Ideal #6 Powder Measure

[Rick B]

Wanted one for a long time. In the 1980's, I used Bill's #6 in Cooper Landing, Ak. At that time a dedicated group of Shooter's would meet at Bill's "Fort", and primarily shoot Sharps Buffalo Rifles. Bill's # 6, was set to his favorite 45 2-7/8 duplex load. The octagon topped Sharps Borschardt that I was shooting at the time, was also a 45 2-7/8" chambering. Loading was simple. A Pope style tool removed and replaced the primer, and a charge was dumped from the #6. A cork wad was placed on top of the powder charge and a paper patched bullet was placed into the case mouth. 5 rounds could be quickly loaded and the carried out the door to the covered shooting bench. a 14" square steel plate at 330 yards was the favored target. Many an afternoon was spent, banging away at that plate.

Last week I finally managed to buy a #6. They are difficult to find! The Ideal #6, sometimes referred to as a Schutzen Powder Measure. Has two powder reservoirs, a smaller one for the duplex priming charge and a larger one for the black powder charge.Makes duplex loading of BPCR easy.
Rick

PS If Bill's looking down, He's probably saying "It took you long enough!"

[marlinman93]

Wanted one for a long time. In the 1980's, I used Bill's #6 in Cooper Landing, Ak. At that time a dedicated group of Shooter's would meet at Bill's "Fort", and primarily shoot Sharps Buffalo Rifles. Bill's # 6, was set to his favorite 45 2-7/8 duplex load. The octagon topped Sharps Borschardt that I was shooting at the time, was also a 45 2-7/8" chambering. Loading was simple. A Pope style tool removed and replaced the primer, and a charge was dumped from the #6. A cork wad was placed on top of the powder charge and a paper patched bullet was placed into the case mouth. 5 rounds could be quickly loaded and the carried out the door to the covered shooting bench. a 14" square steel plate at 330 yards was the favored target. Many an afternoon was spent, banging away at that plate.

Last week I finally managed to buy a #6. They are difficult to find! The Ideal #6, sometimes referred to as a Schutzen Powder Measure. Has two powder reservoirs, a smaller one for the duplex priming charge and a larger one for the black powder charge.Makes duplex loading of BPCR easy.
Rick

PS If Bill's looking down, He's probably saying "It took you long enough!"


I have two #5 and two #6 powder measures, and they are both nice measures. But the #6 is as you say much tougher to find, and prices can be quite high if they're in nice shape. I don't shoot BP, so I only have them for collecting purposes, but I really like almost any of the old Ideal and Lyman tools!

I just located an even rarer Schoyen-Peterson duplex powder measure, and purchased it. It is in transit currently, and can't wait to get it in my hands! I've wanted a Schoyen-Peterson measure for many years, but they are unobtanium most the time, and unaffordable the rest the time. I finally just gave in and paid the price, as with maybe 100 or so ever made I couldn't wait any longer.

https://www.reloadingtool.com/powder-measures

[Green Frog]

Congratulations. Although there were a fair number of #6s made, apparently a lot are locked away in collections or have been lost or destroyed over the years. I've had several #5 and #5 micrometer measures but have only managed to acquire one #6 over the years. I had a recruiting display for ASSRA set up at a gun show. An elderly gentleman stopped by and started chatting about my 5 and 5 M on display and mentioned he had one too, but it was a "little different" from mine. We established that it was indeed a #6 and that he would be willing to sell it. I like to keep one of each available for display, but I actually use a 5 M most often because it is the best thing I've found for measuring IMR 4759 for Schuetzen.

Froggie

[Rick B]

Congragulations on the purchase of the Schoyen-Peterson measure. Would like to see pictures of it, when you get a chance.
Rick

[GARD72977]

Marlinman93 you are a true asset to those of us fumbling our way through this hobby.

You knowledge and collection seem endless.

[Rick B]

Personally, I have only seen a half a dozen different #6's. One's with missing lids pop up occasionally on the auction sights. The odds of every finding a cast iron lid for a # 6. is almost impossible. Recently a real clean #6 sold on an auction sight for 465.00. The #6 I just received has a brass knocker. That appears to be factory?
Rick

[marlinman93]

Rodney Storie cast some #5 and #6 lids years ago, and I got one for my #5 with a missing lid. His were perfect copies, and other than being new tough to tell apart from originals. They made the #5 at both plants, so I have one with both addresses cast into the body. But I believe the #6 was dropped before the Ideal move, and only seen one address.
I bought my first #6 after years of looking, and then my second was offered to me just 3 months later for less than half of what I paid. So decided to keep both, as I paid a premium for the first one.
I wanted the Schoyen-Peterson to go with one of my 3 Schoyen Ballard rifles. I'm still hoping to get a Pope measure to display with my cased Pope Ballard. Had a chance at one not long ago, but timing was bad, and it wasn't cheap either.

I bought this shooter's kit a few years ago with a bunch of odd loading tools. Some appear one off, and one is a prototype Barlow decapping tool before he started Ideal. The powder measure is extremely odd, and uses some sort of extremely hard wooden dowel as the slide to measure powder. It's small capacity makes me think it was either used to carry in saddlebags, or to only hold enough BP to charge maybe 50 average sized rifle cases.

https://i.imgur.com/lmQ0lMZl.jpg

[Mk42gunner]

Perhaps the wood is lignum vitae? It used to be used for propeller shaft bearings.

Robert

[marlinman93]

Perhaps the wood is lignum vitae? It used to be used for propeller shaft bearings.

Robert

No idea what it could be since it's so aged and stained from gunpowder. It's very hard, but not extremely dark like say ironwood. I've played with measuring charges with it, and found it's very repeatable. But since it's not a threaded micrometer adjustment making tiny changes is not easily done.
I am amazed that it's original old blue glass bottle has survived for so long. Would have guessed it could have been easily broken long ago.