How to Measure 1 Grain of Powder Accurately?

I have a few that I made with 22lr cases .
Fill with lead and then drill some out.
If You remove too much a shaving of lead and a bit of heat and your back in business.
I tend to push my case down into the powder then scrape of the top once On a bit of straight wire stuck through my powder bottle near the top.

Seems pretty consistent.

1" or 25mm micrometer shaft might work a treat. They are 1/4" roughly in diameter.

Ohh yes.
Some shiny brass and ss.

Or just a nice ebony handle brass dipper from Harrods and an accompanying silver powder container.
All in a green felt lined Compartmented box with other implements.
Fetch my loading box Jeeves!

What will Baily Boats lil dandy rotor go down to accuratly? It is adjustable and already available

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by vagrantviking

Chris has a good suggestion. Easy enough to cut down a .22 shell and try it for repeatablity anyway.

I've got a Harrell's schutzen measure that is supposed to be good for small charges but it depends on the type of powder and can't always be trusted.

---

Please tell me more.
I was led to believe they are the shiny dangly bits on the dogs rear end and was maybe inspiring to maybe buy one instead of any make believe idiotic thing I could cobble together.

Reality dictates that you will be dealt with as a hair brain unsafe lunatic if you dare whip out something like a 22lr case dipper at the range.

I know I have and do.

By their very design, adjustable measures have lower limits to the charges they can throw accurately. As the chamber gets close to its zero point it will be inherently less accurate, regardless of the maker. In the old days Homer Culver made a small number of pistol powder measures with a smaller chamber and a similarly small range of weights... IIRC, Linwood Harrell is doing something similar, but I can’t remember if it is that much smaller.

If I were going to load a lot of cat sneeze loads and needed to throw many, many charges of 1.0 gr Bullseye or something similar, I would make or modify a fixed rotor (Little Dandy, Accumeasure, Pacific Pistol, etc) to throw that exact weight. I’m not a huge fan of dippers, but that might be a temporary fix for me. Small powder chambers should be designed for optimum shape for that charge... diameter as well as depth. That’s why the regular adjustable measures have problems with small charges, their (fixed) diameter requires such a tiny depth that too much error creeps in. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it! :-)

Froggie

Froggie, any idea the drill size/depth to use for one of those rotors? I have a couple blank. 1gr BE would be the target. For my 32 S&W and buckshot.

Wayne,

I'd start with a bit the ID of an empty 22 RF case. You're probably not going to drill much more than a pilot hole! ;) Let me know how it works out for you, since I really need to do the same thing.

Your Phriendly 'Phibian

The Titan micro charge will has a .12 cc cavity I don't have any bullseye or I would check it and see what that weighs.
https://www.titanreloading.com/titan...n-micro-charge

I put empty brass on digital scale, tare to zero then add powder and check then add or remove as needed

has anyone tried an RCBS chargemaster?

Well I’m not real pleased with my efforts today.
Made a adjustable dipper today on the lines of the ones that look a bit like a socket wrench.
It was scaled down for bulleye loads.
The base was to large and caused powder to settle there.
It was very hard to dip.
A 22lr case is better.
So I hacked away more "minyem" till I thought it be better.
Not much.
Doesn’t lift my skirt as they say.
It is accurate if you fill it up and scrape it off thou.
That means you need two dippers and more concentration.
It will be good for making a load up thou with verniers.
Attachment 267001
May have to go the drum type or stick to my mungery 22 cases.
Ha

my lyman Gen 6 electronic scale has NO issue with 1 grain loads.... push a button, it is so....

I am probably ignored on this forum a lot but here goes. I have an old Lyman rotary drum measure that was in their line up for years and may still be. I have some HS-6 in it and proceeded to set it for 1 grain. I then threw 5 consecutive charges in the pan and weight them. 5.0 grains on the nose. I dumped those and threw 10 consecutive charges and got 10.0 grains on the nose. Now that powder isn't the finest grained nor is it the coarsest grain powder in existence but it shows 1.0 grain increments can be gotten with some powder measuring devices.
I would not hesitate to use it not one iota.

I posted this elsewhere on another thread, but the small funnel that your Physician looks in your ears eyes and nose and mouth thru with the small lite.That funnel is discarded after each use.
I asked my doctor to let me have mine instead of throwing it away.
It is a plastic or phenol small funnel perfect to empty a small scoop into a small necked case.
The Doc even gave me a couple more although I didn't ask.
I said it was for measuring and adding paint powder to a small airbrush for painting model toys.





But, remember the plastic funnel.
Just the right size.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MostlyLeverGuns

The most consistent powder measure I have found for very small charges is the Lee DELUXE Perfect Powder measure with the small drum. I check small charges by throwing 10 charges into the scale pan and weighing. I have found the variance over TEN charges to be under 0.1 grains. I have an old Bonanza that use the brass rotors, it can be consistent, but it is not adjustable, I have made new rotors, seldom use it with the Lee auto-disc and powder measure working very well for me. My tiny charges are mostly HP-38 or Tite-Group in 32 ACP.

---

If you measure 10 charges into one pan you’re measuring the average and don’t know the sample variance. You could have a 1gr variance from charge to charge, but with a big enough sample they disappear in the average. Could also be that it’s throwing every charge perfectly. No way to know which without measuring each charge.

I'm with gwpercle. I have a couple of dippers made from .22lr cases. One is epoxied to a popsicle stick with a .22mag case on the other end. The other has a strip of tape with a wire stiffener. Both work well.

And I find it easier to reduce volume by adding material inside rather than trimming the case itself.

Foam trays they sell meat on work very well for the first layer or 2. After that I go to pop cases or if I'm getting close old target paper. Once your sure your right on a single drop of fingernail polish top coat insures that nothing sticks to your filler and that it stays put.

I have the small cylinder in my powder measure but I don't try to go below 3 grains of Red Dot.
As long as you find a method that is consistent and do it the same each time. I see very little variance in charges.

Before you put the dipper away write on it how many grains of what powder. Save you time later. I have at least a dozen different dippers not counting the Lee set. I prefer my brass dippers. Most just have a piece of copper wire wrapped in the extractor groove with a loop on the end. Some soldered, some epoxied, some taped. They all work.

I would trust my dipper, but only to the scale.
Then I would trust the scale.

I have two old Herter's powder measures, the one for the pistol has a 1/4 hole in the drum and the rifle is 3/8.
When I was loading for a 32 auto with 100 grn. boolits I found the pistol measure would drop consistent 1 grn. charges with Bullseye. I know these are long out of production but the small drum holes make small charges easier, looks like some of the manufacturers would take notice.

The Lyman #5 powder charger will consistently drop small powder charges.
For 22RF reloads, every crank on the charger will drop 4.5gr of Swiss Null-B

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chris S

I think for quantities that small I'd use the old dipper method. Just trim a case to where it holds the proper amount of powder, then use it as a scoop. Always scoop the powder the same way, never tap down. You can solder the case to a piece of wire to use as a handle.

Chris

---

I agree with Chris. I have a couple of VERY small load projects and the old Lee yellow plastic scoopers do a fine job. If you have to get REALLY tiny, the "case-on--wire" reliably uses the nature of the beast as its own measure.

I made an Accumeasure adjustable fixture to adjust a drum I made.
Uses a 17/64" brass plug with spring under it.
I calculate the VMD of a powder to use, like B-Eye.
Using an EXCEL spreadsheet I determine depth of above plug for a given charge.
B-eye is .1167gr minimum to to under 3.2gr.
The minimum is calculated using the VMD and volume of the space between the flat top of plug and round adjuster hole.
My spreadsheet, given a weight, within range, then details a value for the indexing dial in thousandths.
That dial is zeroed on side of inserted drum if needed (also a check of dial setting).
Drum is placed in adjuster, set screw loosened allowing plug to rest on circumference of hole in fixture.
Calculate dial setting is dialed in, set screw set and drum removed for scale verification.

Attachment 283985

Attachment 283986