Tell me about progressive rifle reloaders

[Zak Smith]

I currently reload rifle (.223, .308, 8x57JS) and pistol (.44, .45, 9x19) calibers on a single-stage Rock Chucker, and I also have a Dillon Square-Deal B (auto-indexing progressive) set up for 9x19 that I use for bulk loads.

My question is this: When using a progressive press to load a rifle caliber, do you lube, resize, and clean/delube separately from the rest of the stages?

With that question in mind, what is the best way to use a progressive press to reload rifle cartridges?

thanks
Zak

 

[pbash]

If you use something like Hornady One Shot lube, you can do the resize and load all in one operation since One Shot doesn't effect powders or primers. You still need to wipe down the shells later to remove the lube.

I use a 550B and actually do rifle cartridges in two stages. I have one toolhead with just the sizing die in it. I lube, resize then tumble them for an hour or so. Then I swap in another toolhead with all the dies in it except with a neck sizer instead of a full-length sizer (if you buy Redding's Deluxe die sets, they come with both a full length and neck sizer). Since the neck sizer doesn't require lubing, my finished cartridges are ready to load and shoot.

I do it this way so the primer pockets get cleaned when tumbling. Yes, I have to handle the cases twice but the time it takes to run all the cases through the progressive for a seperate resize step is much less than the time it would take to wipe the lube off each case by hand if I try to do it all in one step. Some would say you can tumble loaded ammo to remove the lube but I'm not one that cares to chance it.