Need more ammo faster.....Advice?

[shooter115]

Question for the serious reloaders here. Looking to increase my efficiency a bit. I shoot a lot of 5.56 ammo a year between 3-gun, practice, hunting and just screwing around. I’m currently doing the case prep on a batch of 5K rounds of LC brass.
Here’s my normal routine for case prep.
1. Sort and inspect the cases
2. Tumble polish
3. Lube cases in trays neck up with Hornady One Shot spray lube
4. Size on a single stage Rockchucker with a FL Redding competition die
5. Tumble a second time to remove case lube
6. Inspect all cases and flash holes to make sure there’s no tumbling media stuck where it shouldn’t be. This is the part that sucks because about one out of every two cases has a kernel of media stuck in the flash hole that has to popped out with a dental pick.
7. Clean primer pockets and remove any crimps with a little gizmo from Hornady chucked in the cordless drill.
8. Trim all cases using a Little Crow Gunworks “World’s Finest Trimmer” in a drill
9. Chamfer the case mouths with a de-burring tool in a drill at low speed
10. 8. De-burr all the case mouths by hand
Using this procedure for 5k rounds I have 50,000 individual acts that need to happen. So I hope you can see my hoping to increase my efficiency. I’m hoping to eliminate at least one step to increase my efficiency by at least 10%.
Couple of ideas. Both of which eliminate having to inspect and clear flash holes when I tumble after sizing.
My first thought is to do all the case prep without tumbling after sizing and just do a quick 10 minute tumble on the loaded ammo. I’ve done quite a bit of searching and it seems most research supports the fact that briefly tumbling loaded ammo does not affect the powder. What concerns me is, what are the effects of still having case lube on the inside of the case for neck tension. I don’t crimp any of my 5.56 rounds and I don’t want my bullets moving in the cases on recoil.
Second option is to tumble all my rounds after all case prep is done and use a universal de-capping die on the first stage of my Dillon 550 to remove any stuck media from the flash holes. What I don’t like about that is tumbling rounds after the necks have been chamfered and de-burred. Running them through a rotary sifter at this point makes it pretty easy to ding up the case mouths. Thereby risking gouging the jackets on the bullets and all sorts of concentricity issues.
Any other loaders here that work with larger volumes of ammo? Feel free to offer your input and let me know what your loading procedure is. First person to say buy a Super 1050, has to sell me theirs for $10.00

[RJWesleyIII]

I use a dillon 650 and just recently bought the dillon rapid trimmer. Now I size deprime in station 1, and trim in station 4. I do about 800ish an hour. After that, I use the dillon swager on the military crimped brass. Then I switch plates and start reloading. I used to have the trimmer you have. My fingers would get blisters. After buying the dillon trimmer, I'll never look back. Now the trimmer in the drill would be perfect for low amounts of brass. But for big quantities, the dillon trimmer is sweet!
Here is my steps:
Clean
Sort, inspect
Lube with dillon case lube
Size deprime and trim
Switch plates and load
Tumble for 10mins to remove lube
Hope this helps

[LarryFlew]

Have never had a problem with case lube and have never removed it from inside or outside of the cases other than the final nylon brush on my case prep machine.

I use an RCBS case prep machine to hurry the process just a bit. Does the deburring inside and out, primer pockets and a final brush to make sure all the media is out of the cases. They run about a hundred bucks when they are on sale.

[Erud]

Question for the serious reloaders here. Looking to increase my efficiency a bit. I shoot a lot of 5.56 ammo a year between 3-gun, practice, hunting and just screwing around. I’m currently doing the case prep on a batch of 5K rounds of LC brass.
Here’s my normal routine for case prep.
1. Sort and inspect the cases
2. Tumble polish
3. Lube cases in trays neck up with Hornady One Shot spray lube
4. Size on a single stage Rockchucker with a FL Redding competition die
5. Tumble a second time to remove case lube
6. Inspect all cases and flash holes to make sure there’s no tumbling media stuck where it shouldn’t be. This is the part that sucks because about one out of every two cases has a kernel of media stuck in the flash hole that has to popped out with a dental pick.
7. Clean primer pockets and remove any crimps with a little gizmo from Hornady chucked in the cordless drill.
8. Trim all cases using a Little Crow Gunworks “World’s Finest Trimmer” in a drill
9. Chamfer the case mouths with a de-burring tool in a drill at low speed
10. 8. De-burr all the case mouths by hand
Using this procedure for 5k rounds I have 50,000 individual acts that need to happen. So I hope you can see my hoping to increase my efficiency. I’m hoping to eliminate at least one step to increase my efficiency by at least 10%.
Couple of ideas. Both of which eliminate having to inspect and clear flash holes when I tumble after sizing.
My first thought is to do all the case prep without tumbling after sizing and just do a quick 10 minute tumble on the loaded ammo. I’ve done quite a bit of searching and it seems most research supports the fact that briefly tumbling loaded ammo does not affect the powder. What concerns me is, what are the effects of still having case lube on the inside of the case for neck tension. I don’t crimp any of my 5.56 rounds and I don’t want my bullets moving in the cases on recoil.
Second option is to tumble all my rounds after all case prep is done and use a universal de-capping die on the first stage of my Dillon 550 to remove any stuck media from the flash holes. What I don’t like about that is tumbling rounds after the necks have been chamfered and de-burred. Running them through a rotary sifter at this point makes it pretty easy to ding up the case mouths. Thereby risking gouging the jackets on the bullets and all sorts of concentricity issues.
Any other loaders here that work with larger volumes of ammo? Feel free to offer your input and let me know what your loading procedure is. First person to say buy a Super 1050, has to sell me theirs for $10.00

A couple of ideas. I think for your purposes, you are doing a lot more work than you really need to. If 3-gun and hunting are your main pursuits, you are really not going to see benefits from trimming, chamfering and deburring after each firing for the accuracy required for those types of shooting. Also, the second tumble to remove the Hornady OneShot is not necessary. I've never used any other case lube and have never cleaned a single case afterwards and have seen no ill effects after 10 years and many thousands of rounds. Universal de-capper on the 550 is a good idea, and is what I use. Keep the de-capper set up on a separate tool head and throw it on whenever you need to de-prime. If you were to switch to wet tumbling with stainless media, you could skip cleaning the flash holes also.

I shoot around 30 NRA Highpower matches per summer and the only cases that I bother chamfering and deburring at all are my 600 yard cases to shoot at the National Matches and my long range Palma and 6mmSLR ammo. I have shot quite a few 200's with 50%+ x-count at 600 yards with brass that has just been de-capped, cleaned, and then loaded on my 550. For 600 yards and in, I really dont't think all of the extra processes will make much difference. I have shot lots of clean targets at 200 and 300 yard rapid fire stages with fire-forming loads with runout as high as .005" - .008". It just doesn't seem to matter at those distances. I just do the extra stuff for the nationals because it makes me feel good and even a single point can count. At 800, 900 and 1000, everything starts to matter, so I go a lot further with the minutiae.

Good luck,
Erik

[Retread1911]

I process brass for 30$ per K if you are interested there are several threads around about my process and pics

http://retread1911.shutterfly.com/pictures/276

A pic above of how the brass comes out. Ready to load a 1.750 +-.002

I live by BPR and work by gunstop for pick up and delivery. I can turn a batch of 10K in about 2 weeks right now.

Cheers
Retread.

[hydraulicman]

I would go with a dillon 650 and two tool heads one for size and trim and the other to prime powder and seat /crimp bullets. This will take care of most everything except crimped primer pockets.

clean lube
size /trim
swage primer pockets or chamfer (however you choose)
put on second tool head
primer , powder, bullet seat, crimp.
Done

Just a thought.

all that equipment is not cheap but it's fast and it's not a Super 1050.
Good luck

[shooter115]

Thanks for the input everyone. I’ll admit coming from a benchrest, varmint hunting and F-class background I am really picky about my handloads. I typically see .5-.75 MOA with full brass prep, using 55gr Hornady FMJ’s and 25gr of H335. The Hornady’s are the only FMJ I’ve found that will group well enough for me and they are pretty cheap. I could probably get the same accuracy with better bullets and sloppier brass prep, but that would cost quite a bit more. I’ll try to hit all the replies in one shot here.

Buying a new 650 and Dillon trimmer is not an option. For the time being I’m stuck with what I have to get the job done.

I have one of the RCBS case-masters (I think that’s what it’s called) and it’s way too slow for bulk brass processing. It works okay if you’re doing small lots though.

I trim every time I process a batch of brass because I'm picking up LEO range brass and buying once fired gov. brass when I find it cheap, so I'm not using my own previously trimmed to a known length brass. Even once fired LC brass seems to range from about 1.752 to 1.770 after sizing. Most is right around the 1.755 range which is where I set my WFT. So I’m actually not trimming all the cases, but I do want them to be +/- .003.

The reason I want to remove the case lube, is that while better than most the Hornady One-Shot still leaves a semi-sticky residue on the cases leaving the chance for dust and debris to stick to casings. For the most part 3-Gun matches present a lot harsher shooting environment than High-Power. You’re in the rain, snow, dirt and mud, dropping mags, using trees and such for support at times. I don’t want any extra crud that might be stuck to the cartridges making its way into my guns.

As far as not needing accurate ammo for 3-gun, look at it this way. My ammo at .5MOA at 400 yards yields a 2” group in a perfect world, this in essence makes that steel 10” plate out there at 400 present an 8” target area. Now if my rifle/ammo only shoots 2MOA, that 10” plate only has a target area of 2” if I want to put every round on target. After running, shooting, running, loading, running and more shooting, you’re winded and your heart is beating, now add in the fact you are shooting from and awkward position and the wind is blowing 15mph. Would you rather be shooting at an 8” target area to make the hit on the first round or one that’s only 2”.

Thanks for the offer Retread, but since I don’t live anywhere near the metro area it would cost me almost as much to ship it back and forth as it would to have you do the prep work.

I think I’m just going to try 100 with just tumbling the rounds after loading and compare them to some I have loaded now to see if there’s a difference. I wish I had a scientific way to measure neck tension between them.

[Erud]

As far as not needing accurate ammo for 3-gun, look at it this way. My ammo at .5MOA at 400 yards yields a 2” group in a perfect world, this in essence makes that steel 10” plate out there at 400 present an 8” target area. Now if my rifle/ammo only shoots 2MOA, that 10” plate only has a target area of 2” if I want to put every round on target. After running, shooting, running, loading, running and more shooting, you’re winded and your heart is beating, now add in the fact you are shooting from and awkward position and the wind is blowing 15mph. Would you rather be shooting at an 8” target area to make the hit on the first round or one that’s only 2”.

I was not suggesting that you don't need accurate ammo, just that the minutiae is not likely to yield real-world results in that type of competition. Just like it really doesn't in regular HP until you start getting out a long ways. Sub-MOA is not too hard to achieve in good AR's with decent ammo. My 6mm match upper will shoot .5 MPA pretty easily without doing any brass prep at all and no load development whatsoever since the first barrel, it's on the 3rd now. Getting it down to .3 or .4 MOA is not really worth much time to me as it isn't generally going to result in more points. The 10-ring is 2 MOA and the x-ring is 1 MOA. My hold and everything else will blow a shot long before the tiny details come into play. On F-Class targets it gets more important and certainly in Benchrest, where the whole point is shooting the tiniest group possible. In 3-gun, there are no 400-yard 2" groups from any gun, there are just too many other variables that keep it from happening.

There is of course nothing at all wrong with making the most accurate ammo possible, I do it myself for certain applications. It's just that if you are looking to save time, there are plenty of corners that can be cut that don't result in much difference. I guess if you are not looking to add any new gear and are using range pickup brass and not reusing it, you are kind of stuck with trimming, etc for every case....

Good luck,
Erik

[Retread1911]

Thanks for the input everyone. ..........


Thanks for the offer Retread, but since I don’t live anywhere near the metro area it would cost me almost as much to ship it back and forth as it would to have you do the prep work.

Your welcome. I do have some customers that ship but as you said it is 24$ round trip for a 1500 count medium flat rate box.

One thing I recommend to my customers may be applicable to you. If you back off our sizing die several turns on the final loading head and run the decap pin down you can effectively tumble after processing and before loading without slowing down to clean the flash holes manually. The size die is out of the way and the decap pin clears the flash hole. I do also recommend removing the expander ball as the neck tension improves with my process.

Cheers Retread

[crbutler]

If I am using one shot or similar, I don't do the second tumbling. If you do it right, all you are dealing with is a bit of dry lube, so it won't affect the powder, and with the expander ball going through, there should not be any real residue in the case neck to affect tension. In any case, I would think re tumbling the case with the resultant dings in the neck would have a larger effect than the lube. Using a Dillon 1050 with the swage set does speed up the military brass a bit...

I used to use dillon's lube and run the finished product with bullet through a short course in the tumbler to get it off, but spent too much time messing with getting media out of hollow points and breaking the plastic tips off, although I have to admit that I didn't see any real accuracy or chrono changes in doing the cleaning that way, which is what the manuals said you might see. With FMJ's, maybe not an issue.

[shooter115]

As far as not needing accurate ammo for 3-gun, look at it this way. My ammo at .5MOA at 400 yards yields a 2” group in a perfect world, this in essence makes that steel 10” plate out there at 400 present an 8” target area. Now if my rifle/ammo only shoots 2MOA, that 10” plate only has a target area of 2” if I want to put every round on target. After running, shooting, running, loading, running and more shooting, you’re winded and your heart is beating, now add in the fact you are shooting from and awkward position and the wind is blowing 15mph. Would you rather be shooting at an 8” target area to make the hit on the first round or one that’s only 2”.

I was not suggesting that you don't need accurate ammo, just that the minutiae is not likely to yield real-world results in that type of competition. Just like it really doesn't in regular HP until you start getting out a long ways. Sub-MOA is not too hard to achieve in good AR's with decent ammo. My 6mm match upper will shoot .5 MPA pretty easily without doing any brass prep at all and no load development whatsoever since the first barrel, it's on the 3rd now. Getting it down to .3 or .4 MOA is not really worth much time to me as it isn't generally going to result in more points. The 10-ring is 2 MOA and the x-ring is 1 MOA. My hold and everything else will blow a shot long before the tiny details come into play. On F-Class targets it gets more important and certainly in Benchrest, where the whole point is shooting the tiniest group possible. In 3-gun, there are no 400-yard 2" groups from any gun, there are just too many other variables that keep it from happening.

There is of course nothing at all wrong with making the most accurate ammo possible, I do it myself for certain applications. It's just that if you are looking to save time, there are plenty of corners that can be cut that don't result in much difference. I guess if you are not looking to add any new gear and are using range pickup brass and not reusing it, you are kind of stuck with trimming, etc for every case....

Good luck,
Erik

Yeah in my case using a lot of range brass there's no getting around trimming and cleaning up the mouths. I should also be clear in the fact that while I process pretty large lots of brass they don't all get used for the same purpose or load. Out of 5K I may load 3K of 55FMJ's for 3-gun, 1K of 50gr V-max for varmints and 1K of 69gr SMK's for F-Class for my wife ( I shoot a 6BR, but she likes the easy part about shooting an AR). Having all my brass up to snuff so it will work in any application is nice for this reason.

[Erud]

Do you shoot F-Class matches at any of the MN clubs? If so, we've probably met - I generally shoot all of the Mid Range Prone and Long Range Prone matches. My wife has recently been dabbling a little in F-class with a .223 AR that I put together for her. I'd love for her to get into shooting - just trying to be patient and not push her into it. We'll see if she decides to try a match with it this year.

Regards,
Erik

[promod1385]

As you know I have had great results with the WF Trimmer and skipping the chamfer. I will debur as needed (only if I see a large/sharp burr) I have noticed certain brands of brass were more prone to this BHA match comes to mind as the biggest offender.

I did my first 1500 rounds with full brass prep last season and the last 2000 without, I saw no noticeable difference at average 3gun distances (i would say the average 3gun distance is 50yards). Perhaps you need to load up some high volume stuff for the hoser stages and some more "precision" stuff for the longer stages (load them up in different mags).

I can think of four stages I shot last year that would be a candidate for the more precision load (two of them were at the Midwest we attended together). Otherwise I see no need to go through all of the trouble you are just to turn around and bang targets on pistol bays, save your hard work for the longer targets!

[shooter115]

Do you shoot F-Class matches at any of the MN clubs? If so, we've probably met - I generally shoot all of the Mid Range Prone and Long Range Prone matches. My wife has recently been dabbling a little in F-class with a .223 AR that I put together for her. I'd love for her to get into shooting - just trying to be patient and not push her into it. We'll see if she decides to try a match with it this year.

Regards,
Erik

For F-class I just shot the club matches over here on the west side of the state, mostly my home range. Didn't shoot a single match last year since the local matches got canned, There just wasn't enough interest to keep it going around here. Actually I didn't even fire a single round through my 6BR last year and my wife hasn't fired a round outside of the backyard since we had our son last January. If someone were to pick them up again I would shoot, but I'm not going to run them. Too much on my plate already. I do hope someone picks up the torch again as my wife really enjoyed it, especially when she could beat some of the boys.

Besides after picking up 3-gun a little over a year ago everything else seems boring. My buddies that shoot precision rifle keep trying to talk me into coming back and someday maybe I will.......when I'm too old to run. It's like this..... go to a 3-gun match and there are tons of really cool like minded folks of all ages and from all walks of life, they are generally friendly, helpfull and have a lot of fun at the matches. Go to a bench-rest match....it's me and my 3 buddies in our mid 30's and a bunch of crabby retired guys that don't really seem to have any fun at all and take everything way too seriously. It's a bitch about this and that fest combined with a show and tell of who spent the most obscene amount of money on a rediclous new widget. Someday I'll go back, just too many other fun shooting sports for now.

[shooter115]

As you know I have had great results with the WF Trimmer and skipping the chamfer. I will debur as needed (only if I see a large/sharp burr) I have noticed certain brands of brass were more prone to this BHA match comes to mind as the biggest offender.

I did my first 1500 rounds with full brass prep last season and the last 2000 without, I saw no noticeable difference at average 3gun distances (i would say the average 3gun distance is 50yards). Perhaps you need to load up some high volume stuff for the hoser stages and some more "precision" stuff for the longer stages (load them up in different mags).

I can think of four stages I shot last year that would be a candidate for the more precision load (two of them were at the Midwest we attended together). Otherwise I see no need to go through all of the trouble you are just to turn around and bang targets on pistol bays, save your hard work for the longer targets!

One thing I won't do is sacrifice quality for quantity. I already gained about 10% on electing to tumble after loading. Since I started this thread I've sized and trimmed 5k cases and chamfered, deburred, cleaned the primer pockets and removed primer crimps on 2k of them. And that was with the wife working all weekend and an 11 mo old busy body to keep up with. So I can go pretty fast when I sit down and get after it. Here's the secret. Step 1. Sit down with a 5 gallon bucket of brass and 4 charged 18 volt battery packs for the drill. Step 2. Turn on the liberal news network of your choice. Step 3. Get so pissed watching their BS that you can process brass at the speed of light and keep going till your fingers are down to nubs. So far that's the only thing I can see that little effin pip Piers Morgan is good for.