As factory ammunition prices continue to soar, driven by the ever-higher cost of commodity metals, reloading becomes all but mandatory for high-volume shooters. And our interpretation of what constitutes high volume goes lower and lower.

When I was a struggling bullseye shooter in the 1960s, fresh out of the Air Force, I discovered that nobody was going to provide free ammo anymore. I somehow met my needs with an old Lyman True-Line Jr. turret press that I picked up used. Just when I was getting to the point where I was going to have to shoot less, one of the older members of my gun club put his Star Loader, lubricator sizer, Hensley & Gibbs molds, Lyman lead furnace and some accessories up for sale. The Star was a bullseye shooter's dream and would churn out hundreds of rounds an hour. It was also a Cadillac of presses and cost more than $200 in 1960s' dollars.

Everything I needed to both load and make bullets for .38 Special and .45 ACP was there. It took awhile, but the debt got paid and that Star loader provided the ammo I needed to train and compete for 20 years or so.

The Star is long gone. Today I rely on the ubiquitous Dillon RL-550, an RCBS Pro 2000 and a Redding Turret press to handle my ammo needs. I'm particularly fond of the Dillon. I've replaced quite a bit of reloading equipment over the years as better options have become available, but my original 550--which I have had for what must be close to 30 years--is still going strong and churning out good ammo.

The bottom line with any progressive loader is that you get a finished round of ammo with every stroke of the handle. Of course that means a number of things are happening simultaneously, and of these, priming and powder dispensing are potential trouble spots. Most priming systems used on progressive tools these days are well-refined and trouble-free, but there are still a couple of things that can go wrong.

The first to consider is simply breaking the decapping pin in the sizing die. I've been rocking along and suddenly found that I could not seat the new primer. This is one of those big red flags; you have to stop and not try to force things. Inspection revealed that a crimped-in GI primer had not been kicked out and the remains of the decapping pin were in the case.

This can be more than just an aggravation. Someone who tries to pound in that new primer anyhow may be greeted by a loud noise or even a bunch of them. A little secret here: Listen for the sound of the expelled primer landing in the catcher.

I've also had a time or two when for unknown reasons the decapping rod simply backed out a little and didn't kick out the dead primer. When you add an automatic case feeder into the equation, as I recently did to my RL-550, if you get going too fast there is a chance that the case will end up on top of--instead of in--the shell holder and will tip over.

If that happens, the decapping pin is not meant to go through solid brass, and it will bend or break. The prudent reloader keeps an inventory of spare decapping pins and becomes adept at straightening bent decapping rods.

But the most common gripe about progressive loaders deals with powder charges: either none or too many. The act of rotating the shell plate after each stroke is called "indexing" and can either be manual or automatic. Manual indexing tools such as the RL-550B or the RCBS Pro 2000 require the operator to turn the shell plate, whereas auto-indexing tools such as the defunct RCBS Piggyback or Dillon's XL 650 or Super 1050 do it by some form of cam action.

The obvious issue with manual indexing is that the loader forgets to turn the shell plate and dispenses a double charge or rotates it too far and ends up with a dud. With manual indexing, if you catch the problem you can back up and correct it, but with auto index you usually cannot and must cycle all the way around.