A professional who sets up battery of automatic machines to assemble primed shell bodies, powder, wads, and shot into complete shotgun shells. Responsibilities include:

• Replaces worn or broken machine parts, such as bushings, punches, crimpers, powder and shot chargers, hoppers, springs, and belts, using handtools.
• Examines samples of assembled shells for defects, such as incomplete crimping, tipped top wads, or blurred printing (identifying data), and verifies shell length and diameter, using fixed gauges.
• Cuts open sample shells with knife to determine that components are assembled as specified.
• Diagnoses cause of defect and replaces worn parts or adjusts setscrews, stop nuts, knurled bolts, and wingnuts by trial and error until machine produces acceptable work.
• Dismantles machine to gain access to defective parts and to clear jams not removable by operator.
• Submits samples of first-run shells assembled after adjustment or changeover to ballistics for approval before releasing machine to operator.
• Takes charges of powder and shot from loading mechanisms and weighs them on grain scale to verify accuracy of charges.
• Turns knob to regulate charge to meet specifications.