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This weekend I had my first bash at hand loading. I loaded 200 rounds of .223 with a hand press. This was enjoyable but slow process.

I will soon have a dedicated area set up for reloading, and will be loading for 1 pistol calibre and 3 rifle calibres.

I'm not yet ready to get a progressive press, need to get a proper feel for what I'm doing first.

With that in mind, what is the most efficient and accurate way to dispense my powder? This seems to be one of the slowest parts of the operation. I was using a lee perfect powder measure, which was ok, but stopping every 10 rounds to check the powder on a beam scale slowed me down. It did seem to drift a little over time too. Is the RCBS charge master worth the money?

Also, what's a quick way to lube cases for resizing? This seemed to take forever!

Reloading can be a slow process and the accuracy of powder throw does not really go hand in hand with speed. The Targetmaster with a tuned beam scale is certainly going to offer superb accuracy. If you prefer digital the Chargemaster system is quick and reasonably accurate.

Quickest I have ever used is a Harrell Precision throwing spherical powder, accuracy to a good level at the crank of a lever, downside is it is looses accuracy with larger kernel powder

You could always look at the Dillon 650 which will give you speed and the powder throwing is part of the process, I do not use one so I cannot comment on accuracy.

Also, what's a quick way to lube cases for resizing? This seemed to take forever!

Don't bother, neck size. A Lee collet die saves a lot of work in this area.

It all really depends on what you are after.

If a 1/10 th of grain variation either way doesn't bother you with the powder load then powder throwers like the Harrel, Lyman 55, Uniflow etc are all up to the task if you are prepared to learn a consistent throw and you don't use stick powders, you would almost think Ramshot powders were made for these measures. The old Belding and Mull thrower is 100% accurate but having a separate volume measure to dump into means it is a slower and can't be press mounted but it is very consistent with all types of powder. I do use this measure a lot though especially for BP loads.

If you are going electronic then nothing is more accurate than a set of good balance bean scales and a Target Master powder trickler, couple that with a cheap powder thrower like the Lee Perfect powder measure to throw a close to charge and trickle up with the Target Master then you have a faster and more accurate method that the Chargemasters and their ilk and also a lot cheaper.

For bulk lubing I make up a mixture of 5% lanolin to 95% Isopropyl alcohol in a pump sprayer, put the cases in a cardboard box, a few quick squirts of the lube and a gentle shoogle around, let the alcohol dry off a bit and you are good to go.

When I'm doing batches of 500 or more rounds of one calibre then I go to my progressives, I have two an RCBS Ammomaster set up in 303 British and a Hornady LnL AP for other batch calibres, These use volume powder throwers Uniflow etc and I find they throw very consistent charges, I suspect that the mechanical linkages working the measures on these presses give a far more consistent throw than working them by hand, also as the leverage is greater they handle the stick powders better too.

For smaller batches I use a turret of which I have three, a Redding T7, a Lyman Tru Line junior and a Lee Classic. I mainly use the Redding as it has 7 stations, for powder throwing I use the Lee Auto disk measure which I find very accurate again probably because of the mechanical linkage and being a fixed cavity measure it will never change volume in use, Lyman is my next favourite but it only has four stations and uses 310 dies, they neck size only which is fine for most of my handloading. Also neck sizing means that you don't need to lube but cases will eventually need to FL resized occasionally. The Lee classic turret has potential and is auto indexing but its finicky and unreliable priming system lets it down.

I load every thing on a Forster Co-ax.

If you are using .223 in a straight pull and are going to shoot CSR then full length resize.

Plenty of stay lubes out there Dillon, One Shot or homemade.

Powder dispensing for volume accept the variation and just throw it in a quality dispenser Redding/RCBS/Hornady or Harrell. For precision Targetmaster and tuned beam scale is the way to go.

Do the cases over several nights that will improve output, get some case trays to hold up to 300 rounds and on night one resize, night two prime, night three powder fill and bullet seat.

I use two Lee progressive presses with the Lee Pro-Auto Disk volume powder measures for the high volume stuff, .300aac and .44mag, both indoor 25m loads so not critical. Both give very good results.

For the outdoor range .308 I use a Lee cast breech lock and a Hornady L&L electronic powder dispenser, accurate to -0 +.1gr, I do batches of 50 or 100 at a time and find it very enjoyable and relaxing.

Only thing I do which may be different is I prime all my cases off press with an RCBS Universal hand priming tool, I don't like the Lee progressive priming system and the hand priming tool gives me a second chance to visually inspect the cases as I prime them.

I usually use RCBS case slick spray but recently made 1L of my own using liquid lanolin and 99.9% Isopropanol, it's almost as good as the RCBS spray and a lot cheaper.

For the pistol reloading you could get a Lee 4 hole turret press, if you get the cast version it has extra height and can be used for most rifle cases, I use one for the downloaded .308 my son shoots at 25m.

Thanks for all the comments and replies so far chaps, much appreciated...keep 'em coming!

For info, I will be reloading for .223 for CSR, .300 Whisper and 45ACP for indoor loads at 25m, and .260 Remington. Will load the .300 Whisper at times for different outdoor loads at times, but it will mainly be used indoors I think.

I'll also be reloading my own 12G slug and buck, but thats a whole other story :)

I shot my 300aac Blackout Handi Rifle at 100m yesterday using 15.3gr of H110 and a Nosler CC 168gr bullet, did quite well considering it was zeroed for 25m to start with!. Ended up with about a 3" group which wasn't bad considering I couldn't see where it was shooting (need a better scope, or better eyes!).

techguy wrote:what's a quick way to lube cases for resizing? This seemed to take forever!

I use home-made spray lube in a hand sprayer. A tray of 500 .308 cases takes about two minutes to lube. They need to stand for a short while afterwards for the alcohol to evaporate, so I lube first then do something else. For the trays I use a set of old plastic kitchen drawer boxes.

techguy wrote:Is the RCBS charge master worth the money?

Chargemasters are pretty good, but still aren't especially fast. Some folks use two or even three side-by-side to increase throughput. Of course, that introduces more variation. As for accuracy: that depends on your requirements. They aren't the most accurate way to work - they are built around pretty cheap strain-gauge balances which limit the response, the settling speed and ultimately the effective resolution, but they are more than sufficiently precise for many or even most requirements, and they are likely to be significantly more consistent than thrown charges of stick powder. But if you aren't shooting at longer distances for the calibre in question it is largely moot.

techguy wrote:Increasing your throughput

Even with high volume equipment the machine throughput is only a part of the story. For example, on the weekend I prepped 2,000 .308 cases. They went through the press at a rate of 1,000 per hour, so that's 2 hours, right? Once you include the time spent weighing out the brass into 500s, lubing, loading the case hopper, measuring and inspecting, unloading the brass then loading the tumbler to delube, media separation (3 steps), and finally packaging them I had probably spent over 6 hours. The cases were already cleaned prior to this and the press was fully set up, which would have added quite a bit more time, and I still have to clean all the lube trays and storage bins, clean the dies etc etc.

For the loading phase I used to be able to charge and seat about 100 per hour when using a Chargemaster and a single-stage or toggle press. Now, after years developing and refining the process, design and build of a custom dispenser, and significant expenditure, I can achieve 200 per hour and I might get to 240 with the addition of a bullet feeder. That time does include priming and the charges are rather more precise than the Chargemaster produces, but the throughput isn't radically different to what I used to achieve with £150.00 worth of second hand reloading kit*. The journey, though, has been fascinating, and the Process Engineer in me is very satisfied. Overall I have probably spent just as much time, but much of it has been quality tinkering and development time, rather then 'chore' time (e.g. trimming and cleaning primer pockets). As others have suggested, the biggest gains in productivity will be achieved by optimising the way you work by batching tasks then refining each element of the process in a step-wise manner. Increasing productivity must be a side-effect, and not the overriding goal.

*OK - I was borrowing the Chargemaster!

The way I increase throughput is find out the powder charge where there is least sensitivity to minor changes in the amount of powder; so then I can use a powder measure rather than hand-weighing charges. (Google 'OCW'). I still use a Targetmaster system in doing the load development though.

I also reload in two stages, firstly preparing the cases by sizing/decapping, cleaning and trimming on a single stage press for the sizing. Then I finish off with powder/expand, seat and crimp dies in a Dillon 550. Using the single-stage press for the dirty sizing/decapping keeps the more sensitive Dillon cleaner.

The Dillon 550 is a great press for me - I get most of the speed benefits of a progressive, but things aren't fully automated, giving the 'thinking & checking' stages that I need.
Triffid