rifle calibers for the bolt guns: 22 Hornet, .222, 22-250, 6 Remington, .270, all the way up to the 35 Whelen and 45-70. I don't load for all of them on a progressive, but if I can find powder that drops consistently, they get loaded on the RCBS Piggyback. It is simply a matter of time spent, as I see it.

As for safety concerns, the Piggyback has its idiosyncracies, as I guess they all do; but if you use the primer lockout pin in the feed tube and watch what you are doing, the Piggyback is no more or less "unsafe" than loading single stage, in my estimation: watch the primer feed, watch the powder drop, and make sure you add a case and projectile before every pull of the handle, and one can easily load 300 cases an hour if the primer tubes are filled prior to start.

Now: that time doesn't include case prep for the rifle cases, of course, but that is factored in whether you are loading single stage or progressive...

My final statement would be to load single stage for a while, until you have a firm grasp on every step and why; then go progressive. I think it makes the new learning curve go a bit faster.

 

[MN2944]

My final statement would be to load single stage for a while, until you have a firm grasp on every step and why; then go progressive. I think it makes the new learning curve go a bit faster.

As I said in my OP, I've been loading on a single stage for about 20 years. Tens of thousands of rounds. I don't know everything, but have a pretty good grasp of how to set things up.

 

[Doubless]

As I said in my OP, I've been loading on a single stage for about 20 years. Tens of thousands of rounds. I don't know everything, but have a pretty good grasp of how to set things up.

Nothing personal intended, and I apologize. By the time I read all the response posts I had forgotten that statement. It would have been better written to state that my recommendation to any new reloader would be to load singe stage for a while...

 

[scooter123]

Uh, Scooter...you need to take into account the time it took to size, deprime, and flare those cases.

Anyone can post a faster lap time if they don't start the watch until after the second turn!

I won't argue your point because you are 100% correct, the total time for single staging must include every operation. All I was doing was pointing out that when single staging you don't have to be chained to the press from start to finish. Instead you can do each stage when you have a bit of free time. Then, by maintaining a stock of cleaned, flared, and primed brass, when you want to assemble some ammo right quick it's an easy task to accomplish.

BTW, one question about loading on a progressive that I've never been able to figure out an answer to. That is how do you clean your primer pockets? Yeah, clean primer pockets probably don't matter unless you have OCD. However some of us reloaders do have a touch of OCD.

Bad Joke of the Day. How does an Obsessive Compulsive measure his powder charges?

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1, 2, 3, 4, 5...........................................................................138.

 

[Bkreutz]

Never clean primer pockets, I load and shoot over 50K 9mm rounds a year. (guess that eliminates me from the OCD fraternity )

 

[novalty]

Never clean primer pockets, I load and shoot over 50K 9mm rounds a year. (guess that eliminates me from the OCD fraternity )

Holy cow! You shoot over 800lbs of lead in 9mm form each year?!

 

[MN2944]

Never clean primer pockets, I load and shoot over 50K 9mm rounds a year. (guess that eliminates me from the OCD fraternity )

I'm not questioning you or trying to be confrontational, but am genuinely curious about the type of shooting you do to consume that much ammo. 1000 rounds per week seems like a lot for anyone who isn't employed in the industry or being paid to shoot.

 

[Bkreutz]

I'm not questioning you or trying to be confrontational, but am genuinely curious about the type of shooting you do to consume that much ammo. 1000 rounds per week seems like a lot for anyone who isn't employed in the industry or being paid to shoot.

It's my retirement activity, I don't play golf, own a motor home, or like to take sea cruises. I practice at the range 4-5 times a week (200 rounds per trip), I shoot at least 1 match per week year round and this time of year it's at least 2 per week (another 300 rounds or so). Doesn't take long, I guessed at the 50K but it's probably a bit more. I don't keep an accurate count. I don't just blast away at the range, I have a practice schedule that concentrates on certain areas, usually pertaining to the upcoming match. I shoot IDPA, USPSA, Steel Challenge, and various unaffiliated club shoots. Not hard to shoot this much (if one doesn't have to bother with work or other such silly stuff).

 

[Bkreutz]

Holy cow! You shoot over 800lbs of lead in 9mm form each year?!

885 to be exact (I shoot 124gr bullets)

 

[novalty]

885 to be exact (I shoot 124gr bullets)

How much lead do you have on hand? You must run a magma caster?