Powder measures, accurate enough for small pistol?

[1sailor]

Still debating on whether to go with a kit to start or to build my own. One question I'm having a hard time getting a conclusive answer to is, how accurate are powder measures? For now I would be loading mostly 9mm. With a lot of powders there's only a few tenths difference between a beginning load and a maximum load. Would it be necessary to weigh each or are they accurate enough to trust? I see lots of guys saying they check every tenth round or even as high as every fifty. They haven't mentioned though what they are reloading. I don't suppose that being off a couple of tenths matters as much when you're loading a 45-70. If some are more trustworthy than others it would make sense to build from scratch. On the other hand if the ones provided by Hornady or Lee are really that good then a kit starts looking a little better. Also, if I'm weighing each charge then a turret press starts loosing some of the edge it had over a single stage press.

 

[lpspinner]

For 9mm, On the Single Stage press, I either use a Lee Pro Auto Disk powder measure upgraded with the Adjustable Charge Bar. When I use the Dillon, I use the Dillon measure. Both are accurate to +/- 1/10ths of a grain.

When I first start, I may check the 1st 5 and if I happy then I'll check every 10 or 20 for a while, then it's every 50 or when I feel like it.

Both powder measure drops through a die on the presses. I don't use a separate table top measure.

On another forum, I just pieced out a reloading for someone using a Single stage press. You'll most likely not use or upgrade the kit components anyway, so why spend the extra money.

Yes, the price will be more expensive then a kit, but less then a kit PLUS buying he upgraded pieces.

I'm old school and believe you should learn on a Single Stage press. You learn the craft from the beginning through each step and have a deeper appreciation and more in depth knowledge.

Believe me, later on in life, you'll still use that SS press for other tasks.

 

[Steve in Vermont]

I have a Redding Model 3BR Match Grade PM (metered with the pistol # 03600) and have found it very accurate, to within + or - 1/10 of a grain, usually right on the money. I use their PM stand bolted firmly onto the bench. Check the reviews for this and other PM on sites like Midway or Google search reviews.

 

[firecracker6]

I have 2 brands of powder measure. One is the Lee perfect powder measure I've had since 1994. I does well w/ most powders but fine ball powders like aa9 leak out of the sides. The other is a hornady (I actually have 2 of them). It came w/ a rotor and metering assembly for rifles. It worked fine w/ ball powders but flake gave it absolute fits --it seemed like the bigger the flakes the worse the fits. I installed the "pistol rotor and metering assembly" and now it dumps every powder I've tried w/ great precision with the exception of 800X. From what I can tell nothing will dump that powder w/ reasonable precision. Hope this helps.

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

I use the Hornady powder measure on my Hornady LnL to load my 9mm. I use Bullseye powder and have the measure set to 4.6 grains for a 115 grain bullet. All of my spot checks are within + or - .1 grain....very consistent and reliable.

 

[Rule3]

I load pretty much every handgun caliber with many different powders all on a Lee Turret with the Pro Disc Powder Measure.

I have the charge bar and never use it.

So if you get the Classic Turret Kit with Pro Disc, no worries, start loading.

 

[HAWKEYE10]

I have a Lyman 55 powder measure and it works great but there are other good measures as well. I just use powders that meter well such as "bullseye and Winchester 231". Either one of these powders will be good for 9mm, 38's, 40 caliber, and 45ACP. For .223 in my Savage bolt rifle I use Ramshot TAC and one of the reasons I use it is it meters good. Don

 

[johngalt]

I have 3 powder measure: the Lee Perfect, the Lee Pro auto disk, and the Hornady LNL AP powder measure.

The Lee Perfect is terrible. The only way I was able to get it to work is turn the handle, tap it to make sure a full measure of powder loads into the tube, then turn it to dump it into the case, and tap and to make sure all the powder goes into the case. It leaks powder all over.

The Lee auto disk is better, but I never actually used it much. It leaks a bit too.

The Hornady LNL AP is great. With Bullseye it never varies by more than .1 gr.

In my experience, powder tends to settle in the powder measure later in a loading session, so that toward the end it is throwing slightly heavier charges than at the beginning, maybe by .1. A baffle may help this.

Powder measure consistency greatly depends on the powder. Small kernel powders (ball powders like AA, W231 and small flakes like Bullseye) work better large kernel powders (Unique, Green Dot) and stick powders.

When I load, I am very careful at the start of the loading session to make sure it is throwing what I want. I'll throw 10 or 20 charges, and when it is consistently throwing what I want, I start loading. I don't bother checking periodically. Maybe I will when reloading primers, but that's about it.

 

[Smithaddict]

I have a Harrell's Schuezen powder measure for throwing small pistol sized charges up to about 25 grains. It just doesn't get any better than this one. There are some electronic ones out there that let you know exactly what you are throwing (at least to the accuracy of its scale), but the ones I have tried drift a little and are just too slow.

 

[Titegroups]

Some powders meter better than others. But for the most part a tenth or two one way or another isn't a concern in handgun ammo, with rifle shooting it can be. Reloading for handguns doesn't normally require the precision that some rifle loading does. I'm not a rifle shooter but I seem to recall someone telling me at 600yds using a .308 there is about 4" difference with a 1/10 grain change in powder charge. We have a 600yd range at my club but I'm not involved with it, yet.

 

[dswancutt]

I have an older Hornady powder measure that I updated with the newer "quick change' rotors, which seem to meter better than the old rotors. I load rifle and pistol, and the only powder which gives me fits isn Unique. For the most part, it never verys more than .1 grain and I check the 1, 6th, 11th, etc round.

 

[Jim Watson]

My Dillon and RCBS small measure pistol powders as closely as I have ever needed. I have a vibrator on the hopper of my S1050 for flake powders like 700X and Clays but it is not necessary for Ball powder like W231 and probably not for Bullseye, although I just left it on there when I set up for Bull.

 

[TSQUARED]

On my Dillon 550 I used their ultra small powder bar and relaoded 32 S&W L with 1.6 gr. W-231 with excellent consistency. Ball powders measure more consistently than others.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

The Lyman #55 is the measure that works on every powder every charge size!!! If you want to buy only one measure thats it (it is avalible in a black powder version too). There is a little thing called "The Hammer" on the #55 this used on loads like .2 Grains of Unique in 25 auto, it vibrates that last 3 or 4 flakes of powder out of the measure and makes the load consistent! There are better measures for certin apps, only the #55 will work on all apps!

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

The Hornady LNL AP is great. With Bullseye it never varies by more than .1 gr.

In my experience, powder tends to settle in the powder measure later in a loading session, so that toward the end it is throwing slightly heavier charges than at the beginning, maybe by .1. A baffle may help this.

The Hornady does have a baffle....doesn't yours? Mine is fairly new with the new eject system. My loads stay consistent regardless of powder in the hopper...although I try to always keep it half or above, an old habit I got into with my RCBS powder measure.

 

[johngalt]

The Hornady does have a baffle....doesn't yours? Mine is fairly new with the new eject system. My loads stay consistent regardless of powder in the hopper...although I try to always keep it half or above, an old habit I got into with my RCBS powder measure.

I got my press before the baffle was included, so I don't have it.

 

[TAROMAN]

I have gone through a number of powder measures.
For small pistol charges, the two best I've ever used are the old Pacific pistol measure that used bushings and my current Redding with the pistol micrometer.

 

[Lee in Quartzsite]

I got my press before the baffle was included, so I don't have it.

I'll bet you a Dunkin Donut that if you call Hornady Customer Service that they will send you one. I had a couple of issues with mine and they were exceptional in their service.

Hornady Sales Team 1-800-338-3220

 

[jimkim]

I use a Lee PPM, an updated Lee Auto Disk , RCBS Uniflow, and a Hornady LNL. The one that throws the most consistent light charges(1.4gr Bullseye) is the Lee PPM. I was shocked. When I'm loading 32 long I reach for the Lee. It feels cheap and is made of some type of plastic, but it is more accurate than either of my high dollar measures with either flake or extruded powders. When I'm loading high volumes of handgun ammo I use a good metering powder and the Auto Disk. Mine did leak a little with AA#7, but I filed the mounts down until the hopper was flush with the adjustable charge bar. It doesn't leak much at all now. At some point I will probably order the universal charging die and just use the PPM for everything.

 

[noylj]

You do know that the 9x19 has been reloaded since the 1910's with powder measures worse than todays?
If there is less than 1.0gn between start and max, that is NOT a good powder to use. In almost all cases, the company started to get severe pressure deviations and spikes with that powder and chose a max load that still kept the pressure swings under maximum.
The only possible excuse to use such a powder is for some action pistol shooting where you have convinced yourself that that powder is the only one that will give you the edge you perceive to need.
9x19 tradionally is loaded with powders slower than AA5, with Herco, Blue Dot, Silhouette, HS6, HS7, and Power Pistol being the "norm."
Next, no gun can tell a 0.1gn increase or decrease in powder on target. Even if there is a real difference in velocity--and only a "T" test after firing at least 20 rounds of each will tell you--any difference in ballistics is far below your own in built shooting errors it could never be seen.
For pistols, they aren't accurate enough to tell and for rifles, the charges are so large that +/- 0.2gn is well into the noise region for the charge weight.
For your questions, since history isn't good enough for you, decide whether you can live with a +/-0.1gn deviation in charge weight (and it may be 0.2gn occasionally) or get an RCBS ChargeMaster and weigh every charge.
Obviously, the tens of thousands producing great ammunition using conventional powder measures is not enough.
You don't blow up a gun by going a few tenths of a grain over max--you do start to beat up your gun, however.
The thing is, I have been loading for over 45 years and I can remember about four times I worked up to max loads, and one was for my Browning Hi-Power 9x19. I found that with some powders I was hitting max at less than the manual's loads and a couple of times I went well above the manual's max load before I hit pressure equivalent to the factory loads I used for comparison. However, I never went more than 0.3gn over max in order to determine the max load.
Thus, Max loads are not something you will normally even want. You will get much better accuracy somewhere below max.
Then, there are those who shoot the "ticking time bomb" called 9mm Major--and they are in a completely different level of pressure.