Great question. I'd love to hear and learn from others too.
For bottle neck cases on single stage press:
* Decap (using universal decapper.. so flash hole is cleaned during tumbler)
* tumbler to clean (I also use frankford rotary media separator to quickly empty brass. 99.9% media is removed in a few seconds)
* Inspect for oddities or damage (which is easier to see on cleaned brass)
* lube ONLY outside of case using mink lube or hornady unique (that stuff is great. Never had a stuck case with this stuff. For speed, I use a latex glove, dab of lube on glove, and roll 5 cases at a time. Super fast for high volume 223 kinda stuff... but also 3006, 300wm, 4570)
* full length size (bump shoulder by 2 thou or so. Haven't yet tried neck sizing)
* (optional / for more percise loads) check a sample of cases for neck wall thickness and consistency. I don't have a neck reamer to correct... so I screen what I don't like.
* measure case length for 50% or all cases and see if trimming is needed.
- if trimming is needed. Trim. Dechamfer. Primer pocket cleaner and light uniformer (on case prep unit).
- I not, Pocket cleaner and light uniformer only
* prime all cases (I use frankford which has a micrometer to ensue every round is super consistent and flush with or just below case head)
* (optional / for more percise loads) sort finished brass by weight, and pick a batch to load - I have yet to try this but I hear it's effective.
* NO lube on inside of neck (i.e not to disturb neck friction/resistance. Not good for consistency from what I hear). My typical dies have very consistent neck tension as it is.
* powder charge all cases ( I use electronic auto charge, but not happy with consistency for stick powder.... so I double check on beam scale - especially when aiming for percision loads)
* quick inspection with flash light (missing charge, spilled powder...)
* seat all cases (I use micrometer add-on for hornady seater... or the universal frankford seater with micrometer)
* NO crimp
* confirm cartridge OAL with hornady bullet comparator gauge. Set aside deviations > 2 thou for correction later. (Happens occasionally with compressed or hot loads)
* (optional / for more percise loads) check all cartridges on concentricity gauge and correct deviations > 2 thou (which is sometimes 20% or rounds in my setup)
* one last inspection of the block of finished rounds.
Lastly, pray that it all comes together
I avoid powder charging and seating in same swing.... helps me avoid errors.
This process if freak'n slow... but for a good load, I get very low SD and extrme velocity deviation on the chrono.
Btw.. digressing a bit... what load development steps do you folks take? My process was not working well. This is my revised approach (just haven't had the chance to try again recently)
* pick a seating depth to start... like 20 thou
* 10 shot chrono method, and record speed for each. For safer results, I use 2 rounds for each charge and observe average and deviation per charge.
* Pick a promissing speed node and charge. If speed node is not apparent, or speed variations don't make sense ... some ingredient is off. Stop and try different components (bullet, primer, powder)
* if speed node looks good, then move on to try different seating depths in large steps ( berger method. 10, 40, 70, 100 thou)
* Pick best group and fine tune seating depth by 10 or 5 thou.
I noticed that best speed node occasionally has large horizontal dispersion on group size. That's a good thing. The next step of seating depth adjusents can correct that.
What's your method?
-Reza