Lee Auto-Drum Review

[tomf52]

Got mine today and set to loading five different batches of powders. All metered with excellent consistency. Responded nicely to adjustments. Coarse or fine grain didn't matter. No problems whatsoever. A nice piece of equipment at a very fair price. And no, I have no ties to Lee.

P.S. - No leaks either!

[VHoward]

Mine leaked a little. I contacted Lee and they are sending me a replacement wiper no fuss. That's a first for me. Always has been a fuss to get warranty service out of Lee for me, but not this time. I have always given Lee equipment a try. If it works, I keep it. If it doesn't and I can't get any satisfaction from Lee, then I return it for a refund. Or sell it on ebay.

[jetinteriorguy]

I did a little test, after loading 300 rounds of .223 @ 25 grains of H-335 I emptied and weighed the powder in my little catch cup and ther was a little over 68 grains in it. This is just from the main leak, not counting the very small leak coming from the body of the powder measure. This is pretty disappointing, I'm going to contact Lee and see what they say. Other than this I do like the way the measure works, I was putting the brass on my digi scale, zeroing it and then checking it after filling the shell case and it never varied by more than .1 grains with most of them right on the money. I did this for 50 rounds and decided that's good enough to just go ahead and load all 500.

[jetinteriorguy]

Had a pleasant surprise today. I loaded up a couple hundred 148 grain wadcutters with 2.7 grains of Bullseye. Absolutely no leaking whatsoever and the charges were spot on. The only two things that changed were switching to the pistol rotor and Bullseye. Later I'm going to retry the H-335 using the pistol rotor to see if it works any better, especially if it will go as high as 25 grains of H-335. If this works good I'll just order some more rotors and set one up permanently for my .223 loads. Hopefully this weekend I'll get time to try some other powders with the rifle rotor and see if any of them work better. If I can't get anything to work with the H-335 it's no biggy, both my Lee PPM and my Lyman 55 work great, I'll just leave the Lyman set up permanently for .223.

[jetinteriorguy]

So I tried my experiment using the small pistol rotor with the H-335. It worked perfect, definitely plenty of volume for .223 and it didn't leak a bit. I dropped about 50 loads and they all weighed at 25 grains. So at least in my case the problem with the H-335 was with the large rotor. So the next experiment for me is to see if I can use the large rotor with some of my pistol powders. I have a pretty good assortment. Green dot, HS-6, HP-38, Titegroup, 700-X, 2400, Accurate #5&9, Red Dot, Autocomp, Unique, and TrailBoss. As long as I can find a couple of these that will work with the large rotor I'm more than happy with this powder measure.

[flashhole]

Good post, that's my interest, charges for 223 and smaller cartridges.

[jetinteriorguy]

I finished the next step in my testing, fairly encouraging results. First the powders that didn't leak and dropped consistent charges. These are Trail Boss, HS-6, HP-38, Autocomp, Titegroup, and 2400. Next are the powders that leaked a little but dropped consistent charges. These are Accurate #5&#9. Then last are the ones that didn't leak but dropped inconsistent charges. These are Green Dot, Red Dot, 700-X, and Unique. Pretty much powders of the same type and consistency fell into each of these groups, except for Trail Boss which is in a type all its own anyway. My next test will be to try the ones that either leaked or were inconsistent with the pistol rotor and see what happens.

[farmerjim]

I have been using the lee auto-disk with the double disk kit to load 223 with 26.3 grains of varget on a classic turret press. I found that the pro auto disk would give consistent charges with single disks but would vary more than I liked when double stacked. It leaked a lot single or double.
I ordered mine before this thread started, but did not try it till today.
I like Varget in the 223 because the higher charges for the 55 grain bullet fill the case into the neck, and any charge that is off much can be seen and dumped before seating the bullet. I set mine up removing the down stroke verification device, and adjusting the drum with a weighed 26.3 charge of Varget. I cycled about 15 charges through the measure while adjusting the drum to 26.3 grains. I then weighed 10 charges, cycling the turret through all 4 stages in a normal reloading cycle.
My results are as follows:

1. 26.3
2. 26.4
3. 26.2
4. 26.3
5. 26.5
6. 26.2
7. 26.3
8. 26.3
9. 26.2
10. 26.4

There were no leaks.
As others have noted, my drum does not return fully after throwing a charge. There is a large amount of slop in the linkage to the drum.
I believe that the vibration of normal loading on the turret is causing the charge cylinder to fully fill even though the top of the cylinder is not fully exposed.

The auto drum works much better than the auto disk for charges that can't be achieved with a single disk.

I am satisfied with my auto-drum.

[mwells72774]

Sounds like stick powders seem to work best from what I read. Has anyone using stick noticed of there is cutting or crunching on the grains?

[farmerjim]

Sounds like stick powders seem to work best from what I read. Has anyone using stick noticed of there is cutting or crunching on the grains?

Only about 25 charges, but no, not at all.

[VHoward]

Got the replacement wiper today. Will have to test it out.

[VHoward]

Well. This measure I got is still leaking even with the new wiper installed. Don't think there was anything wrong with the original one. This was with AA #9 powder. I did test it out with some IMR 7828 powder I have for 300 Win Mag. It did OK. The charge remained with in +/- 0.1 gr with an occasional 0.2 gr +/- from the target. There was of course no leaking and there was no cutting of the sticks. This measure was inexpensive and will work for my rifle reloading, so it will be kept.

[jetinteriorguy]

I've been able to do more testing on my Autodrum and have come to these conclusions based on my experience. Larger flake powders like 700-X, Green Dot, Unique,etc. don't leak but aren't very consistent either. And this is in both the pistol and rifle rotors. Medium ball powders meter well and don't leak in either the pistol or rifle rotors. Fine ball powders meter well but leak badly in the rifle rotor but meter great with no leaks in the pistol rotor. I haven't tried any stick powders because I don't use them much. This is using my method of prepping the equipment. Basically I wiped down the measure and rotors with alcohol to clean any oil etc. off, then sprayed them down with an aerosol can of graphite to make things flow smoothly. I usually spray the inside of the hopper too but this time I just wiped it down with a drier sheet to eliminate static. For me as long as I use the Autorotor within its limitations I love it, it won't replace having all other types of powder measures but for the cost and the amount of performance it delivers its a bargain and well worth adding to the bench. Between the Autorotor, the Lee PPM, the Lee Pro Disc, and my good old Lyman 55 I've got everything pretty well covered.

[sparkyv]

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Why was post deleted dragon813gt?