I have the potential to land a boring/repetitive/non-blacksmithing metal fab job in which I need to cut about 6000 pieces of 5/8 diameter round stainless steel. I am thinking that a shear of some sort is the right tool. I am willing to purchase a tool/machine for the job. The pieces need to have little to no burr/distortion...

...any ideas?

Thanks,
Henry

I made thousands of parts from 5/8" SS round. Very tough on the ironworker both the dies and the parts, they will have some distortion. I cut all my parts with a 7 1/2 HP cutoff saw. Dusty, dirty and burrs galore. I deburred them right on the cutoff saw wheel side. Just my .02 ...Bob

I'd make square bundles and weld all of them together at one end, and feed the other end into a bandsaw. My dad's fab shop has a automated feed bandsaw which I use for jobs like that, but even if I just have a 50 or 60 pieces I do the same thing with my little bandsaw.

with the right feed rates and force, cutting stainless with a bandsaw is no problem.

if it were me id try chris's idea, make bundles and use a bandsaw or a chopsaw, chopsaw is gonna cause lots of heat to the part and will be a dirty job, but its fast, i have cut stuff in bundles on a bandsaw before like that, didnt weld them together, but then again it wasnt stainless, we just banded them together real tight, worked out nice
by the way, what kind of tolerance? or are you just wanting them all the same size?

Ron