Precision of a powder measure

[TCLouis]

Forget ball or spherical powder they meter perfectly. That is why I like them but then the are not all ball/spherical powders.

Ok, narrow and deep, wide and shallow . . .

Think about the RCBS and Dillon measures, surely some of you have tested the preciseness of these measures with each of the drums/slides . . .

Results?????

[Dale53]

I have no problem with the Dillon measures. I do, however, try to use ball or short grain powders in rifles. I use most typical powders for pistol (Bullseye, Unique, 5066, 231, H110, etc).

Dale53

[MtGun44]

No extremely rigorous testing, but in my informal testing I have seen the
Dillon slide with 43 gr of 4064 vary about .2 plus or minus, occasionally as bad
as 0.3 gr. Even 0.3 is 6/10 of one percent, which seems entirely adequate to me.

My RCBS has the large drum and seems to run pretty much 0.2 gr error on most
rifle powders when I do some checks.

All checks down with lab grade digital scale.

Bill

[454PB]

I've never done an actual "test", but I owned about 4 different powder measures before I bought an RCBS Uniflow. After that, I quit looking. Using coarse powders like H-4831 it is less than perfect, but a close as any other I've tried. I just muscle it through and chop the occasional powder grain that gets trapped. All the other measures I've used would bind up and misbehave. Mine has two cylinder sizes, but I mostly use the large one. My light loads are handled by other, lesser powder measures.

[mike in co]

the measures are all good.....it us that screw up when we use them with the wrong powder....lol.

the test has been done and published.....precision shooting back a few years.
the winner//////
lee perfect !

seems pretty silly that we pay hundreds for "precision" benchrest measures( but they are decent, and calibrated)

the bigger the powder grain size/flake size the bigger the error........
i have an rcbs with a large micrometer and an rcbs with the small micrometer, three dillons, a harllels precision br, and a lyman with a little knocker!

i trickle all loads that will not meter correctly.

mike in co

[Johnw...ski]

I started with an RCBS powder measure with the two drums that worked well enough. That was around 1976 and shortly after I found a very well used Ohaus
measure and found I liked it better. With a minor modification I have used ever since. I am convinced that any powder measure can benefit from this. a small funnel is sanded to fit the inside of the powder tube with the small end of the funnel about an inch above the drum. This way the drum sees the same powder weight regardless of how full the tube is.

If the handle hangs up or binds I throw that charge back and try again being consistant in the "hit" on both ends of the stroke and the speed of the stroke.
I find that with this method a tenth of a grain deviation is achiveable.
This is with some longer grain powders such as IMR 4831 and 4064.

I never really tried playing with my old RCBS measure but I imagine the funnel trick would help it also.

John

[joeb33050]

We did a test of powder measures and the results are in the book, The Second Edition of "CAST BULLETS FOR BEGINNER AND EXPERT"

A WORD copy with all EXCEL workbooks and ERRATA is available at no charge on http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/CB-BOOK/, in FILE

Also available at www.lasc.us.

See "6.4 POWDERS AND POWDER MEASURES"
joe b.

[redneckdan]

The lee measure works great with any stick an flake powder I have tried. Fine ball powders don't work well, ie H110, h335; WC860 works okay.

[jlchucker]

I started with a measure such as the RCBS one described by JohnW...Ski, and still use it. I also use, with increasing frequency, a Lee Perfect Measure. Generally, I use the RCBS with such powders as Titegroup, and the Lee with "stick' powders like 3031. Both are good measures, but I've never entirely trusted their calibrations. I think that the only sure way to "set up" a measure for a particular charge is to set it with the assistance of a scale, each time. If I load rifle ammo with stick powder, I weigh and trickle each charge. If I load .357 or .44 mag, I set up the measure by weight, and then check every 10th charge with a scale. The Lee measure is a good one, and cheap. I am thinking of getting a couple more to dedicate to a specific charge, such as the 2400 charge I use for 44 mag, and the 5744 charge that I use for cast-boolet 30-30 loads.

[Boerrancher]

I have used the RCBS, Lee and the old orange Lyman with the little knocker. Needless to say the only one I have left on my bench is the old Lyman. It seems to be the most consistent with the powders I use. I had all three mounted on my bench at one time as I was once very picky about my loads and wanted the charge to be spot on, and would only run certain powders through certain meters. As I got older, and had less time to shoot, I realized that I was no longer good enough of a shot to worry about that 0.1 grain difference. I then unbolted everything but the Lyman, as it seemed to work the best with all the powders I used.

One trick I learned for the RCBS Uniflow that helped out a good deal was attaching a heavy duty plastic spoon (MRE spoon) to the barrel of the measure with several very stout rubber bands. I would lift the charging lever, flip the spoon a couple of times to settle the powder, and then drop the lever to throw the charge. The spoon served the same purpose as the little knocker on the Lyman.

Best Wishes from the Boer Ranch.

Joe

[DLCTEX]

I loaded 400 rounds of 38 special yesterday using the Lee Auto Disc with the adjustable disc. Checking every tenth charge , it never varied more than 1/10 th. gr. (SR7625). I own 3 RCBS uniflow, 2 Lyman 55, 4 Lee auto disc, and 2 Lee perfects. I haven't used anything but the Lees in years. DALE

[leftiye]

I did a modification on my RCBS measure years ago similar to what Johnowski mentioned. I cut the barrel off to about 2 1/2". I set a small funnel on top. This keeps the drums at the bottom of a constant cone of powder. My "little knocker" is to double bump the charging arm at both the bottom (dump) and top (load) ends of the movement each time I throw a charge. If you weigh every tenth charge, you can keep them within .1 grain (it does wander some, mostly due to powder dust buildup in the cylinder). Or you can throw them a tenth light, and trickle each one.

[AZ-Stew]

I've used the same Lyman #55 powder measure for 35 years. With ball and flake powders it will consistently drop at less than +/- 0.1gr. With stick-type powders, it will run about +/- 0.2gr.

I don't use the little knocker. I bump the handle once at the top of the stroke, and once at the bottom for ball and flake powders. With stick powders, I bump the handle once at the top and several times at the bottom to break up any bridging that may have occurred inside the drop tube. Each cartridge is then inspected for powder level, the bullet is seated, and the finished cartridge is placed in the storage box. I don't use a loading block.

That aside, the key to consistent measuring is a consistent technique. I try to keep my measure handle bumping consistent for each load. Any inconsistency will show on the scale. I've weighed strings of thrown charges and it's quite evident when the knocking technique is inconsistently applied.

That said, I just purchased (arrived last Friday) a Lyman 1200 DPS II powder dispenser, with the DPS III Speed Upgrade. I had time over the weekend to get it calibrated and set up to operate. I tried various settings with Benchmark and H-4831. All were automatically trickled to +/- 0.0gr. A 55.5gr charge of H-4831 is dispensed in 16 - 17 seconds. That's about an average charge for 30-06 class cartridges. The one thing I forgot to do was verify the charge weight against my balance-beam scale, but I think it's probably going to check out to near zero error.

I also get the advantage of having the digital scale for weighing cast boolits. I checked a few .30s and a few .44s just for the pleasure of enjoying the ease of use of the digital for this purpose, as compared to the drugery of weighing them on a beam scale. The 160gr .30s, lubed and gas checked, ran +/- 0.4gr, and the 250gr .44s, sized and lubed, ran +/- 0.7gr. The best part was the speed and ease of weighing them.

Life's good!

Regards,

Stew

[crowbeaner]

I have the older RCBS Uniflow with 2 drums and it is the only powder measure I own. It gets used for just about everything from shotshell to 2.8 of Bullseye. I don't worry about ball powders; I just set the adjustment to the charge I want with the scale and run a block of cases around. I use the same stroke and tap to throw my charges and I don't worry about that 1/10th of a grain. With the extruded powders I set the drum to throw the charge a bit light and trickle them up to snuff. I might add a baffle someday, but I'm used to it and unless I find a powder harder to throw than 800X, I'll probably use it for another 35 years.

[Tom W.]

I had two Lee's that I got in a trade, and got rid of them as soon as I could. I'd rather use Lee dippers and my Pact BBK II scale. I did get an RCBS Uniflow and the micrometer and it's spot on with ball powders, as was mentioned before. It's not too shabby with Varget, but with most of the IMR powders I gotta dump and trickle.

[mainiac]

Been using the redding measures for years. Smaller stick powders,(V133, H322, RE7,etc.) will stay within a tenth of a grain. Big stick powders will stay under 2 tenths.