Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading Anyone loading Caveman style?

Laughing at me here.

Neither my Uniflow nor my Midway powder dispenser are handling 3 to 5 gr charges of flake powder. Both are rifle units meant to deliver 10 gr or more, and they both excel in that regard.

Right now, I have 1500 cases in 9mm, 38 super, and 10mm sitting on the bench waiting for powder. (single stage presses) So I ordered two sets of Lee measuring spoons. A second set in case I want to file the top off of some for custom capacity.

Yes, I also got on the RCBS website and ordered a pistol cylinder with micrometer for the Uniflow. We will see which I end up liking better, the spoons or the Uniflow.

Nothing wrong with a volume type powder system.....provided the hand loader is consistent with their methods. If fact, I’ve read that some bench rest shooters use the dipper type (custom cut for volume) system! memtb

You using a baffle in that Uniflow? Mine drops uniform charges of Red Dot, Unique and other flake powders in the 3-5 grain range. Wouldn’t work for sh*t until I put the baffle in and played with the height of it in the powder hopper.

My old Lyman 55 dropped many a charge of 2.8 grains of Bullseye. Problem was initial set up. After that all was fine.
Finally bought a Harrels pistol measure. The micro settings are repeatable. Problem solved. Hasbeen

RCBS Little Dandy, been using one for 20yrs. for handgun loading.

You'll find that the pistol cylinder does indeed work much better than the rifle for those tiny charges. But don't be surprised if you like the dippers better.

Same here, Swifty

At 3 gr of Universal using the rifle cylinder, both powder measures bind up with the metering rod striking the measure housing.

It is pretty tough to make a measure operate that close to minimum.

I am sure the pistol cylinder will fix that issue in the Uniflow.

Yes, I do have a powder baffle in both units.

I suspect that the measuring spoons will work out to be actually faster placing 3 gr of Titegroup in a 9mm or 327 case.

Take a fired 9mm case, weigh the charge you want.
Put it in the case, mark the height, cut it off a bit high.
Solder or brase a 16d nail to the bottom.
Try it as a dipper, weigh the charge.
Grind it down untill it's right.

Really doesn't take long.
If you load 100 at a time of different stuff like I do,
It's an investment.

45 minutes to make a dipper.
Never screw with adjusting a measure again.
Once you check it for the first couple rounds each use.
You know it's not gonna need to be rechecked for the batch.

If your hands are getting like mine, you might want to epoxy
A handlemade from a hatchet split/sander shaped 2x4.

Some where around here, I’ve still got a set of those old Lee powder measuring scoops. Little plastic things of various sizes.
And some of Dad’s old Lee Hand loaders. 🤠

That is exactly what I was considering. A sawed off cartridge case and silver solder a shaped brazing rod on as a handle.

Then it occurred to me that Lee sells them for about $1 each. DUH!

I have a few I've made. Lead solder is plenty strong.
Good epoxy would be if you flattened your rod stock.


Also bought the complete Lee set. Later.

But I can't bring myself to modify them for exactly what I want.

Look around for an RCBS Little Dandy.
It's made for handgun charges, and uses replaceable rotors instead
of screwing around with adjustments.

The tool isn't too expensive. The rotors run around $10.
One if those deals where the accessories soon surpass the tool
in cost. But I bought mine off Fleabay. Guy was ditching a whole
stores inventory. I picked up everyone I thought I might need.

Never used it yet!

Need some 38s. It time!

Harrell's, Lee Perfect is a very close second.

Works for me too. Finding the right rotor can be tricky sometimes, but I’ll settle for one that throws a slightly light charge.

I started buying rotors when they were $5.95 each. Now , what are they going for?

If you have a great load for a favorite handgun, Step down one rotor and drill to make the throw you want.

RCBS named it correctly. It's a Dandy little tool.

About $12.

The pistol cylinder for the Uniflow came in today. I also ordered the micrometer spindle for it. It is a sweet set up. I charged 700 pistol cases with 4756 through it. Every charge was right on 7.5 gr until it threw a half charge at empty.

I expect the Lee dippers will still be faster when they come in.

If you follow Lee's instructions to the letter...you'd be damn hard pressed to beat that uniformity with a 200 dollar measure, with most of the powders I'm familiar with anyway.

I have a pistol chamber for my BR-3, but I procured a Lil' Dandy and about every rotor under the sun (except the wee ones).

Also have a LEE dipper set in the long cardboard box, in case I ever take up loading 25 or 32 autos!

I do everything on a single-stage press. I'll load handgun by dropping powder directly into cases while they're in the tray if the powder allows for it (measures the same weight every single time). Otherwise, if it's a bulkier powder and I cannot demonstrate the same drop every time, each charge goes to the scale just under my desired powder recipe, then I trickle in the rest. Some days, what else do we have to do?? It's still fun, and if I'm loading just to have more ammo on the shelf, I may do only 100 at a time and at my leisure. Done quickly, or done right?!?!

The evaluation is done. The Lee dipper spoon worked well after I filed it down enough to get the charge I wanted in 9mm. I loaded 2000 rounds with 125 gr Berry's over Universal.

But when I moved on to 38 Super and 10 mm, the dippers were either far above or far below my selected charge weight of HS-6 and Longshot. So back to the Uniflow with the pistol rotor.

I absolutely love this setup. The micromometer adjustment stem is perfectly repeatable, adjustment is quick and sure.

Small drum in the Uniflow with a baffle 2/3 the way down is the shizzle. Did over 1100 9mm last week @ 6.4 gr each of Power Pistol. Calibrate to a single load then cal at X 10 (as in 64 gr for the 9mm) then check your single throw and tweak. Also did about 450 .357 with 10.4 gr Blue Dot and 50 rounds of .44 Mag @ 15 Gr Blue Dot. Charged all in the tray. Random throws were weighed for assurance. No problems. ANYTHING safe to speed up a single stage Rockchucker when your volume loading. Also use a press mounted tube fed priming system most folks seem to find fault with.

Strange, mine runs just fine without a baffle.. This chidt just baffles me..

my elderly RCBS Uniflow measure has no problems delivering consistent low weight charges for my pistol reloading. Some powders I set it to throw short weight and then top off with the trickler. No issues at all.

I've never been a huge volume loader (maybe 1500 rounds a year on average across all my cartridges) so I've always just used a single stage press and done all my powder charging with a set of the Lee scoops, powder trickler, and scale.

You won't set any speed records doing it, but it gets the job done accurately every time.

I became a dipper when I found my Uniflow measure just could not hack H4831. I had a 25-06 that I was trying to build up a load for. The bridging was so severe I would have a 12-grain difference from one load to the next. I was already throwing low and trickling up. What I did was build a customer dipper out of an old case and build a handle from brass wire. It measured a load that was just under the target weight. I then topped it off with the trickle.

See details here:

Call me a Dipper


Since then, I've acquired an Hornady Auto Charge. It throws close to dead-on every time.

Ha, my old man has been doing that same thing for his 25-06 with H4831 since before I was born, too, except he was using a Redding measure with the same issues, and soldered a spoon handle onto his cut case.

He still loads them like that to this day. Gotta love homegrown tools 😁

H4831SC (short cut) is your friend, if you can find it. But friends like that are getting hard to find.

Been there-- had the same problem. Thanks for the idea, though.

It's okay, the dipper did the trick. I've used a dipper a few times since on other projects. It's not bad. If you get your scoop method down, it's about as accurate as a powder measure.