The first time I tried my hand at reloading on a progressive press, the press had a case-feeder. That was very nice because it was one less thing to have to fiddle with and worry about.

Then I spent time working with a single-stage press, and maybe because it took me to the other extreme of handloading speed, I really wanted to get a case-feeder when I bought my Hornady Lock-n-Load AP.

foo.c talked me out of getting a case-feeder. Coupled with the fact they’re kinda expensive, I just left it alone but always kept it in the back of my mind to get one.

The past couple weeks of reloading every day have started to change my mind. You see, all of the brass I reload is used. A decent portion of the brass is harvested off dirt ranges, thus all manner of crud can hide in the cases and you can have a range of case issues. I had 2 cases in the past couple weeks that got as far as the powder cop die, which registered high, and then upon examination was caused by a little bit of debris in the case. As well, I find 9mm NATO cases now and again and due to their primer crimp they can be really annoying to decap. So while before I did examine cases before putting them in the press, I really examine them now. If it’s NATO, whereas before I didn’t notice nor care and just reloaded it, now I put it aside. If it’s got debris, I put it aside and clean it out later. If there’s something else wrong, set it aside or toss it into the scrap bin. And as long as I’m at it, if I hit a nickel case I set that aside too.

Thing is, there’s no way I could do this if I had a case feeder. I’d have to do all the sorting and inspection beforehand, and frankly brass processing is one of the more boring tasks that I really hate dealing with. 🙂

Will I get a case feeder someday? Perhaps. I mean, those fully-automated Dillons are really cool. 🙂  But for now, this is just fine.