Jump to content
Brian Enos's Forums... Maku mozo!

How long does it take you to prep 500 cases for reloading?


Recommended Posts

I think I just spent 8 hours to prep 500 ".223" cases for reloading.

These cases been setting around dirty for 20 years, they where almost dark gray from dirt, dust and old burnt gun powder.

They spent 4 hours in the media tumbler and that was just to remove the dirt and grim, 2 hours in the wet stainless tumbler, "looks like new now" and 2 hours resize, trim and case lube cleaning. Makes for a long day.

Edited by BullyDog
Link to comment
Share on other sites

650 w/case feeder. Not rushing and for blasting ammo for 500 cases:

Put in the tumbler... (exclude time for tumbling) take out of the tumbler and dump the media from the cases... put in box and lube... 30 minutes

Put in case feeder and pull the handle... 1hr 15 minutes

Put in the tumbler... (exclude time for tumbling) take out of the tumbler and dump the media from the cases... put in can... 20 minutes

So 2-2.5 hours excluding tumbling time for 500 cases.

If you include tumbling time, if the cleaning media is new, I would do 30 minutes for the intial cleaning then about 10 minutes for the second tumbling. My tumbler's capacity is about 200. So 2.5x40minutes = 1hr 40 min.

So I'd say 4-5.5 hours with breaks.

If you add set up time for the press that adds .5-1 hour.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 days, 5200 cases and all it took me was a trip to the post office with 2 large flat rate boxes :surprise:

I don't own a trimmer, I don't own a swage for primer pockets but the brass came back like new

Care to share your secret?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 days, 5200 cases and all it took me was a trip to the post office with 2 large flat rate boxes :surprise:

I don't own a trimmer, I don't own a swage for primer pockets but the brass came back like new

Care to share your secret?

He shipped it off to somebody to be processed. Its what I did last time as well. Just get it in and load it up like pistol ammo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 days, 5200 cases and all it took me was a trip to the post office with 2 large flat rate boxes :surprise:

I don't own a trimmer, I don't own a swage for primer pockets but the brass came back like new

Care to share your secret?

LINK Danny is a great guy to deal with. Fast, fair, and easy. 10 days round trip and it was delivered back to my house :goof:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:) You didn't spend 8 hours prepping, rather the cases took 8 hours to be prepped. Unless you were sitting there watching the tumbler the whole time. Where you?

Your right, the cases took this long just to get clean.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

650 w/case feeder. Not rushing and for blasting ammo for 500 cases:

Put in the tumbler... (exclude time for tumbling) take out of the tumbler and dump the media from the cases... put in box and lube... 30 minutes

Put in case feeder and pull the handle... 1hr 15 minutes

Put in the tumbler... (exclude time for tumbling) take out of the tumbler and dump the media from the cases... put in can... 20 minutes

So 2-2.5 hours excluding tumbling time for 500 cases.

If you include tumbling time, if the cleaning media is new, I would do 30 minutes for the intial cleaning then about 10 minutes for the second tumbling. My tumbler's capacity is about 200. So 2.5x40minutes = 1hr 40 min.

So I'd say 4-5.5 hours with breaks.

If you add set up time for the press that adds .5-1 hour.

I just started recently trimming all my brass each time with my Dillon trimmer. I can trim it as fast as I can pull the handle so I would say about 600 rounds an hour. So 500 rounds trimmed and polished not counting time in tumbler about 1 hour. I used to just trim the brass on the third cycle but it got too hard to keep track expecially with other peoples brass getting mixed in.

Pat

Edited by Alaskapopo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

650 w/case feeder. Not rushing and for blasting ammo for 500 cases:

Put in the tumbler... (exclude time for tumbling) take out of the tumbler and dump the media from the cases... put in box and lube... 30 minutes

Put in case feeder and pull the handle... 1hr 15 minutes

Put in the tumbler... (exclude time for tumbling) take out of the tumbler and dump the media from the cases... put in can... 20 minutes

So 2-2.5 hours excluding tumbling time for 500 cases.

If you include tumbling time, if the cleaning media is new, I would do 30 minutes for the intial cleaning then about 10 minutes for the second tumbling. My tumbler's capacity is about 200. So 2.5x40minutes = 1hr 40 min.

So I'd say 4-5.5 hours with breaks.

If you add set up time for the press that adds .5-1 hour.

I just started recently trimming all my brass each time with my Dillon trimmer. I can trim it as fast as I can pull the handle so I would say about 600 rounds an hour. So 500 rounds trimmed and polished not counting time in tumbler about 1 hour. I used to just trim the brass on the third cycle but it got too hard to keep track expecially with other peoples brass getting mixed in.

Pat

Me and my buddy punched out about 2500 cases of 223 last weekend using a 550 setup with a dillon case trimmer in 3 hours.

Bought some dirty real dirty brass at the big Reno show yesterday, and man this stuff is old and dirty. The brass was marked SEARS, how long has it been since Sears was making brass?

Well this brass took about 6 hours to shine up in both corn and stainless media.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 10 months later...

I am not understanding all the fuss about trimming 223 cases .After shooting, cleaning

Depriming and sizing my cases , I have , after measuring the case , seldom found case

length variations enough to have to trim them. Even after sizing they still fit perfectly

in the case gauge

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not understanding all the fuss about trimming 223 cases .After shooting, cleaning

Depriming and sizing my cases , I have , after measuring the case , seldom found case

length variations enough to have to trim them. Even after sizing they still fit perfectly

in the case gauge

Do you actually case gauge every single case?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Me and my buddy punched out about 2500 cases of 223 last weekend using a 550 setup with a dillon case trimmer in 3 hours.

You must have stereo equipped earmuffs too.

I don't dry tumble then wet, just chunk them in the SS tumbler and go, in and out takes up 15 min of my time. I don't watch them spin or dry though.

Size/deprime and trim on a 650, with lubing, filling up the case feeder it generally comes out to 1500 an hour or less if I stop for beer.

Annealing generally runs around 2-3 seconds per case but I have a case feeder on my annealer so it too is just a fill up turn on and walk away job.

The 1050 swages them so that doesn't add any prep time but I do post load tumble and casegauge every round I shoot in competition.

Edited by jmorris
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Case prep on a single stage, I do it in batches set up tools once for each task. Tumble lot (bucket) a day or days, then resize/deprime on another day, case gage another day, trim. When I feel like it I sort by headstamp.

After all of these I got a lot that is ready for the 650.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...