Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Speed reloading- which powder measure?

My answer to the question as asked is to suggest multiple copies of your preferred brand of digital scale and electrical dispenser - there is an issue of generation as the makers leapfrog each other. For a while Lyman was little faster for the same result and there have been speedup kits.

I have no idea which might be the Platonic best currently and I don't think it matters. Pick your favorite color. Don't disillusion yourself by comparing them each to the other though once you have your battery setup. They may not be exactly the same but they will be pretty close given power conditioning and breeze control.

A battery of dispensers such that when one pan is dumped and replaced to restart the first dispenser the adjacent one is already ready. This is about the only way I know to guarantee +/- 0.1 grain of any and all stick powder and do it as fast as other operations this side of having a pair of assistants each with a manual setup.

Myself I find it useful to have an RCBS Little Dandy with a roll of quarters for weight to do charges such a 1.7 Red Dot for a .32 S&W Long all the way to optional at extra cost micrometer adjustments on a progressive with RCBS and Hornady with optional at extra cost micrometer adjustments in between. I'm sure Redding is first rate but the gap between that and Harrell's isn't much. Others I suspect are used and qualified with specific powders as with Precision and Neil Jones and others availabe as well. I suspect - but have never had the money to test - the really pricey measures aren't much better with large charges of 4064 say but rather do a superb job with other powders for short range - to 300 yards - bench rest.

I also use a Harrell's with included at the price micrometer adjustment for load at the range including load at the range ladder testing - which typically for me requires dawn or dusk diurnal wind reversal though I do have windflags - else I can't really tell what the targets are saying.

Beyond that I'd WAG that the folks who report success are measuring how rigid the mount is, how much the breeze is controlled, how consistent the operator is and other hard to reproduce aspects of the experiment.

I actually have the DPS3 speed upgrade kit for my Lyman, and it's just about as fast as my buddy's RCBS CM. I do my loading exactly like you do yours, including the dispenser waiting for me to pick up the next powder charge after seating the previous bullet, but I was hoping to speed things up by charging 50 or 100 cases at a time with a powder thrower, and then seat the bullets all at once.

The small case vs large case situation is why I always talk about percentages of the desired charge. For charges of ten grains or more, I am perfectly comfortable with a total variation of 1%. If the desired charge is 50 grains, that means a spread of half a grain is acceptable. I truly don't think there is any on-target result that one could absolutely blame on a 1%powder variation.

If you are more persnickety than that, you'd never be satisfied with a powder measure anyway unless you weigh every single charge. That's the only way to be sure you are within some arbitrarily tiny variation like 0.1 grain. Weighing every charge and "speed loading" are mutually incompatible, of course. The quickest way to have every charge weighed is a digital dispenser, because it does the metering and weighing while your hands are free to do other tasks - like bullet seating.

I was kind of afraid of that. Although that JD Quick Measure you mentioned certainly has me interested. Any experience or thoughts on that unit?

I have the Lyman DPS 3 for bench work and a Harrell's. I have conducted exhaustive tests with the Harrell's at home in a controlled environment. Using W760 and throwing 10 charges, each recorded & then averaged, it comes out pretty uniform. However, the individual swings can be as much as 6/10's and I don't like that a bit.

Most of my charges are locked in concerning powder choices. Unlike J.B. I don't get to play with newer stuff unless I pony up the cash & I don't need 30+ lbs of powder sitting around that I can't use when the loads don't work out.

As far as my progressive Hornady Lock N Load, the Hornady p.m. it came with works great !!

When I would like to speed things up with large charges I set my uniflo a couple of grains light then set the pan on the scale and hit the despence button to just trickle it to weight. Takes about a quarter the time with 70 gn. charges.

Six tenths on ball powder? Really?

Well, I bought a Johnson's, and I reviewed them for a magazine. Mine is an earlier model, and the newer ones are even better. But I am very impressed. I use it when I do a really bulk run (like a five-gallon bucket of prairie dog ammo). It works flawlessly.

I have both the Hornady, and the RCBS Uni-flow. The Hornady is a good measure, but I prefer the RCBS for coarse powders. One of the factors that really helps is to learn a consistent method - and that may vary with type of powder. With course powders I tend to grasp the knob with my fingers and place my thumb on the handle stem. Raising the handle knowing that you will break kernels, you can use the secure grip to cut and throw consistently. With fine powders I use just my fingertips and lift, perhaps tapping at the top, the bottom, or both, but always the same way.

Regardless how I do it, I load them all (or several at a time anyway) in a block. I do a visual of each case before beginning to seat bullets. It's pretty easy to tell if a case is off enough to matter for hunting loads. I don't usually discard only one load since a heavy one often means a neighboring (previous) load was light. If not there is sometimes a fur ball or similar in an 'overloaded' case.

That's a good idea...

How do you find the consistency/precision of the QM?

As long as you are load developed the correct way, the ladder method more precisely the Audette method, then thrown charges unless horrible, will not matter at normal ranges.

If you are going to shoot longer ranges, say 600 and beyond and anything like F class, then you will need to weigh more than just powder charges too... and you will be able to see the difference between dumped and weighed as the range lengthens.

Just remember this part, you don't just throw up and fling a 600 yard shot, the reloading reflects that too... you just learn to take your time...

Does anyone else here have experience with the Belding & Mull measure? I picked one up last year at a good price and it's easily the most consistent measure I've used, even with 4350 and 4064. It's not fast, but it's not pokey either. My Lyman #55 is definitely faster for charging a block of cases, but the B&M is more consistent, easily.

For fast, never fail loading, why not use the little Lee powder dippers?

Once you know which one to use and have practiced a bit to throw consistent charges, you can do it lightning fast with no calibration and no worries about anything. Kind of therapeutic even......

I'll never go back to a measure myself. Too much set up, weighing, adjusting, crunching, emptying.....

Hmm.

I love my old set of Lee dippers, and use it all the time, especially when working up loads. But I can't imagine loading several hundred rounds of rodent ammo with 'em!

Very accurate and as said will not cut or bind with stick powders. It tosses all types with similar results.

I like mine alot too. rarly use the RCBS, for handguns it's hard to beat the Little Dandy. --- Mel

Re: Belding and Mull. I have had one for 35+ years and have used it extensively on the IMR stick-type powders. Really works better there than a drum-type measure. I have two of the "micrometer" charge tubes, a standard and a magnum, so resetting to a charge is easy. Yeah, it's a bit slow but for a box or two of hunting ammo it's no big deal.

After switching to Ramshot ball and short-cut stick powders it doesn't get much use anymore. Redding measures take care of that. I also have a set of Lee dippers and wouldn't be without them.

Steve

Let me introduce the concept of Time and Motion measurement. The way you and I load right now requires that you pick up a case, brush the neck, seat the funnel, charge it, put the pan down and then pick up a bullet, put it on top of the case, place the case in the press and lower the arm to seat the bullet. Then you remove the case from the press, do a final inspection and put the assembled cartridge in the box.

From the time you have put the powder pan down, the Chargemaster has been working on dispensing the next load and usually, it is waiting for me to pick it up, so there is really not interruption in the flow.

If you decide to charge 50 and then seat 50 bullets, you will have to handle each case twice instead of once and you will have many more steps to do, that are all single-threaded, meaning you have to do them all yourself. You will also have the added task of checking to see if the powder is in the case and if the level of the powder looks appropriate, something you do not have to do with the electronic dispenser.

An added bonus of the Chargemaster is that it counts the number of charges it dispenses, this way when I do a large batch I know that I did not miss one. As you get older, stuff happens in your brain, and it's nice to know the CM has your back, trust me.

Now the most stupid way I have heard here is to dump short and trickle up. This is stupid only if you are trying to speed up from an electronic dispenser. If all you have is a scale and a measure, it's the way to go; going backwards is the stupid part. I used that method for many, many years and the problem is that it requires your undivided attention and fine motor skills. It goes well for a while and then it gets to be a pain because you are single-threaded at that point. When I got the CM, 5 years ago, it was like being liberated from that mindless drudgery of throwing short and trickling up; the CM did that for me automagically and I did not have to worry about it as I was doing something else, like seating a bullet or final prepping a case.

The Chargemaster in automatic mode was a Godsend to me and I have loaded mutliple thousands of match ammo with it, stuff that I use in 1000 yard competition.

Had this discussion at work last week. What powder measure is best or weigh each round?
I only weigh each one in load development, once satisfied , then calibrate the measure (RCBS) to that weight then start loading. I can not find any difference between thrown charges and weighed charges. This does take some practice with the powder measure, its called ,art, I think. So when whipping through the powder dispensing part , if a thrown charge doesn't 'feel' right it is dumped and I then continue on.
Some , are buying electronic scales, don't know much about them, I like the manual set up and when you get into the groove you can dispense a lot of rounds quickly and accurately.
I have a fat barrelled Savage ordered in 260 Rem so we will see how that goes , may be back to weighing every charge but we'll see.