Whats your reloading process?

[crich]

Curious what everyone's reloading process looks like.

What are some things you've changed to improve your process or things you've eliminated that you felt unnecessary?

Here's mine:
Deprime
Tumble in rice
Anneal (drill and deep well socket)
Trim if needed/chamfer
Prime
*Store brass until ready to load*
Lube with Imperial die wax
FL size/bump shoulder .002
Expand necks with mandrel
Drop powder
Seat bullets

 

[Marbles]

Hornady One Shot
Deprime with FL sizing die
Check case length--trim if needed--chamfer if trimmed
--Sometimes wipe cases with rag--
Prime
Powder
Seat bullet

 

[Fireflyfishing]

Tumble in rice? That’s a new one for me.

 

[9.1]

tumble - walnut shell media
anneal - deep well socket
lube - Hornady one shot
FL size and deprime - bump shoulder .002
trim
tumble
prime
charge case
seat bullet

 

[TNBuck2]

Curious what everyone's reloading process looks like.

What are some things you've changed to improve your process or things you've eliminated that you felt unnecessary?

Here's mine:
Deprime
Tumble in rice
Anneal (drill and deep well socket)
Trim if needed/chamfer
Prime
*Store brass until ready to load*
Lube with Imperial die wax
FL size/bump shoulder .002
Expand necks with mandrel
Drop powder
Seat bullets

Probably showing my ignorance here, but doesn’t FL sizing stretch the case and possibly put you over max length?

 

[HiMtnHntr]

Tumble
Decap
FL resize as close to the same headspace dimension as possible
Trim with RCBS trimmer
Prep with Lyman prep station
Tumble
Ultrasonic clean
Prime

 

[Axlrod]

Lube w/Imperial
Deprime/resize with sizing die set so the striped bolt just closes
wipe lube off w/microfiber cloth
trim if needed
prime
powder
seat bullet

I have in the past tested LOTS of other procedures including annealing. If they don't show up on the paper target I stop doing them. There are lots of emotions involved with the things people "feel" are better. The target doesn't have emotions and doesn't lie. So I have found the simplest procedure that shoots small is best.

Many years ago I read a quote by a very successful competitive shooter that went something like "time spent shooting is way more important, than time spent reloading"

 

[crich]

Probably showing my ignorance here, but doesn’t FL sizing stretch the case and possibly put you over max length?

Youre right but It only stretches the oal of the brass a smidge IME. I trim to stay at the bottom of the tolerance range so its not an issue. I'll trim together with chamferring before sizing if Im not loading the brass right away; dont have to do it very often. Otherwise if Im loading the brass Im prepping right away I'll trim after sizing if needed.

 

[crich]

Tumble in rice? That’s a new one for me.

New for me too after reading it in a few other threads. Not as squeaky clean as wet pins but decent and much easier cleanup.

 

[Fireflyfishing]

New for me too after reading it in a few other threads. Not as squeaky clean as wet pins but decent and much easier cleanup.

What kind of tumblers are folks using with rice and how long? Do you dispose of the rice after one use?

I’m interested trying it at least once.

 

[B23]

What kind of tumblers are folks using with rice and how long? Do you dispose of the rice after one use?

I’m interested trying it at least once.

Play With Your Food: Clean Brass With Rice :: Primal Rights, Inc

Cleaning your brass is a necessity. Foreign material in or on our cases can cause all kinds of problems. Damage to expensive reloading dies, damage to rifles, and various other issues can arise if proper care is not taken.

www.primalrights.com

 

[JF_Idaho]

Deprime
Tumble wet or dry depending if range brass or my loads, etc
Anneal if needed
Iso/Lanolin lube
F/L or shoulder bump depending on brass
Dry tumble
+/- Lee Collet for concentricity
Trim, Chamfer, Debur
Prime
Imperial dry lube
Charge powder
Seat bullets

 

[Taudisio]

Lube/FL size with .002”-.004” shoulder bump
Wipe carbon off the neck with steel wool
Clean primer pocket
Trim (if needed-usually after 3rd firing)
Chamfer/deburr neck
Q-tip any brass shavings out
Prime
Powder
Bullet

 

[Fireflyfishing]

Play With Your Food: Clean Brass With Rice :: Primal Rights, Inc

Cleaning your brass is a necessity. Foreign material in or on our cases can cause all kinds of problems. Damage to expensive reloading dies, damage to rifles, and various other issues can arise if proper care is not taken.

www.primalrights.com

Thx!

Rice stuck in the flash hole is a nonstarter for me.

 

[Jason Snyder]

tumble - walnut shell media
anneal - deep well socket
lube - Hornady one shot
FL size and deprime - bump shoulder .002
trim
tumble
prime
charge case
seat bullet

Pretty much a mirror of my process.

 

[TaperPin]

The first good barrel I owned taught some important lessons - that gun had groups half the size of any factory rifle I’ve ever owned, and it was with basic RCBS setup bought when I was 13 or 14 - full length dies unscrewed a full thread so it’s just neck sizing. No tumbling, no neck turning, bullets .020” off lands, cheap federal brass, CCI250 primers, Nosler Partition bullets, basic beam scale, basic RCBS lube/pad, light case lube inside necks, primer pocket brush, and only annealing every 5 shots with propane torch to prevent neck splits. If I had more money for brass I probably wouldn’t have annealed at all.

My takeaway from that rifle is, unless a gun shoots LESS than 1/2-3/4 moa, anything special is probably not doing much.

With age we develop interests in fancier equipment and invest in the option for “best practices” - I have a neck turner, brass tumbler, ultrasonic cleaner, expensive Lapua brass, Redding bushing dies, mandrel expander, expensive bullets, primer pocket uniformer, anneal every reload, fancy Wilson seating dies with a cute little seating press, imperial neck lube, sort cases, measure runout, but for most factory barrels non of that is used.

I’m as guilty as most hunters to want to do things to our ammo that doesn’t actually help, especially with mediocre accuracy that makes seeing small benefits hard to see, but we imagine it must be helping. If any one thing improved accuracy by 1/8 moa I’d probably do it with every rifle, but I don’t see it and haven’t read anything that suggests fancy techniques help that much.

The #1 thing I think is a waste is cleaning brass - I stopped altogether other than brushing out primer pockets. Just wiping with a cloth works with minimal effort and it encourages closer inspection of each piece of brass - mainly I like the idea of keeping a uniform carbon layer in the neck, or so I’ve convinced myself with very little evidence that it makes a difference. Lol

 

[Mike D Texas]

1. Deprime
2. FL resize if needed, bump shoulder .002”
3. Expand to final neck diameter with mandrel
4. Chamfer necks
5. Burnish carbon in neck with nylon brush on a drill
6. Anneal - Every firing
7. Prime
8. Charge
9. Seat bullets

 

[Castle Rock]

Collet neck size
Prime
Throw powder
Seat bullet

No cleaning, trimming, annealing, no bullshit

 

[wind gypsy]

After firing:
-Spray with one shot
-FL size and deprime in one step
-Tumble in rice
-Prime with hand primer
-Charge (usually auto trickler, sometimes chargemaster or harrels powder thrower)
-seat bullet

One of these days I’ll have a progressive to prime, throw powder, and seat bullet with each handle pull.

first time with new brass it gets chamfered and deburred on a giraud. Usually doesn’t need to be touched up until it’s time to trim again but I don’t shoot many cartridges that need frequent trimming.

Usually around 4x firings it gets annealed on annealeez.

 

[Eric_F]

Clean
Anneal (every time for rifle rounds, because I built a Skip design annealer)
Lanolin/IPA (OneShot uses n-hexane, a neurotoxin. Works well but pass.)
FL size, no expander ball
Mandrel
Clean
Prime
Powder
Seat