Electronic powder dispensers

I picked up the Lyman Gen6 because of it's much smaller foot print since I reload at a multi-purpose desk in an apartment and can't dedicate all of it to reloading alone. I've only used it to reload ~250 rounds and so far it's just lovely. Made reloading much much enjoyable (trickling powder charges was the most tedious part to me) and increased my production by 75-100%.
 
.284 said:
Rcbs all the way. Warranty is great too.
I had one get a glitch with the key pad. When I called and they found out I was in canada they said the shipping both ways would be too much so they actually told me to smash it with a hammer and take pictures.
Did the deed and they sent me a new one.
Pretty hard to beat that warranty.
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I'm sold! RCBS it is!
 
hardek said:
Any one try the hornady one?
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Yes...
It works very well... Set your target charge weight and go.
Speed is adjustable and can be set to auto dispense.
The only issue, and I imagine it's the same for other brands is that some powders meter better through the device than others.

When I use Win748 every charge dispense is bang on.
With the IMR stick powders every few charges end up going over my set limit. Likely because the individual "sticks" vary in size/weight.
Slows the process down a bit... Either have to re dispense or remove powder from the pan, but overall I'm happy with it.
Especially 'cause my Hornady was free..
 
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I don't know about the Lyman Gen5 but the Gen6 comes with a threaded insert for certain problematic powders (the clumpy stick ones). It slows down dispensing but prevents the powder from dropping clumps at the end which throws your charge overweight. Same concept as the RCBS straw trick but it comes with the dispenser.
 
I purchased a PACT digital powder dispenser and PACT digital powder scale combo about 8 years ago and have 0 problems. They are in Grand Prairie, Texas and they ship to Canada. Both products are made in USA.
 
wgrdafoe said:
Chargemaster makes reloading fun.
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Ditto. My only minor complaint is with flakey powders that have smaller grains(pistol powders), the powder sticks to the powder tube. Static I think, so I took a drier sheet and rubbed the inside down and problem solved. Love my chargemaster
 
i have a hornady LNL auto dispenser
it's not bad, but occasionally gets on a run of 3-5 overcharges in a row.. normally around the 35-40 round mark of 50 round sessions. noted this with h335, imr4064, imr7828, and varget.

recently a friend who wanted to get into reloading purchased a RCBS chargemaster and brought it over to use while he used some of my gear.
kicking myself for nto spending the extra $ at the time and getting the chargemaster. the hornady just feels, well, cheap, in comparison.
 
Cummins said:
I have the hornady one don't like goes over even on the slowest setting have been using lee spoons and a rcbs trickler instead of the electric dispenser faster and less frustrating than pouring the powder back in a hundred times because it has gone over.
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did you watch the youtube vid and hold the mode button and change the value to 6 instead of 2...fixed my over charging problems immediately. I have no complaints with the LnL dispenser
 
I use the lyman autoscale / dispenser. I really like it, but I found it wasn't as accurate as I wanted. I was re-measuring a lot of them on the RCBS original scale. Until I realized a simple solution. I went out to the lathe and spun an insert to restrict the dispenser a bit. The idea that I came up with is to keep the powder from clumping/falling when the unit is spinning fast. It spins a little longer but it hits my charge BANG on every time. When it spins slow at the end that is when my little insert really works well. It trickles in every time exactly on.

aninchlow
 
Chinbullco said:
I have one, I used it. It's slow. Bought another, the newer one is a few seconds faster but still a lot slower than my Harrell's powder measure even with using trickler to top up charge weights. I don't use the Charge-Masters any more. I use the Charge-Master scale when weight sorting brass.
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Is the Harrell's powder thrower really that accurate? I have a Lee Perfect Powder Measure and its more accurate then my RCBS thrower was but still leaves a lot to be desired. I looked at the Harrells on the Sinclair website but it seems like a lot of coin to drop for a manual powder thrower.

I know Im off the OPs question about electronic powder dispensers, but I suspect the question is also about speed and accurate repeat-ability.

Anyone have some more feedback on the Harrell's thrower - I mainly use thge following powders - IMR 4350, H4350, Varget, IMR 4841
 
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I finally got an email back from Hornady with a link to the steps to change the trickle speed. Tried it out today, changed the speed to about 1/2 of the stock setting and it seemed to help. Before it was 80% over on just about every powder. Today I ran 60 .308 loads and it was good on about 70% of them and when it was over it was over by less of a margin. Better, but still a little frustrating to be off 30% of the time... (this was using IMR3031 powder btw)
 
I own a gen 3 lyman, its good for flake and ball powder, BLC-2 my staple powder It throughs pretty accurate.
stick powder... its not even worth firing it up. with 4831 I have to set it to through a grain low then trickle up with a hand trickler. you can't have it set to auto while doing this or esle it freaks out with an error mesage as you try to trickle.
If you buy a lyman, get a gen 6. They are cheaper then the previous gens and half the size, with a much smaller work bench foot print. According to a few guys i talked to that upgraded to them they work just as good as the bulkier ones.

The RCBS one, its better but its not..... its got a better throw accuracy, but its slower and huge...
 
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