Marketing study 403: Progressive presses

Dillon introduces a new press with the sole purpose of preparing cases for its other progressive reloading presses.  I didn't read the article yet, but it reminds me of Cabinet Man's recent inquiries about my RL450.

It's a four-station press that has no separate powder-check station, which kinda concerns him.  To be fair, those four stations don't reflect what I'd really want in a progressive press either.  The first station is meant as full-length resize and decap, and priming.  With GI brass, I have to decap separately and then swage the primer pockets, so I prep cases on a Rockchucker anyway.  The Dillon's first station is used only to prime. 

So if somebody wants to cleverly realign reloading functions for volume with GI brass, with resize, pocket swage, shoulder and case length checks on a separate platform, the four stations of an RL450 or 550 need to be rearranged. 

I can't visualize one station that both drops a powder charge, and verifies that the case has received its charge.  I also very much like seat and crimp as separate stations.  So move the powder charge to first station, right after the primer is seated. 

1:  Prime and powder charge.

2:  Powder check.

3:  Seat.

4:  Crimp.

The manual of arms changes from case-bullet-up-down-back-rest-rotate to case-bullet-back-up-down--rest-rotate so the case gets primed before the charge drops.  Some mechanical warning that there's no primer in the seater plug might also be useful.