I would think the "retooling" cost would be the same regardless of frame material. They aren't retooling the Pro 2000 line to make aluminum frames, they're tooling up a new line to make Pro Chucker frames.
I understand your logic higgite, but it's not the same price. It's just flat cheaper to machine aluminum than cast iron. I just finished applying Aluminum eyebrows, and Alpolic panels to "modernize" an older "Dairy Queen" this week. I was able to cut the material with just carbide wood cutting saw blades in a skil saw. The blade I used cost $60, and can cut through solid 1" thick material if I needed it to. (didn't of course on this project). Had the material been steel, everything would have been harder to do. $200-$500 blades in special equipment with liquid cooling, and the blades still would last half the cuts or less.
The cost savings is real....but the press buyer won't be seeing the savings, RCBS will.
I would be interested in the 5 over the 7 as well. But then I size, tumble, trim etc, and prime before running the brass through to load as well. I don't need all 5 on my LNL.
Folks who like to do more at once, and want a powder cop die etc, would like the added stations.
Yeah, ditto for me too loading rifle, except that the Pro 2000 does primers so well, that I don't use the hand primer like I used to.
And seating using a Gold Medal die is sooo easy, I haven't yet been coerced into building a rifle bullet feeder yet....but when I do it will use the G.M. seater....I'll just figure out a way to dump bullets case-activated like RCBS does into it.
Pistol's another matter: I use every station for that, and that's where 7 might be a good thing. Right now I deprime and bling in a wet tumbler. On the press I size (1), prime, expand, charge (2), bullet feed (3), seat (4), taper crimp (5). Between 2 & 3 I watch the big video picture of the filled case rotate to 3 to prevent squibs or dbl. charges.
If I didn't use video, an extra station would be for a lock-out die. Station 7? Well.....somes like to expand separate so that would shift all the stations one more.....but with RCBS's new powder thru expanders that work so darned well at the bottom of a Uniflow, I question the need for that.
A built-in swager could be nice for some, but brass varies so much in hardness and spring back that swaging is not always a sure thing. In progressives that's a crash and burn moment that stops the momentum instantly. Very annoying to say the least. I found this out swaging old 1967 LC brass once, then later 1972 LC brass.
Personal druthers? I like my bench swager finished by barely touching it to a military reamer on the way to being uniformed in a Trim Mate. The reamer does two things by just touching......1. It shines up the edge with an ever so light bevel, making a swaged case show that it was swaged. And 2. It guides both the uniformer AND the primer to the center of things. No more cases catching an edge on the uniformer and jerking a case out of my arthritic hands, and no more smushed primers that didn't make it to the center in time.
Now then....lets talk 12 stations! Two tiers loading two at a time. Okay, yeah, that's nuts.
Really now, the most interesting thing about the new presses is no bumps! No ball and spring! I do want to see one in action!......boy would I love to be able to retro fit my Pro 2000 with that!