Little rant about cheap reloading gear....

[cansoldier45]

The bad technician blames his tools.

EVERY reloading manual I own or have ever read states that you should check every 10th powder charge thrown, REGARDLESS of what equipment you are using.

IMO, the rant speaks volumes of the careless procedures adopted by the OP and nothing of the supposed quality of the equipment used.

Hopefully he (and the readers of this thread) have learned something.

CS45

 

[easyrider604]

That little fact should be clearly explained in every owners manual!!

But manufacturers are scared to put anything in there manuals that cast doubt on there products, they hint at solutions to problems that they won't admit to directly that way they can point fingers when things go wrong... Oh you dident follow the instructions! Not our problem.

EDIT: I should mention that my issue with the PPM was the cheesy stand they supply with it... The damn thing vibrates way too much when you hit the top stopper... With a solid mount and baffle I would put it toe to toe with about any other thrower out there.

Perhaps that is the way Lee designed the stand, to allow the PPM to vibrate and pack it powder bar more consistently and thus throw more consistent charge weights.

You are 110% correct in saying that some manufacturers, and Lee is a big offender in this regard, write terribly incomplete and imprecise instructions.

I would never have been able to set-up my Loadmaster properly were it not for loadmastervideos.com. On the other hand, Dillon comes with well-written instructions.

But I can forgive Lee its shortcomings given the web has all the resources to make up for them.

 

[colecreek]

Perhaps that is the way Lee designed the stand, to allow the PPM to vibrate and pack it powder bar more consistently and thus throw more consistent charge weights.
....

Totally agree. My PPM stand is tightly screwed to the benchtop, and it does vibrate a bit with each stroke.

I also lightly rap the side of the drum twice with a finger after each dump, before returning the lever to the top - this usually knocks out a few flakes. Fancier brands provide a knocker.

 

[dave029]

Lee is fine for me

Is Lee fancy? No. Is it perfect? No. But is it affordable and get the job done? Yeah, for me it does. If I didn't have access to affordable reloading gear, I'd either not be shooting or doing it a lot less (and relying heavily on .22)

But thats not the reason for my post.

I have a Lee 4-hole turret. Works just fine. Doesn't "line up" exactly the way it ought to as it cycles through the stages, but a quick tap each time I pull the lever and its fine. I'm sure it just needs a tweak / adjustment, but it hasn't bothered me enough yet to put my mind to it.

I've slowly been picking up accessories. Used to manually weigh every 5 rounds, but the thing became so consistent I moved to every 10 or 20. The auto disk is that good. The trick I found is that if you aren't cycling the machine through the various stages, sometimes powder wouldn't settle into the disk. No danger of an overload... but squibs, yeah. And a few of you are right, the amount of powder in the hopper helps. Interesting to hear how the "pro" differs with the baffle (May have to upgrade! Will tell my wife to blame CGNers).

Here's my experience with one "upgrade": The auto disk works for me so well that I wanted to work up new loads in smaller increments than the disks would allow. So I picked up Lee's micrometer adjustable powder measure. Its really just an adjustable disk that replaces the standard disk and uses a fine knurled screw to adjust the size of the powder volume hole. You set it up, run off some test loads and measure the weight you want and presto: infinite adjustment. In theory. That's when the wheels came off: I couldn't get the thing to drop a consistent volume no matter what I did (Early on, I developed the habit of eyeballing up each round after the powder drops - just enough to see that the right amount is in the case - before I seat the bullet. Glad I did... saved popping off some blazingly slow squibs at the range. The new measure was dropping charges that were "short" anywhere up to 1.3 grains. When you're only loading 3.4g, thats a lot). Plus, because the adjustable disk has seams that allow the sliding parts to change the powder volume size, it held powder dust / fouled; then that caused it to bind up and not slide back after dropping the powder.

Result: I put the original disks back in, am back in business, and am only out about $8 or $9. Still, I'd probably take another shot with it if I upgrade to the "pro."

 

[Hotwheels81]

Is Lee fancy? No. Is it perfect? No. But is it affordable and get the job done? Yeah, for me it does. If I didn't have access to affordable reloading gear, I'd either not be shooting or doing it a lot less (and relying heavily on .22)

But thats not the reason for my post.

I have a Lee 4-hole turret. Works just fine. Doesn't "line up" exactly the way it ought to as it cycles through the stages, but a quick tap each time I pull the lever and its fine. I'm sure it just needs a tweak / adjustment, but it hasn't bothered me enough yet to put my mind to it.

I've slowly been picking up accessories. Used to manually weigh every 5 rounds, but the thing became so consistent I moved to every 10 or 20. The auto disk is that good. The trick I found is that if you aren't cycling the machine through the various stages, sometimes powder wouldn't settle into the disk. No danger of an overload... but squibs, yeah. And a few of you are right, the amount of powder in the hopper helps. Interesting to hear how the "pro" differs with the baffle (May have to upgrade! Will tell my wife to blame CGNers).

Here's my experience with one "upgrade": The auto disk works for me so well that I wanted to work up new loads in smaller increments than the disks would allow. So I picked up Lee's micrometer adjustable powder measure. Its really just an adjustable disk that replaces the standard disk and uses a fine knurled screw to adjust the size of the powder volume hole. You set it up, run off some test loads and measure the weight you want and presto: infinite adjustment. In theory. That's when the wheels came off: I couldn't get the thing to drop a consistent volume no matter what I did (Early on, I developed the habit of eyeballing up each round after the powder drops - just enough to see that the right amount is in the case - before I seat the bullet. Glad I did... saved popping off some blazingly slow squibs at the range. The new measure was dropping charges that were "short" anywhere up to 1.3 grains. When you're only loading 3.4g, thats a lot). Plus, because the adjustable disk has seams that allow the sliding parts to change the powder volume size, it held powder dust / fouled; then that caused it to bind up and not slide back after dropping the powder.

Result: I put the original disks back in, am back in business, and am only out about $8 or $9. Still, I'd probably take another shot with it if I upgrade to the "pro."

....now that's lee quality right there....

My pro auto disc was always really accurate.

 

[John Y Cannuck]

To the OP:
It's quite possible even likely, that your loading problems were not really the fault of the measure, but something like static cling, or bridging.

Under either of the above conditions, the measure will not drop consistent charges. Some will be lighter, some heavier. This can happen with ANY make of powder measure.

 

[Glenzo]

The Lee adjustable charge bar can be problematic especially when trying to throw small charges. The opening in the charge bar is too small and powder can bridge or be hung up by static electricity.

There is a fix for this. I cant explain it here but if you google around, you can find it. I have loaded thousands of 9mm using the charge bar without a squib.

 

[downwindtracker2]

I don't reload handgun,so my comments about Lee are limited to rifle,and plus 44.5 grs to boot. My powder measure is always with in 5 sticks of IMR powder like 4064 or 4350. Most ofter 3 sticks.I check frequently,though.

 

[JOJOPINTO]

Anybody ever get tired of the "Lee vs. everything else" debate? Yes Lee equipment is cheap. But you know what? With a kid in university and another heading that way, car repairs, mortgage, utilities etc. etc. my cash flow is pretty tight. So I bought a Lee 50th Anniversary kit and an electronic Lee scale to reload for my 9mm and it works great. Slow yes. But consistent and gets it done. I owned four Harleys over the years and learned the chrome don't get you home. My first 550 Kawasaki got the job done too. Whoever can afford higher quality stuff more power to you, but spare us your sanctimonius musings about the equipment we lowly Lee owners use.

Ya know you can use my stuff any time right? I'm just down the road...How is your bullet supply holding out....

As far as equipment goes if it works use it, if you can afford the highend stuff buy it, the ammo should come out the same but it seems to come down to a time thing for me...