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Old 05-14-2011, 01:27 PM
McShooty McShooty is offline
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For handguns, what works for me is a Lee Pro Auto Disk Measure mounted on a Lee Powder Thru Expander die. One stroke and you have charged the case and flared the case mouth. The Pro Auto comes with four charge disks with different cavities and you can also get a continuously adjustable charge bar. Speed, accuracy and repeatability are very good. Have I mentioned that it doesn't cost that much? The charge disk of the Pro Auto relies on a spring to return it to the position where it picks up powder, so if the disk binds and does not return, your next case will not get charged, and that is bad, bad, bad. This happens infrequently, and my practice is to visually check each case for powder after the charge stroke. Sometimes I charge fifty cases and visually check them in the loading block before seating bullets. This practice does not come up to the speed of a progressive loader, but is much faster than using a powder dispenser-scale device.

To choose the correct disk cavity and monitor the powder charges you need a good digital scale. I use the inexpensive model sold by Frankford Arsenal, and I have reported on this in an earlier post ("Economical Digital Scales" March 12). Scales of this type come with a 50-gram weight which is used for calibration. That's OK, but being about 770 grains it is worthless for determining whether your scale is working well in the range of pistol charges. For that you need lighter standards. If a 100-milligram (0.1 gram) weight on your scale reads 1.5 grains and a 200-milligram weight returns 3.1 grains, then your scale is working fine for light pistol charges. If a 2-gram weight gives 30.9 grains, then you are doing well in the light rifle range. The Frankford Arsenal model does this quickly and repeatably. RCBS sells check weight sets but I do not know what weights are included. There are of course, a number of other low-priced digitals on the market. Get one that works and don't look back. Chemists and pharmacists haven't used beam balances in more than a generation. I am at an age where I probably shouldn't buy green bananas, so I am surely not going to spend my time watching a balance beam go up and down, even if it is magnetically damped.
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