Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Auto Powder Tricklers?

I am curious about reasonably priced auto tricklers. So what is most reliable of these:

RCBS Chargemaster Lite
Frankford Arsenal Intellidropper
Lyman Gen 6
Hornady Auto Charge

Problem is I don’t see a lot of user reviews. I personally like the Intellidropper best for connectivity and ergonomics, but I hear quality control compaint rumors so I might consider the no-frills RCBS. But I also hear quality complaints on RCBS. I also really like the Lyman for being able to fully disassemble for cleaning but I hear complaints of accuracy. And I really don’t like the ergonomics of the Hornady but I might consider only if it’s more reliable than the others.

So do any of you personally own these products and willing to share your experience? Or are they all junk?

My priority is accuracy, so I currently scoop and manually trickle into cheap electronic scale and verify all charges on balance beam. I think it might be nice to keep similar accuracy with more convenience.

Frankk, I can't speak to the other automated powder measures but, I have been using an RCBS Chargemaster Lite for about 2 years now and I am extremely happy with it. I may not be as fast as some of the other automated powder measurers but, it's accuracy more than offsets this in my opinion. I seldom get over throws and the accuracy of mine has been spot on. When using extruded powders like Varget, H4350 and etc. I only check every 4 or 5 throws on my RCBS M1000 (it replaced my old RCBS 10-10}. I probably don't even need to check throws that frequently but I'm a bit anal for accuracy when getting close to max loads. It works just as well for ball powders but my Redding 3BR is also extremely accurate as well (after initial setup) and is a pleasure to use. I enjoy using manual powder measure (I have several) and really really like the Redding 3BR.

Over the years, I have had several different electronic powder scales and even an auto trickler from Omni but, my current setup using the Chargemaster Lite and Redding 3BR and verifying loads on the RCBS M1000 has proven to be both efficient and accurate. I highly recommend the RCBS Chargemaster Lite.

Thank you, Biggs300. Out of all of them I am now most seriously considering the Chargemaster Lite.

I also have the Chargemaster Light and love it. There are, however, some anomalies you should be aware of. It does not throw accurate charges for the super fine ball powders like Big Game and Hunter. Winchester 760 is not a problem, nor are any of the extruded powders I have used like Varget.or H4350. It can also be a little on the slow side, especially for larger cartridges. I still think it is faster than weighing individual loads and trickling up, especially if you were doing load workups and are changing the powder charge every five or six rounds. If you are loading up a large number of cartridges with the same powder charge, then throwing the charges and weighing every 10th one or so as a check is much faster. Since I don’t do a lot of that kind of volume reloading, I find the Chargemaster Light both more convenient and faster for me. It was well worth the investment in my opinion.

I have the Hornady AutoCharge. I have been pretty happy with it. It does take a little work with the settings to get it to dispense small, ball type powders such as Hunter, Big Game, and to a lesser extent CFE223. All in all I have been very happy with it.

Thank you Speedgoat and Hadsdad

I’m leaning towards the RCBS Chargemaster Lite. I’ll probably wait until Black Friday and hope something goes on sale