Att'n. Newbies........!

[HABCAN]

The other day I had occasion to reset a LEE auto-disk powder measure to throw a 6.4 grs. charge of Unique. The LEE Handbook chart indicates using a .88 cc. disk. Well, my old Unique must be extra flaky, cuz all I got was ~4.1 grs. To get the desired 6.4 gr. charge, I had to insert the 1.09 cc. disk in the measure! So you guys, DON'T always believe what the charts tell you! Get out the scale, throw a series of charges, and WEIGH them to see what you are actually getting. Maybe you could get a huge 'over' charge as I got an 'under'.

[nagantguy]

Very sound advice, thank you sir. It doesn't just applied to those "wet" behind the ears, I had a Lee disk that wasn't smooth in the orifices and powder would hand up in there. And I had a rcbs powder thrower that wasn't threaded correctly and ya got more or less powder by chance and by gosh regardless of which way ya turned the knob. Always mesure, any time saved from not is not worth a kaboom.

[bangerjim]

NEVER EVER trust those measuring spoons (or whatever you use)! Use a good powder measure!

Buy a digital scale. (beam scale if you must) Measure ever load until you get the powder measure adjusted correctly & repeatedly.

And check back with the drop every so often to make sure it is still on.

I measure and then trickle-tweek all my rifle loads. Pistols for plinking are just fine with the power measure.

But it depends on the usage, repeatability, and accuracy you are after.

banger

[Jupiter7]

Tried to use the chart, one time, not even close. Never looked at it again. I weigh and write it down in my load notes. Still weigh them every time just to be sure.

[merlin101]

Tried to use the chart, one time, not even close. Never looked at it again. I weigh and write it down in my load notes. Still weigh them every time just to be sure.

Same thing here, using the will at best get you into the ballpark .

[Char-Gar]

No fixed powder measuring device will be spot on. The difference in user and technique alone will cause differences. Even the RCBS Little Dandy with it's fixed rotors will be a little off one way or another from the chart. The LD is a quality piece of equipment, but even then you need, to check the charge weight before pulling the trigger.

If a newbie thinks they can save the price of a scale, they are just courting trouble.

[xacex]

That has been my experience with the Lee disks as well. Always measure your charge, and only look at the chart to give you a ballpark of where you should start.

[sundog]

Same here. The disks and scoops almost always measure at least one size to light. No problem if checked on an accurate scale.

[RustyReel]

Same experience with the little dandy measure/rotors. ALL of the ones I have used have thrown a little light. Some cases I have to go a size larger to get the amount shown for the one size smaller measure. Always weight a few before loading a bunch!

[fatelk]

Good advice. I helped a friend set up to load some years back, then one day some time later he called to say he almost blew up his rifle; had to pound the bolt open and pry the flowed brass out of the bolt head.

I had shown him previously how to set up his Uniflow measure to settle the powder, get the charge close, then weigh each charge.

Months later all he remembered was to dump some 4831 in the hopper, throw a couple charges into the scale pan to get the charge he wanted, then go to town charging powder directly from the measure to his cases. Of course after a dozen or so throws the powder had settled into a serious overcharge....

[Blackwater]

Excellent advice above, particularly Char-Gar's re the necessity of a scale. I've long used the little Lee dippers, but I use them to throw charges in the pan when weighing larger charges of coarse powders that don't measure well through the powder measure by volume. Keep an old china cup with handle broken off in the loading room just for this purpose. Fill it with powder, look up the rated powder charge that's just on the light side, and put in pan, re-dip a little to trickle in and get the scale to balance, and then dump the charge in the cases. You'd think that would give the best accuracy, but I think it was Julian Hatcher who found, quite unexpectedly, that weighing charges for LC match '06 loads was LESS accurate than those automatedly dumped by the loading machines. Thinking this was an errror of some kind, he repeated the tests several times with the same result. This mystified him until he thought that the dumped (non-weighed) charges bulked up more, thus providing more air space in the powder column, which with the powder they were using at the time (4064), improved and evened out ignition. He was always curious about just why he got those results, and I've seen corroberating tales from others since. I'm careful as to HOW I pour the powder in my cases, and any that stack up higher or lower are reweighed and repoured, and usually give the right stack height. Noticing little things like that, and keeping everything we do consistent, is what produces really good, accurate and consistent loads. Charging cases will always yield strange results sometimes, and it's good to watch the process very closely, and keep all our techniques consistent if we want the best results. I don't think I'd load without a beam balance scale. I don't even trust the new digitals. My A/C seems to make them vary too much in the summer, particularly, whereas the beam balance doesn't do that nearly as badly. FWIW?

[helice]

Essential!

[Moonie]

When I get new powder (or new lot of powder) I will calculate the VMD and write the number on the powder container. I will do this every 6 months to see if the powder has changed due to environmental changes until the powder is used up.

Use the VMD number to determine the charge per cc for the disks. To do otherwise is really just a close guess.

Calibrate your powder or VMD

To find the VMD of your powder, set your powder measure to 4.0cc. Drop the charge,

weigh the charge in grains, and divide 4.0cc by the weight of the dropped charge.

Mark this number on the powder container and you’ll have it for reference in the future.

Average of several samples increases accuracy and confidence
.