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Old April 14, 2010, 06:22 AM   #1
roy reali
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Most At One Time

What is most rounds of ammo you have reloaded in one sitting? It could be shotgun, rifle or handgun. How long did it take?
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Old April 14, 2010, 07:22 AM   #2
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Tough call for me... if we are talking completed rounds of loaded ammo, it's probably around 400. Doesn't sound like much, but I only load single stage, so it's a lot of repetition.

But it's not an accurate answer for "longest reloading session" because I will spend hours at the bench doing a number of different tasks and find that I've been there for 8 or 9 hours on some days when I have that opportunity. I might size 200 pieces, prime a few more, do some arranging, trim some rifle brass, tumble some pieced from my last range session, etc etc etc.

It's a different ballgame when you don't use a progressive press.
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Old April 14, 2010, 07:26 AM   #3
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About 1500 rounds of 38 special. From a bucket of clean brass to walking out of the room with the rounds packed up and all the paper work done it was about four hours. That seems like a long time and I could have gone faster, but I would rather not rush when it comes to ammo.
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Old April 14, 2010, 08:53 AM   #4
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I am a bit of a novice and have only finished 200 or so 9mm in one seating with a single stage press. I check every load in every step from start to finish. Even though I love reloading it is also a painful process to me as I have a horribly bad back and sitting or standing for long make the job much more difficult!

Back in the early 90's when I first started reloading it would take me 3 hours to finish 40 rounds of 30-06 again because I wanted to be sure all the steps were done correctly and I would check check and check again!

I may need to invest in a higher dollar machine so I can produce a few more rounds for the time spent?
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Old April 14, 2010, 09:05 AM   #5
Brian Pfleuger
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So far, since I'm new at this.... 82. On a Lee Turret. Took me about 20 minutes.
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Old April 14, 2010, 09:51 AM   #6
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Just yesterday I loaded 500 45acp, 230gr rn on an old three hole Lee turret. Life is good.
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Old April 14, 2010, 09:52 AM   #7
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300 on a turret, maybe 1.2 hours.
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Old April 14, 2010, 09:57 AM   #8
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300 on a single stage press. Dont know how long it took me
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Old April 14, 2010, 10:01 AM   #9
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1800 rounds of .45 ACP in 45 minutes on a Dillon 1050. It took two of us. One kept the brass feeder full and the primer tube filled and the powder hopper filled and the bullet supply dish filled and swapped out the cartridge bins as they filled up. Cases had been pre-tumbled and the steel cases sorted out with a magnet (NT cases just aren't picked up when we find them). Primer tubes were being filled with the Dillon automatic tube filler. So this was a pretty well tricked out rig.
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Old April 14, 2010, 10:08 AM   #10
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>: | I really need to get a progressive ....
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Old April 14, 2010, 10:10 AM   #11
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500 12 ga Clays loads on an RCBS Grand. That's about two weeks worth!
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Old April 14, 2010, 10:13 AM   #12
Brian Pfleuger
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Quote:
Originally Posted by UncleNick
1800 rounds of .45 ACP in 45 minutes on a Dillon 1050. It took two of us.
Dang! If I had that thing for 2 hours, I could make a 2 years worth of ammo!
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Old April 14, 2010, 10:19 AM   #13
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Oh no you couldn't. That would be like saying if you had a lion, you could have the world's best guard "dog." But somehow -- you'd have to feed that lion and I'm thinking you'd run out of food in the house.

Okay, that's a horrible comparison. My point is, you'd have to feed such a reloading press... bullets, primers, you'd need to have all that brass in your supply.

That's reason numero UNO why I haven't bought a progressive press. I can't imagine having to feed the machine. I would end up one of:

a) broke, from buying zillions of bullets and shooting to excess
b) nowhere to move in the house, what with all the ammo stacked up
c) only reloading three times a year, putting out thousands of rounds each time
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Old April 14, 2010, 10:22 AM   #14
Brian Pfleuger
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sevens
Okay, that's a horrible comparison. My point is, you'd have to feed such a reloading press... bullets, primers, you'd need to have all that brass in your supply.

That's reason numero UNO why I haven't bought a progressive press. I can't imagine having to feed the machine. I would end up one of:

a) broke, from buying zillions of bullets and shooting to excess
b) nowhere to move in the house, what with all the ammo stacked up
c) only reloading three times a year, putting out thousands of rounds each time
That's for sure! LOL.... I currently have enough supplies to run it for about 5 minutes at that rate and then I'd be out of bullets.... 30 minutes later (if I found more bullets), I'd be out of brass.
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Old April 14, 2010, 11:08 AM   #15
Mike Irwin
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About 700 on my Lee Classic Turret.

Took a couple of hours. Don't recall how long. I did get up to go to the bathroom and get a soda, but I still consider it one sitting.
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Old April 14, 2010, 11:20 AM   #16
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Peetzakilla,

That was a one-day ammo supply for two of us. We try to get together about once a year for a week of intensive shooting practice on the dueling trees and plates and silhouette targets. We run about three or four thousand rounds of .45 ACP apiece during that week.
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Old April 14, 2010, 01:32 PM   #17
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Quote:
That's reason numero UNO why I haven't bought a progressive press. I can't imagine having to feed the machine. I would end up one of:

a) broke, from buying zillions of bullets and shooting to excess
b) nowhere to move in the house, what with all the ammo stacked up
c) only reloading three times a year, putting out thousands of rounds each time
Sevens pretty well nailed it! BUT I didn't realize it BEFORE I bought my dillon 650! Once I got it set up, I was just starting to have fun when I ran out of bullets! Then a massive order to midway brought a huge supply of components, and a run to the local gunshop for a bunch of primers.

The most I ever did in one setting was 500 .223. Time including manually loading primer tubes and sorting brass was 2 hours. This was mass plinking ammo using WC-844 ball powder and bulk Winchester 55 grain sp.

The dillon sits idle most of the time. Unless I'm going to load a bunch of stuff I shoot a lot of, I do the rest on my Lee classic turret. It's darn near as fast and much easier to set-up.
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Old April 14, 2010, 02:05 PM   #18
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@UncleNick.....That's cooking. I can load about 1K/hr of pistol ammo without breaking a sweat. I have often had 2K sittings in preparation for a match or a gun class weekend. (Usually reloading for 2 or if my brother taggs along, 3.)

Rifle loading is about half as much, since I need to pass the brass through the trimming head, and then through the loading head.

If I prep the brass ahead of time, then about 1K per hour isn't too hateful, providied I can keep the primer tubes filled.
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Old April 14, 2010, 02:46 PM   #19
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200. All my loading is single stage.
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Old April 14, 2010, 05:10 PM   #20
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1500 on my dillon square deal b, took about 4hrs.

now that im back on single stage i did 300 in about 4hrs.
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Old April 14, 2010, 06:50 PM   #21
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I've loaded (from primed brass to finished) 150 or more a few times, as many as 233 in one sitting using my Lee Hand Press. 9mm, .45 ACP, .38 special. It's all pretty much the same at that point time-wise. The 230 gr. .45s are my favorites, big and easy to handle.
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Old April 14, 2010, 07:21 PM   #22
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1K 45acp in about 3hrs on an SDB.

I usually load about half that in one sitting.
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Old April 14, 2010, 10:20 PM   #23
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I dont really load start to finish in one sitting, I have alot of brass for all the calibers I shoot often, 9mm, .40 .45 and 223. Ill size, clean, inspect, trim and prime in lots of 1000 or larger. When the lots are ready for powder and bullets ill bag them up and label them, then they get stored until I need to load them up. Sometimes on weekends during the winter ill put in 8-10 hour days . And sometimes 2-3 hours on week nights. When I get burned out ill take a week or 2 off from the bench.
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Old April 14, 2010, 10:42 PM   #24
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And here I wanted to get a progressive press, you just reminded me why I didb't. Like Peetza I would be out of bullets in ten min, and like Snuffy I'd have to get two jobs just to feed it.

I like reloading too much to make it a production line. So I guess I'm stuck to 100 pistol an hour and 50 rifle in 2 hours. Most at one time 300 9mm.

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Old April 15, 2010, 12:51 AM   #25
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I used to work for a commercial reloader, so I would load several thousand 38 Special or 9mms before lunch. If you mean me personally, the most I have ever reloaded at one time is about 500 or 600 when I started varminting in earnest. And yes, that was on a single-stage press. A friend and I would shoot one weekend, then spend the whole next weekend loading so we could go shooting the next weekend, then reload the following weekend, so we could go shooting . . . well, you get the idea. We set up an assembly line of sorts and cranked through 'em. I lubed, he sized until we got them all done, then I would brush primer pockets while he ran them into the trim die and hit them with a file, then I would chamfer case mouths while he primed on the press, then I would throw and weigh charges while he seated bullets and put the reloads into ammo boxes. All sounds pretty simple reading about it, but try that with 500 or 600 22-250 cases on a single stage press sometime.
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