Order of Production

[madang55]

A. clean
B. anneal
C. size
D. Trim
E. chamfer
F. prime
G. powder and seat.
Yes? No?
Clean, size, anneal, trim

[GQshayne]

That's what I do, with the exception of annealing. I do not do that.

[deye243]

Why aneil I use laupa brass a few years ago I brought a nice production 260 REM singled out a couple of pieces of brass put black texter in the extraction Groove so I could id them which meant they were the first to shots that I would always fire they both got 16 reloads and astonishingly on the 16th load they actually do need to have the shoulder pushed back now in those 15 loads they remained as accurate as all the other stuff then I grabbed 5 virgin brass loads put them through the gun at a thousand yards and they were all in the same six inch group I honestly don't bother with it never will.
And as for trimming only when necessary some cases never get trimmed some get trimmed once or twice in their life I get around 15 to 20 loads per case then bin them

[Damo300]

For me....

Punch primers
Clean primer pocket.
Size.
Trim.
Champher.
Clean.
Dry.
Primers.
Powder.
Seat.
Crimp (if required)

[bladeracer]

A. clean
B. anneal
C. size
D. Trim
E. chamfer
F. prime
G. powder and seat.
Yes? No?
Clean, size, anneal, trim

I don't anneal or clean, and most things I trim very rarely.

If you are speaking about doing this process with each individual round then I avoid doing that to prevent mistakes.

I compartmentalise the process, so if I get interrupted at any point there's no danger of making mistakes.

When I get home from shooting I spend a few minutes depriming and sizing my brass, and inspecting it for splits (if I'm doing .303 brass I run it all through the Quick Trim Die after I've sized it all, and chamfer and deburr it). Then I toss it into the tub of "deprimed and sized brass" for that chambering (or for the specific firearm if I'm keeping brass separated for them). This year I've started cleaning my blackpowder brass in the ultrasonic bath, so those I toss into the bath when I get home and let them cook for an hour with 75-degree citric acid, then I rinse in the sink and let them dry for a few days before I run them through the deprime/re-size die.

When I have a spare fifteen minutes or so I'll grab brass from that tub and prime it, and flare it for cast bullets if required. Then it goes into the tub of "primed and flared" brass.

At any point during these processes, if something comes up I can toss whatever brass is in my hand back into the tub I pulled it from, no issue.

When I have a spare 30 minutes or so I stop by the press, grab some primed brass from the tub and charge it with powder. Some (9mm and .38 Special) I do by filling a loading block and running it under the powder thrower, very quick. Some (most rifle rounds and larger pistol rounds) I charge each case from the powder thrower as I pull it from the tub and then put it into the loading block. And others (precision rifle rounds, test loads and blackpowder) I charge manually from the scale, very slow.

Once the loading block is full, then I look across the top of them all with a light to confirm all have similar powder levels. If I get distracted during the charging I lay a sheet of paper over the charged brass to prevent debris getting in there, go and sort the chores, and come back to it.

Once I've confirmed the cases are correctly charged I seat the bullets, and crimp them if I'm using the seating die to crimp. From here they go into the tub of loaded ammo, or "loaded but not crimped" if I'm crimping separately. Usually I will swap the die and crimp this ammo as soon as I finish loading the batch, just to prevent my inadvertantly grabbing a handful of uncrimped ammo for shooting - that can ruin your day.

When I empty the ammo boxes I'm using I refill them from the tubs of loaded ammo, usually after I've sized and deprimed the day's brass, but sometimes I leave it until I'm getting my ammo ready for a shoot.

Shotshells I do a little differently. When I bring them home I toss them into a big box under my loading bench (they take up too much room to go in a cupboard). One day when I think of it I'll deprime/size/prime a hundred or more (on the Lee Load-All II) and toss them into the tub of "sized and primed" hulls. Again, when I'm ready to load some shells I'll charge a batch of primed hulls with a dipper (I don't use a loading block for these as they're fairly stable just stood on the bench). I don't look over these with a light as the old petals are usually in the way. Then I use the Load-All to open up the crimp and feed a wad or shotcup into the hull. Now I can look over them with a light to see that all the wads look to be at similar levels. Then I drop a dipper of shot into a shell, put in an over-shot disc or card, and crimp it. I don't like to leave these on the bench uncrimped as the shot makes them top-heavy and knocking them over makes a mess. I've got to do a few hundred shotshells this week but I want to try doing away with the crimp as it's unreliable, especially as the hulls get old. I was given a tip of hitting the centre of the crimp with a soldering iron to hold it in place, but I doubt I can do that very often. I don't shoot a lot of 12ga. so I'm only loading these a couple times a year, and only with blackpowder. And I don't need to make them last as I can bring home several hundred after every shoot if I want them.

Now, the downside to this is that it means I'm doing some part of the process almost every day. But for me, that works a whole lot better than trying to set aside a whole day, weekend, or week just to load a huge batch of different ammo every few months. Last year I loaded 9400rds.

[madang55]

So, the question was.....the order in which I do things. Looks like after 50 years I'm still not doing anything wrong.
I anneal because I can and if it extends the life of my brass, all the better. I trim, again because I can, and if that gives me more consistency....I follow the same process for all my brass and if it gets me time in the man-cave off my nether regions I'm ahead more

[bladeracer]

So, the question was.....the order in which I do things. Looks like after 50 years I'm still not doing anything wrong.
I anneal because I can and if it extends the life of my brass, all the better. I trim, again because I can, and if that gives me more consistency....I follow the same process for all my brass and if it gets me time in the man-cave off my nether regions I'm ahead more

I don't think there is any other order you could do it.

You want to anneal before sizing, you need to trim after sizing.

Annealing can definitely be useful, either to have consistent neck tension, or to extend the life of expensive brass. I only do it for forming one case out of another case. I don't run most of my brass hot, not even close to factory levels so it lasts a long time. Even my .303 necks last to within a couple of loads of case separation so there's no point in annealing, annealing won't prevent separation. When the necks split, sectioning the case shows it only has one or two more loads left in it.

20230206_173233b.jpg (149.82 KiB) Viewed 566 times

Trimming is quite individual to the cartridge I've found, and how hot you load it, perhaps even the brand of brass you're using. Most of my rifle brass never needs trimming, some of it needs trimming perhaps every five to ten loads, some needs trimming every time I load it. My pistol brass I have never trimmed in any chambering. If you get measurable "stretch" after every firing then you should probably trim it every load for consistency, and definitely if you are crimping bullets.

Cleaning is very personal, lots of people just keep their brass clean so they never need to clean it. I've read people saying they hand polish each case individually and I've read of a lot of people that clean before and after sizing, to remove the lube apparently. I use Lee's lube in a tube so the brass doesn't get greasy and it doesn't need cleaning. Some people even toss their loaded ammo back into the tumbler for a final polish. Some people tumble the fired brass (to protect their sizing die), then size and deprime, then tumble again to clean the primer pockets.

[Willie]

Pistol cases: Check each case after it has been fired, de-prime/resize, clean, flair the case mouth, powder in, seat projectile, crimp as required. Sometimes I may throw in a ultrasonic clean. Been my standard for many moons.