When you sit down at the bench.........

[tboesche]

How much do you do at a time? The other day, I decapped 500 .45 cases, yesterday I sized and primed 200 cases and loaded 50 rounds. Tonight I am going to load the remaining 150 primed cases.

I generally do 1 or two operations at a time and then stop, ie, decapping and sizing one day prime, powder and load the next.

What is your routine?

[Rifleman55]

I use a Dillon SDB for my pistol ammo, I can load that 500 rounds in about 2 and 1/2 hours. I use a single stage for rifle ammo only.

[tboesche]

Yeah, I am using a single stage

[gfmun]

I use a Dillon XL650, but I usually only do 200 - 300 at a time. No hurry as I am retired and have the time.

George

[Texas Size 11]

I usually sneak in about 100 from start to finish on a single...got to time in when the kids aren't around or awake.

[Griz44]

Straight wall pistol, 200-500 in a sitting. They get mass cleaned in a tumbled with primers in them. They go straight to the progressive and come out finished.
Rifle goes in 6 stages, clean, decap and size, clean, pocket clean and trim, prime, and then load on the progressive. I'll do 200-300 of one of the steps at a time, usually taking a couple of days to get them back in the ammo carrier to be shot.

[NcongruNt]

I'm almost certain I posted to this thread already, but maybe I forgot to hit submit before I shut down the computer.

Anyhow, I also have a single stage and have different processes for handgun and rifle loading.

Cleaning is done as a separate process from everything else, generally as soon as I get the brass home from the range.

For handgun rounds, I usually do all of the steps in one sitting - from decapping to the finishing crimp. The most I've done in one sitting is probably 300, that probably took me 4 or 5 hours. If I'm doing workups, then the round count is considerably proportionally lower for the amount of time taken do to the fact that I have to adjust the charge every 5 rounds.

Rifle round case prep is considerably more time and labor-intensive, requiring lubing, resizing/decapping, cleaning, trimming (if needed), then priming. This requires 2 turns in the press along with all the lube application and then cleaning. Because of this, I generally prep rifle cases separately in advance of the remainder of the loading steps. In advance of a big set of workups, I'll prep 100 or 150 cases. If I'm doing 5.56 NATO-pressure loads, I'll prep NATO brass for that batch in advance. I'm not in production mode for .223 yet, as I just started into rifle loading and haven't completely settled on any established loads yet. I figure once I get a plinking load established, I'll churn out 500 rounds or so at a time.

I usually spend somewhere between 2 and 5 hours each time I sit down to reload.

[Gyrogearhead]

When I switched from the old "Rock Chucker" to a Dillon 550B I used to stop and weigh the charge in every tenth round just to make sure everything was "on the money". It always was within a tenth of a grain of what I'd set it for so after the first thousand rounds I quit checking every tenth round and now I only check the powder weights every now and then. So far it is still holding within a tenth.

When I get enough brass to make up a tumbler full I do the cleaning which takes two hours. Then the brass goes into the respective "clean brass" boxes until I get the urge to reload a particular caliber.

The reloading is completely put-the-brain-in-stand-by-mode automatic. No TV, no radio, no I-Pod, no mistakes; only the clickity-click of the press. Turn off the rest of the world and all its worry; just pay attention to the press. It's what the Budists call "walking meditation"; no thinking, just doing and it's very relaxing. Better than a "Power Nap"!!

[thr_wedge]

I have a single stage and do 100-150 at a time. Usually enough for a match + a little extra.