Lee Auto Disc Newbie

v65magnafan

v65magnafan

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My friend gave me his Lee Pro 1000 and the .38/.357 dies.

I have his primers, his collection of various bullets, lots of casings, and a pound of Titegroup. I bought a Lee scale and a micrometer.

I'm going to start with .38 Sp.

I've rehearsed with the press and checked all adjustments. I'm sure I know what the press is doing, but to be careful, I'll be loading one-at-a-time until I absolutely know what I'm doing.

Now, I need your help. I've read Lee's book--and I've read his auto-disc and weight vs volume info. Also, I've read his chart info for .38 Special 158gr bullets and Titegroup powder. This is where I don't get it.

With a 158 grain lead bullet and Titegroup, Lee lists 3.2 starting grains/ .27cc/ .27 Autodisc for .38 Special.

The smallest disc cavity I have is .30.

What do I do now? Do I try .30, pour the powder from the casing onto the scale? Starting weight is 3.2 grains.

Did Lee design in enough safety leeway so that the .30 cavity is the one to use?

I'm really am a reloading newbie. Do I have the right idea here?
 
I found that when I had a Lee 1000 that the powder charge dropped by the disk setup did not match the charts, sometimes out by one sometimes two sizes.
Regardless I always checked the beginning half dozen charges dropped, the odd one during the middle and the last couple of a loading session. One of the things with any of the slide powder measures is to make sure that the slide is actually moving freely back and forth during the press stroke. I the powder hopper is too tight the disks bind and don't always return leaving empty cases, if too loose there are escaped granules of powder especially with fine ball powders.
 
Ok Good Stuff

OK.

And, I guess the way to check the load is to remove a loaded case from the holder and weigh the contents.

I think even I can figure this out.

And, keeping careful written notes is a good idea, too.

I'll investigate the Double Disc Kit (although I want to reload to save money).

BTW, this ammo is going into a 686 6". It's target shooting only at this point, 25m max. So I'm not going to be an obsessive-compulsive detail-freak--yet.

It's good to learn reloading for .38 in a revolver that can take .357.

I hope I haven't said anything too naive here.
 
What I did with mine was pick a cavity do 10 drops and weigh them divde by 10 that will give you the number of grains for that particular cavity. I did this for the various powders that I use.
Example

For Unique



.46cc = 3.6gr

.49cc = 3.8gr

.53cc = 4.1gr

You get the drift the volumes can vary from lot to lot so ALWAYS double check with your scale.
 
v65magnafan said:
OK.

And, I guess the way to check the load is to remove a loaded case from the holder and weigh the contents.

I think even I can figure this out.

And, keeping careful written notes is a good idea, too.

I'll investigate the Double Disc Kit (although I want to reload to save money).

BTW, this ammo is going into a 686 6". It's target shooting only at this point, 25m max. So I'm not going to be an obsessive-compulsive detail-freak--yet.

It's good to learn reloading for .38 in a revolver that can take .357.

I hope I haven't said anything too naive here.
Click to expand...
just weigh the powder , not the reloaded round- there's as much as 10 grains difference between casings alone in certain brands- you'll go nuts trying to do the live round thing- i found this out the hard way a while back- was doing a bunch of fed 44s- low on the casing alone was 113 grains, high was over 120- no powder or primer either- just bare casing
 
Maybe my writing wasn't clear. I would let the machine fill a casing by means of the auto disc. Then, I would spill the loaded powder from the case onto the scale and weigh that.

I don't see how else I can obtain a sample of what the auto disc is actually spilling into a case.
 
it's fairly easy to do with the 1000- just pull the casing out of stage 3 BEFORE you cycle the ram- that way you'll have a primed case to work with- be sure and zero your scale first, then pull your charged case, weigh your charge using the scale's pan,then pour it back into the case, and put the works back in station 3- then put your bullet on and ram it home- you can also do it out of stage 2, but then you have to work around the priming attachment and it's a little more tricky and easier to spill powder
 
Indeed weigh a few of the charged case contents to get an average. You will see by Lees chart that they say a certain cavity will throw a certain charge like ".30 cavity yields 3.5gr Titegroup", but often the actual charge is lighter. Personally, I use cavity .34 with Titegroup, which Lee says yields 4.0gr but in fact when weighed actually throws 3.6gr. There are a few reasons for this but each disc may be slightly different given possible irregularities in the product. Use the Lee chart as a guideline only and it will get you very close normally, but if you want accurate charges, weigh your loads for yourself and record the results from the cavity used. You may need to move up or down in cavity size to achieve the results you are looking for.
Good luck
dB:)
 
Thanks very much for the help. My thinking was correct. The corroboration by experienced experts was exactly what I needed.

Tomorrow, through the good graces of 2katz, I'll get some practise with an expert.

This coming week, I load my own.
 
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