I run like oldfart does......but for many years I ran single stage. My prairie dog fodder was done single stage as well.
Single stage...rifle, 204 and 223 calibers....
Tumble in walnut until clean, not shiny.
Lube one at a time before next step.
Decap and size in one step.
Wipe off lube on all brass in a large towel.
Trim and prep if needed.
Hand prime all
Hand weigh each powder charge on beam scale and charge all cases.
Add bullet and seat each with no crimp.
No sorting of head stamps, neck thickness, no primer pocket cleaning, or any of that precision stuff. Just massive amounts of ammo that will group five under a nickel at 100 yards if I do my part. Tested these different calibers out to 300 yards and they did what I needed them to do.....beyond that distance some were better than others to 400 yards but every one went off the charts at 500 and beyond as my limits are reached.
I also reload all my brass as many times as I can. If I get a few split necks that wont stop me from grabbing spares and filling the box back up. I do look for signs of failure but I don't toss a batch if a couple fail now and then. Funny story...I bought 1000 new cases to make into 20 practical rounds. I then used 3000 once fired cases to make up 4000 rounds of loaded ammo for the season. I know have upwards of 7 firings on some of the used brass and four to five on that new brass. Guess which brass has had the most split necks?......that is right the new Hornady brass has a much higher failure rate over all that range brass I load. I now have 6000 rounds of brass in rotation on those three prairie dog guns. When the life cycle comes back around I hope to continue blasting those critters again. Currently we are on a down turn with critters (which is good for the farmers). When the numbers come back I will be back in the fields.
As an add on, when making my 20 Practical brass I start with range brass of mixed variety and small base size as a .223. Then I run them into the sizer die and squish them to 204's in one shot and bump shoulders to where they need to be for each barrel I'm loading for. Then they get trimmed and prepped. After that it's on to the press to get filled. I cannot remember if the ammo can of prepped cases I made up that is sitting on my bench has been fully prepped or just had crimps cut out and cleaned and decapped. I have thousands of empty .223 cases in boxes hiding all over the place. Most are nickel plated Speer cases but there is a shat ton of brass cases as well. I actually stopped collecting cases from work as I just have soooo much. I tripped over a box the other day that has 50 pounds of 40 S+W cases in it that I forgot I had.....
Unfortunately my press has been idle for some time. I have cases that need filling but no time to do it or anything else shooting related.
(This post was last modified: 10-22-2023, 12:35 AM by Towtruck.)
Single stage...rifle, 204 and 223 calibers....
Tumble in walnut until clean, not shiny.
Lube one at a time before next step.
Decap and size in one step.
Wipe off lube on all brass in a large towel.
Trim and prep if needed.
Hand prime all
Hand weigh each powder charge on beam scale and charge all cases.
Add bullet and seat each with no crimp.
No sorting of head stamps, neck thickness, no primer pocket cleaning, or any of that precision stuff. Just massive amounts of ammo that will group five under a nickel at 100 yards if I do my part. Tested these different calibers out to 300 yards and they did what I needed them to do.....beyond that distance some were better than others to 400 yards but every one went off the charts at 500 and beyond as my limits are reached.
I also reload all my brass as many times as I can. If I get a few split necks that wont stop me from grabbing spares and filling the box back up. I do look for signs of failure but I don't toss a batch if a couple fail now and then. Funny story...I bought 1000 new cases to make into 20 practical rounds. I then used 3000 once fired cases to make up 4000 rounds of loaded ammo for the season. I know have upwards of 7 firings on some of the used brass and four to five on that new brass. Guess which brass has had the most split necks?......that is right the new Hornady brass has a much higher failure rate over all that range brass I load. I now have 6000 rounds of brass in rotation on those three prairie dog guns. When the life cycle comes back around I hope to continue blasting those critters again. Currently we are on a down turn with critters (which is good for the farmers). When the numbers come back I will be back in the fields.
As an add on, when making my 20 Practical brass I start with range brass of mixed variety and small base size as a .223. Then I run them into the sizer die and squish them to 204's in one shot and bump shoulders to where they need to be for each barrel I'm loading for. Then they get trimmed and prepped. After that it's on to the press to get filled. I cannot remember if the ammo can of prepped cases I made up that is sitting on my bench has been fully prepped or just had crimps cut out and cleaned and decapped. I have thousands of empty .223 cases in boxes hiding all over the place. Most are nickel plated Speer cases but there is a shat ton of brass cases as well. I actually stopped collecting cases from work as I just have soooo much. I tripped over a box the other day that has 50 pounds of 40 S+W cases in it that I forgot I had.....
Unfortunately my press has been idle for some time. I have cases that need filling but no time to do it or anything else shooting related.
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