Just received an order from Ammoman (great service by the way) and wanted to read up on what I had just purchased (XM193).  One link led to another and found that great quantities of American ammo is destroyed for one reason or another.  My question is how do large factories produce ammo.  Are there hundreds of automatic reloading machines?  Are there great conveyors running miles of ammo like they do beer bottles?  Are computers used for QA?  Any input would be great.      

This isn't exactly what you requested, but I found it a little interesting.

www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/aap-lakecity.htm

Lake City Army Ammunition Plant (LCAAP) located at Independence, Missouri, in Jackson County, is the largest small-arms (5.56 - 20 mm) manufacturing plant in the world. With the exception of the five year period between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Korean conflict, this government-owned, contractor-operated facility has been in continuous production since October 1941. Lake City AAP is within the city limits of Independence, MO, on the eastern edge of the Greater Kansas City metropolitan area. It encompasses 458 buildings on 3,935 acres. Lake City AAP manufactures and proof-tests small arms ammunition. The plant was opened in 1941 and operated by Remington Arms Company, Inc. from 1941 through 1985 (except for the nonproduction years). From September 1941 to August 1945 the plant produced more than 5.7 billion cartridges. It was placed in standby status in December 1945 but was reactivated in 1950, again to produce small caliber arms ammunition. It stayed in operation after the Korean War and again expanded during the Vietnam War, producing 14.4 billion cartridges between 1965 and 1973. In the 1970s the facilities and production systems were upgraded. In 1985, Olin Corporation won a bid to operate the plant and is its present contractor. Lake City is currently the only active small-caliber ammunition manufacturing facility within the Department of Defense.

USPC40

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To answer your question, son.....

I would have to refer to an episode of American Shooter, with Jim Scoutten.  They had an episode where they showed a Federal Ammunition Production Facility. Obviously, they showed very limited amounts of the production process because ammo manufactures are relatively secretive about their processes.

But the operation was not like a bunch of reloading presses, but more like your described in you beer bottle analogy.  The casings did a kind of slolom thru the various powder, seating, and crimping dies.  It reminded me of driving thru orange cones if you were testing the handling of a race car.  Dig?