I like Mark's method, as well as Sinister's (I'm sure he'll chime in) and I think its the way to go. De-cap and resize / trim all you brass in one pass, change your head out, clean the machine and then prime (separately if you like) and powder drop, seat and optional crimp. One of the big reasons that I decap as a separate process is because when you press the old primer out there's going to be a lot of debris left here and there. If you clean up the machine after all your decapping is done, you'll have fewer marred/dented primers and the machine (especially the priming system) will run so much smoother.
Mine is like this:
1st head:
Neck size & decap at station one. (Redding)
Small base resize at station two. (Redding)
Station three empty
Station four empty
Finish pass one on the brass, take it to the shop, trim to length with a possum hollow QwikCase Trimmer and toss it into the polisher.
2nd head:
Prime at station one (stock Dillon 550)
Powder dump at station two (stock Dillon 550, with retrograde dump)
Bullet seating at station three (stock Dillon seating die)
Station four empty
After listening to Sinister's advice, I no longer crimp my rounds. The Redding neck die provides adequate tension to hold the bullet and I've had no issues with loose bullets or bullet seating even in hard use.
Going to this two phase method has increased my production speed (fewer pauses due to contaminated equipment) and vastly improved the ammo quality (more time to inspect between phases, fewer 'things' happening progressively, etc).
Last edited by KellyTTE; 07-06-09 at 15:25.
Kelly H
Yes, I know. No, I won't tell you.
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