Most "old salts" find their way eventually, and we use forums like these to share ideas. These ideas plant seeds and from there you pick a path (or multiple paths) and you learn hands-on what you like (or don't) and what works for you (or doesn't work well.)
I've always balanced cost and value with build quality, speed, and adaptability. There are two things where
I will not budge nor bend: the quality/performance of my ammo and personal peace of mind that I am getting what I want, need and expect from my tools to produce SAFE ammo.
With that said, I
could have solved all of my goals simply by getting a Dillon 550 or 650 however, I quite literally load over a dozen handgun varieties. I always joke that one day I would sit down, click up all the goodies and do the math but the truth is, I don't want to spend more money to replace my 31 years of compiled tools with a Dillon setup that costs double the car that I drive.
All of the above to get to this:
I invented (as far as I know) a hybrid progressive system that does these things for me specifically:
--speeds up the most boring and labor intensive tasks
--allows me to handle the powder charge in the way that I love most
--allows me to handle the seating and crimping in the way that I love most
--lets me handle more than a dozen calibers with very fast and low cost changes
--all of this on what may be the lowest budget possible for the output
I use a Lee Pro-1000 as a brass prep machine. I feed in each case but the press kicks each case out for me. The press handles all my priming tasks (and I must live a charmed life because I don't struggle with it) and the press does all my sizing and case mouth flaring.
I run this machine at a fast pace and pile up many hundreds of prepped brass in short order. These are not loaded rounds but they are half way there. I pile up 500 or 1000 of these at a time and store them for days, weeks or months.
When I need or want ammo, I grab jars of this prepped brass. I meter charges in to 50 prepped cases with my Lyman 55. (I've used different measures and the Lyman 55 is my choice hands-down) I then seat/crimp with my Lee Classic Cast single stage.
It's not as fast as a properly running progressive. It's much,
much faster than a single stage. It's far smoother and far better for me than a turret press with an indexing rod trying to fake it's way in to a faux-progressive, which it cannot ever possibly be.
The quality and performance of my ammo I would happily put up against anyone. The peace of mind that I'm making fantastic and safe ammo can't be captured accurately with words. And I'm doing this for .32 S&W Long, .327 Federal, .380, .38 Super, 9mm, .38, .357, .40 S&W, 10mm, .41 Mag, .44 Mag, .45 ACP and .460 Rowland. For .223, I use the Pro-1000 simply for priming. As it auto-ejects, it is faster for me to prime on it than with any other method.
I've tracked and logged my production down to each round. I've logged this since 2011, and the log says
131,783 loaded rounds. Now some of that has been assorted rifle ammo and .460/.500 Magnum which isn't done with my hybrid progressive method, but that is a tiny percentage of what I do. This also doesn't include the 6,940 loaded rounds in 2020. (because 2020 isn't over yet!
)