powder measure for pistols

[porthos]

i'm new to loading for pistols. my current measure is a Redding. anything better for very small charges (accurate) of pistol powders??

[porthos]

let me ad that i also have a lyman 55 and a belding and mull. never used them, just like vintage stuff.

[Green Frog]

The B&M will do for all but the smallest charge volumes, and the Lyman 55, using only the smallest slide is also good for small pistol charges. I have used both successfully along with others... I collect powder measures, it seems. I’ve gotten lazy though and often use one of the dedicated pistol measures with fixed charge rotors. I have them by RCBS (Little Dandy) and discontinued models from Lyman (Accu-Measure) and Pacific (Pacific Pistol Measure) that I like a lot. If you have the proper rotor for your desired charge, you just put it in, fill the reservoir, and start loading... no adjusting required.

Froggie

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I have been having good luck with Lee's Autodisk Pro. I use it on my turret press. Not sure if you can operate manually though. It works very well with small charges.

[rintinglen]

I use my old Lyman 55's for very small charges. For charges less than 2.0 grains, I weigh each charge. I have an old Ohaus Duo measure for magnum pistol charges, and an RCBS for rifle cartridges. The RCBS has two different powder chambers one large and one small, but I have never used the small one.

What I use the most for pistol ammo is The LEE Pro Auto disk. My complaints with it are that it leaks with small ball powders like WW-231 or H-110/296, and you can't go much below 3.0 grains of Bullseye with the discs but it works great on a progressive or turret press for mass producing a preferred middle-range boolit/powder charge combination. I shoot a lot of 38 Wadcutter ammunition, and my standard load is the H&G 50 148ish wadcutter loaded over a charge of WW-231 from the .32CC disc. It is about 3.2 grains. I cast up 10 or 12 pounds of boolists, clean a bunch of brass and go to town on my old Dillon 450B. What I am looking at is the Titan Reloading replacement for the discontinued LEE Micro Disc set. It allows you to load charges much lighter than the standard discs. That would be great for 32 Auto or other small capacity cartridges like 32 S&W, 25 ACP, or 38 S&W for break-top revolvers.

[Shawlerbrook]

The RCBS little dandy or a used Pacific/Hornady pistol powder measures would fit the bill. There is always the powder scoop method with a commercial or custom made scoop. For accuracy with any tool I like to drop a little light then trickle to my target amount.

[hoodat]

I like the Lil Dandy measure for it's simplicity, but I'd still like smaller charges than the #01 rotor provides. (2.5 grains of Bullseye)

I've got a couple extra rotors, and am thinking of plugging the bottom of the chamber with -- maybe lead to create a smaller chamber. jd

[Winger Ed.]

Redding makes really good stuff.
I'd at least try it with the small metering chamber before I went out and bought something else.

[Martin Luber]

Pistol, lke shotgun, means volume. Using anything but a progressive loader gets OLD fast.

That said, l like a fixed cavity measure. It can't get out of adjustment.

[fa38]

With the Redding small chamber I usually bump the lever at least once before I throw the charge with powders such as Win 231, wsf, tite group.

With flake powders I will bump the handle 4 or 5 times to settle the powder into the powder chamber. If I don't do this with flake powders the charge will vary sometimes from 5 to 7 tenths of a grain and always 1 or 2 tenths.

I also have to look at the micrometer setting fairly often as it will move a bit with the bumping.

[toallmy]

I love my little dandy when loading in blocks . But I use a lee pro auto disc the most on a progressive , but as mentioned above it doesn't like changing really small charges under 3 gr of the shotgun powders I use the most .

Recently I picked up a micro charge disk from Titan and am able to drop 2 gr of Red dot pretty reliably in my 380cases on a progressive .
So I'm tickled with it .

[AndyC]

For the Lee, using the adjustable charge-bar, you can shim it with card etc:

[metricmonkeywrench]

The Lyman 55 you have have will get you there. The instructions are still downloadable. It gives the basics of which slider when. I can get it dialed in faster than my Uniflows and it is just as consistant.

[shooting on a shoestring]

The most important part of throwing small charges is using a baffle in the powder reservoir to keep the powder pressure on the measuring cavity consistent.

Your Lyman 55 with a baffle is about as good as you can get. A Harrell might be the only thing better.

[stubshaft]

Lyman 55 or if you can find it, an old Bonanza pistol measure.

[alfadan]

For almost all my pistol loading, I use lee scoops and a ceramic bowl. I use lee powder-through-expander dies with the powder funnel. I really cant see it being any faster after having to set up measure, though my lyman 55 does very well even with flake powders

[dbosman]

RCBS Little Dandy for me. I use it for light or reduced loads for rifle as well. For .223 I calculated a charge that utilized two charges of one rotor. I was very careful to check those under a good light over the load block to make sure they were all filled to the same level.

[EMC45]

My old Pacific is good. It weighs Bullseye super accurate. I also use a Lee PPM. It works pretty good, but does leak a bit. I normally use it for the larger flake type powders.

[JeffG]

I have a couple Hornady measures that do fine metering down to 3 grains Bullsyeye. I also use several Lee Pro Autodisk with good results for similar powder. I use the Hornady measure to Unique to load 4.3 grains for 9mm. I’ve added a couple RCBS powder measures for pistol and they do fine too.

[monadnock#5]

You say you have a Lyman 55, but do you also have the 2 drop tubes and adapters for mounting the measure in a press? It's what I use, and have never felt the need to improve upon it for small density pistol loads. Rifle loads maybe not so much.