How progressively do you use your progressive press?

[LinuxJack]

Taking a poll -- I am curious how many people use their Lee progressive presses (loadmaster, six pack, pro 1k, etc) as 100% progressive presses (ie: unprocessed brass goes in, loaded rounds come out the other end, with no off-press steps other than maybe tumbling or lubing), vs those who use off-press tools as part of the process (maybe you hate the primer feature, so you size, hand-prime, then fed primed brass back into the progressive for powder+seat+crimp operations), vs those who just use the press to speed up or augment a loading process that includes single-stage for the final stage (ie: perhaps use the progressive to size, prime, and flare, but then single-stage powder drop and seating on a different press).

[Qikracer]

Only use my Pro 1000 for loading 9mm. Depending on the condition of the brass I will sometimes deprime and tumble before doing full progressive loading

[BrianT]

I prime and size off press, then flare/powder drop, seat and crimp on the progressive, usually. Depends on the cartridge, and batch size.

[Ranch Dog]

Once my brass is clean, everything is done on the Load-Master. I use the APP for processing the brass, but all the actual loading functions of the progressive are used. So, that said, the only thing not done on the Load-Master is depriming. I figured out, better than a decade ago___ maybe two, you need the keep the trash for decapping off the press.

[LinuxJack]

I recently picked up a Pro 1000 after about 20 years of single-stage loading everything. Single stage was great (preferable even) when my loading almost exclusively consisted of loading 50 precision rifle rounds at a time once or twice a week, but I've been loading enough 9mm and 5.56 in recent years that single-stage loading was getting old (and I was getting way behind to boot).

I am still experimenting somewhat with how I use the Pro 1000, but what I have found so far, is that I really like using it like it was an APP (brass prep for loading) except doing more than one thing at a time. So the process I (currently) prefer is:

Clean(ish) brass in the hopper, size/deprime on stage 1, prime and flares on stage 2, and nothing on stage 3. Using it like this, I am comfortably spitting out a net total/sustained rate of around 1,200 pieces of finished pistol brass an hour, or around 600 pieces an hour of 5.56 (slower due to needing lube for sizing, and I am not using the case feeder for those). If I didn't have to keep stopping every couple of minutes to feed the primer tray and hopper, I could go way faster than that.

After doing the above for pre-processing the brass for loading, I then run it through my single-stage setup doing case check (primer seated correctly? case look good/nothing wierd?), powder drop, bullet seating, inspecting final round, and then starting over. I can go around 360 rounds an hour like that (one per 10 seconds), even counting that I drop any round that I find even a little suspect into a barrel (or case gauge for 223) to confirm it should feed fine.

That's a net total of around 275 rounds an hour, at a sustained rate (ie: including stopping to fix a upside case or two, check any suspect rounds in a case gauge, etc) - I checked myself using the stop watch to mark an hour last night, and got 278 rounds.

I am still intermittently toying with fully progressive loading, but my current feeling is that even if I do get everything running smoothly so I don't have to stop and fix glitches, I'm not going to be able to exceed my sustained rounds-per-hour rate noted above (at least not by a significant margin), particularly if I count the time to inspect each loaded round after the fact to make up for the visual/tactile inspection I'm not getting during full progressive loading.

[Fyodor]

I don't see why I should use a progressive press when I'm not using it progressively. I do not interrupt the process. Pre-processed (decapped and tumbled) cases go in, finished rounds come out.

The only thing I do off press is decapping, because the cases are wet tumbled, and they dry a lot faster, and I have less pins stuck inside them, when I decap beforehand.

[Bill Moore]

I load all pistol calibers progressively, and size/trim plinking .223 before loading on the progressive. I haven't loaded any other rifle calibers on the progressive yet.

[LinuxJack]

So to revisit this.

I picked up a SPP press, and it got me over the line to fully progressively doing everything. It is way less fiddly than the Pro 1000 was, and once set up, I haven't had to tinker with it at all. It also has way more finger room for my big hands, and is easier to visually track what's going on. Also, the primer system is way better. So now i just feed components, pull handle, watch for glitch ups (really just the occasional upsidedown case from the case feeder), and finished ammo results. After a bit of practice to find my rhythm, I legit turn out 600-700 rounds an hour, including stopping to top up primers and case feeder.

Rifle loading is still much slower, because of the need to lube, trim, and manually feed cases, so it's still a 2 pass process still for that, but such is life.