How reliable is your powder measure?

TheIndifferent1

TheIndifferent1

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My Lee powder measure varies by +-0.3 grains when using Unique. This is fine for light plinking loads, but is troublesome when I'm working nearer max pressures.

I'm not ready to put down a few hundred for an electronic powder dispenser, but I'm curious if my measure is way out of whack of if most people have similar experiences :)
 
I'm too cautious to use near maximum loads without measuring by weight. A $100 RCBS balance scale works fine and I trust it. For light loads, like handgun target loads with 231, I doubt minor variances account for much error in accuracy. At least not at my level of shooting.
 
My Lee does the same with Unique,but with any other powder I've tried it's usually dead on or no more than .1 off. Thing is it was perfect with Unique at first too,then got balky. I intend to take it apart and see if the powder is getting in somewhere it not supposed to, as it feels stiffer sometimes than it used to. This seems to be a fairly common complaint with Unique,and lots of guys use Power Pistol or others instead. I have almost a pound left,so gotta use it up before I switch. I'll let you know if I find the problem.
 
I always throw the charge under the final weight and trickle up on my digital scale to the desired weight. I don't directly throw any charges for rifles...everything gets weighed and trickled.
 
Powder measure

Got these two lyman 55 powder measures a few months ago and did a test on both with ball powder & stick powder. the one has a culver conversion done to it, quite some differance in two.
I remember benchrest fellows loading strait from culver modified 55 measure and not weighing. They claimed 1/10 gr means nothing at 100 & 200 yard benchrest shooting. My friend who shoots Target Rifle at Conaught that 1/10 gr can make 3" verticale at 1000 yards. and he uses a high quality digital scale.that measures with in .01gr not 1/10th gr. I used the digital scale to check each charge for test results
manitou



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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigUglyMan
I always throw the charge under the final weight and trickle up on my digital scale to the desired weight. I don't directly throw any charges for rifles...everything gets weighed and trickled.
Exactly what I do.
A job worth doing is worth doing well;)
 
0.01grain, 1/700000 of a pound

manitou210 said:
Got these two lyman 55 powder measures a few months ago and did a test on both with ball powder & stick powder. the one has a culver conversion done to it, quite some differance in two.
I remember benchrest fellows loading strait from culver modified 55 measure and not weighing. They claimed 1/10 gr means nothing at 100 & 200 yard benchrest shooting. My friend who shoots Target Rifle at Conaught that 1/10 gr can make 3" verticale at 1000 yards. and he uses a high quality digital scale.that measures with in .01gr not 1/10th gr. I used the digital scale to check each charge for test results
manitou

what kind of scale measure that accurate, and how much does one cost????

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what kind of scale measure that accurate, and how much does one cost????
 
manitou210, most people don't shoot at 1000yds. Hunter Bench Rest shooters, shoot out to 300yds and I can tell you that out to 300yds, there isn't any difference between weighed loads and thrown loads. Loads that are thrown with the proper technique won't vary more than +or- 1/10 grain. I've shot several thousand weighed loads and thrown loads from the same rifle, with the same scope and components. The rifle is a Nobby Uno built 6PPC and as long as I do my part doping the mirage and wind, it will shoot 10X all day. To bad I can't do my part as well as the rifle can.
 
Im using the digital scales made by Lyman (1200 DPS III) and the RCBS charge master and have not had an issue at all. Some loads have been either .1 up or .1 down about every tenth charge until I made my own drop tube bushing with a smaller hole then they were all bang on - no pun intended! I calibrate them everytime I turn them on or evry 50 loads just because my loading tray has room for 50 rounds. Go digital, it might be a little slower but right on.
 
How much of a variation do you guys accept for pistol loads? 0.3 gr variation in a rifle case holding 30 grains isn't a big difference, but when you're dealing with 5 or 6 grains only, it seems pretty big.

I might pull the batch of .45 I did last night. It loaded between 6.0 and 6.3gr of Unique with a 230gr FMJ bullet at 1.28 OAL. I wanted 6.0 only, but it would have taken me all night to pick out individual flakes of powder for each round. I think I'll be looking for something that meters better.
 
BigUglyMan said:
I always throw the charge under the final weight and trickle up on my digital scale to the desired weight. I don't directly throw any charges for rifles...everything gets weighed and trickled.
Click to expand...

Great advise BUM. This is exactly the way I do all my rifle loads too :D. Good habit to weigh every charge.
 
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