I've been loading on a 550 for about 12 years. 9, 40, 45, 223, 6.5Grendal, and 6BR. I've decided to get a 650 to disperse all of those by migrating the high volume loading away from the 550; 9mm and 223. Buying a used 650 from a buddy that had big eyes and smaller needs. I will be using a MBR and case feeder.
I load 3 types of 223. 55gr SP flat base for 3G, 68/69gr match for longer range 3G or carbine matches, and finally 75gr bolt gun match for my 223 trainer barrel on my PRS rifle. The 69gr BTHP and 75gr loads are a no-brainer. They have BT's for the bullet feeder and are loaded using one brand of non-swaged-PP brass.
The 55gr bulk load is where it gets tricky bc it's mixed headstamp brass so any number of it is probably swaged PP's and it needs a lot more case prep. Additionally, the bullets are flat based and from what I read folks use a Lyman M die to bell/ expand the case mouth to load FB bullets with the MBR to keep them from falling off the case while indexing. I was fairly obstinate against using a case prep toolhead but after looking at a lot of the facts it's either that or a MK 7 Evolution with a 10 hole toolhead, ha ha!
So I've decided to set up a case prep toolhead using the case feeder to -> 1. Decap/ "Swage It", 2. RT 1500 resize/ trim, 3. M die mouth expand. Then, I can prep thousands of pc's of brass and when loading I can go from case feeder to -> 1. Prime, 2. Charge, 3. Bullet feed, 4. Seat, 5. Crimp.
The two parts that are causing me some thought are, when to wet tumble and trying to gain an extra spot on the loading toolhead to use the powder check and MBR without having to use a seat/ crimp combo die since I already have Dillon 223 carbide dies.
Option 1. It would be nice to tumble after prepping the brass so that the PP's are clean but frankly clean PP's don't even matter as much as most people think, even with precision rifle. The other advantage would be that it would clean the lube off after prepping the brass and before storage prior to actual loading. I won't need to lube the brass again when loading bc it's already sized so I won't have to worry about powder sticking to a wet case mouth.
Option 2. Tumble prior to prepping the brass using a wax mixed in to get the case's clean AND somehow lubed without a case lube. I haven't done this however so I can't be sure that a "waxed" case won't jam in a sizing die. The advantage to this would be that I won't be running dirty lubed cases through the machine die. The disadvantage would be the UNK of this "wax" treatment and the PP's will hold a bit of moisture from wet tumbling with fired primers until they get run thru the case prep toolhead. Although, I can imagine this is probably a non-issue as long as I'm not loading right after case prep.
For guys loading for similar needs as myself, What is your work flow when using a case prep toolhead?