has anyone done testing to see the actual difference between powder measures for consitancy. I see several types and so many price ranges. it would be nice to see an actual test done with say 10 -20 throws of variouse popular powders. then have the measured variances in front of you to see help determine the worth of a 300$ measure over a standard one.
accuracy between powder measures
- Thread starter chevytruck_83
- Start date
BoydAllen
Gold $$ Contributor
There are differences. I have done the tests....BUT technique (variable by measure and powder) and other variables are such large factors that any superficial comparison would be of limited value. Overall, within the range of powders that can possibly be thrown to +- .1 gr. measures with closer drum fit, and charge cavities that are wider and not so deep tend to produce better results (for me), but the differences between a well done technique, and a more superficial approach are greater than the differences between measures. There is also the issue of whether a reloader needs to be able to return a measure to precisely the same setting. Of course, if you are throwing lite and trickling, any measure will do. Overall, looking at the probability of the average shooter spending the time to learn his measure, and become reliably consistent in its operation, the Chargemaster becomes the preferred option.
that's why I'm wandering. if I throw 20 in a row or so and the drum doesn't try to cut the powder, they measure very consistent. I hear culiver this and that but feel like the powder is what causes the biggest variance.
BoydAllen
Gold $$ Contributor
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Culver measures are not inherently more accurate, once they are set, but they do work out very well in terms of repeatable settings, a graduation system that is easy to use, and built in mounting clamps and bottle adapters. The one real advantage that I know of for one of these type measures is the roller bearings that are in some of the Harrell measures. They give a consistency of friction (very little), and allow tighter tolerances that both are advantageous. I like mine a lot. Bottom line, tune up a balance scale to top performance, or pay to have it done, and practice throwing a lot, comparing different techniques.
I agree 100% with Boyd's comments. Like him, I did a back to back test on a number of measures with six different powders a few years back and published the results in TargetShooter online e-zine. They were: the basic RCBS Uniflow, Hornady L-N-L Competition model, Lee Perfect powder measure, Harrel's BR Premium, Forster Benchrest, Redding BR-30. They all performed well, but varied from powder to powder, so none was superior overall. The Harrells measure has the huge plus of repeatable settings and the ability to change them in small (~0.1gn) steps through a graduated click-drum adjuster, but didn't show any superiority in the consistency of charges thrown.
The great find / surprise was how good the little and cheap Lee 'Perfect' is. It's a real shame it's so small. If you loaded half a dozen powders / charge weights for different loads or cartridges, it'd make sense to buy six Lee measures rather than one Harrell's and leave them permanently set and labelled. That's despite the flimsy stamped steel stand too! Mount one on something solid and it would probably run rings round the rest.
If you want really consistent charges, my leading pair of options would be:
1) a good set of beam scales + the British Target Master optically controlled power-trickler, or its US made Omega equivalent. You don't need a measure - the old Lee charge cups do fine!
2) the RCBS ChargeMaster - the best, most time-saving handloading innovation in years. I couldn't live without mine.
The great find / surprise was how good the little and cheap Lee 'Perfect' is. It's a real shame it's so small. If you loaded half a dozen powders / charge weights for different loads or cartridges, it'd make sense to buy six Lee measures rather than one Harrell's and leave them permanently set and labelled. That's despite the flimsy stamped steel stand too! Mount one on something solid and it would probably run rings round the rest.
If you want really consistent charges, my leading pair of options would be:
1) a good set of beam scales + the British Target Master optically controlled power-trickler, or its US made Omega equivalent. You don't need a measure - the old Lee charge cups do fine!
2) the RCBS ChargeMaster - the best, most time-saving handloading innovation in years. I couldn't live without mine.
Wool I just switched from a Lee perfect powder to a RCBS uniflow. So far with H335 the RCBS is better by a long ways. The Lee drums get clogged up with small powder and has to be emptied and cleaned out, or that was my case. The RCBS was throwing charges dead on for 20 charges for me earlier and I was much happier.
For the money the Lee is good but isn't built very well in my opinion. Cheap feeling
For the money the Lee is good but isn't built very well in my opinion. Cheap feeling
Boyd it was awful. From my research online it seems the Lee plastic drums are not very tight tolerances and therefor allows the small powder to creep in between and causes the handle to feel like pulling a brick and charges get off by as much as 2 full grains.
mine locked up in less than 10 charges. Now for extruded or stick it was perfect as I throw low and trickle up to desired weight
BigDMT
savageshooter86 said:
I've had the RCBS for years and use it to charge my varmint rifle rounds. Works very well for that purpose. May be off .1gr to .2gr here and there, but I really don't care if I happen to miss a shot on a gopher at 300 yards because of it. I check it every 10 throws on my scale and adjust if I need to. Many times it is still right on. One good trick for consistent charges is to keep the powder hopper at least 3/4 full all the time
Now about that LEE,
You always hear some yayhoo talking up that LEE thrower online. So finally after a while I figured, what the heck, for the price I'll give it a try to see what all the hype is.
I could go on and on, but I will just say one thing... What a total piece of worthless plastic junk!
However, I will say that the LEE powder charging dies are pretty cool. I did some mods to mine so the RCBS fits right on top of it
Well, I can only report as I find. Anyway, just what is a 'yayhoo'? - I've been called a lot of things during my 60 odd years on the planet, but it's a first for that one, and we don't hear the term used much in Yorkshire (England that is).
The Lee uses a convex shape rotor in a matching concave aperture in its body. The amount of clearance between the two is critical, and that's adjusted by the amount of tension on the single screw that holds them together. The material of these parts is a rather soft nylon type plastic so they fit well under tension, but get the screw too tight and you can hardly turn the rotor and use the measure, too loose and you WILL get powder kernels trapped between the pair, especially ball powders. The first time I tried one of these measures with a Hodgdon ball powder, yes I got this problem, and yes I wasn't impressed, amused or anything much positive about it. So, I emptied the device, cleaned the rotor and body cavity up and reassembled the tool on the tight side gradually slackening the screw until the measure just operated smoothly if tightly. Refilled with H335 or BL-C(2) or whatever I was using and no more kernels found their way where they oughtn't.
Yes, it's a cheap machine; yes, it's made of plastic; yes, it's far too small; yes, I'm a snob and continued to use my Harrell's 'Premium' even after the test. BUT it worked well for me. Here's what I wrote about the Lee in the feature:
Impressions
Let me pass on my impressions of using the six models, again emphasising the subjective nature of these views. I’ll start with the Lee ‘Perfect’ measure, the cheapest at a few pence under £27. This is a small, no let’s be frank TINY, device which unlike the others is mostly fabricated from plastics of one sort or other. The rotor and its matching cavity in the body are slightly cone-shaped and made of some form of nylon type material, their fit adjusted by the amount of tension imparted by the single securing screw. The trick is to set the tension so that the tool operates easily, but not loose enough for powder kernels to slip between their surfaces which can happen especially with fine-grained ball powders, and requires the measure to be emptied, dismantled and cleaned. A key feature in its success is an ‘elastomer wiper’, a thin soft blade that stops powder kernels sticking. The mechanism is smooth, but doesn’t run as easily as the metal bodied models. You get a thin stamped steel stand which is attached to the measure body using two self-tappers and it’s so thin it flexes as you operate the device. No matter, the elastomer wiper set-up doesn’t need rock-steady support to give good results apparently! Unlike some of our sextet, the measuring chamber is charged when the handle is in the up position and discharges its load when the handle is pushed down. It has a 120° throw, but if you don’t need automatic (progressive press) operation, there is a small plastic stop that can be removed to allow the metering chamber to rise up to true vertical improving performance with bulky powders. This measure is one I bought some years back, but hardly ever used, so was as-new when tried. This degrades consistency as powders deposit a coating of graphite on the internal surfaces during early use that helps powder flow through the device smoothly making its performance even more creditable than the results in Table 2 suggest. Unlike other makers, Lee’s metering stem markings have a use other than simply for referencing settings as they’re graduated in cubic centimetres and you get a list of powder ‘VMD’ values, the volume of 1.0gn powder that lets you calculate a starting setting. If I’d wanted to throw 51.9gn of H. VarGet (the average I ended up with) whose VMD is 0.0731, multiply one by the other and we get 3.79cc, and sure enough that’s where we are on the scale reading. The Lee was one of only two measures that kept all four powder SDs to 0.2gn or below and one of three that produced a reasonable ES with Hybrid 100V. Oddly, it struggled a little with VarGet which most other measures performed best with, but proved to be an excellent performer overall, especially given the price. I only have one complaint about this tool – it is too small. If Lee had made it 50% bigger throughout, or even given it a decent size grasping knob, it would be easier to use.
That was an exhaustive test carefully done with each thrown charge weighed on an Acculab VIC 123 lab-quality scale, trying very hard to get consistent operation in the throw and 'knocking' the measure body twice with a wooden kitchen spoon before each throw.
10 charges were thrown and discarded to settle the measure down, then 25 charges were thrown and weighed and returned to the powder bottle not the measure reservoir as I wanted to have the powder column height and mass reduce as in 'real' use. The four powders used were Viht N140, H. VarGet, H100V, and IMR-4064. Charge weights used were in the high 40s to 50gn
It was recognised that the Redding BR-30 and Harrell's machines were disadvantaged by the powder charge weight as they're optimised for charges weighing around 30gn, so a subsequent test was run for this pair setting them to throw 28gn of Viht N133, and this improved their consistency, the Redding coming out slightly ahead to my surprise.
So far as small dia. ball powders go, I'm running a review of Ramshot products at the minute. They work great in the Harrell, but I've given up using therm in the RCBS Chargemaster - they flow TOO easily and a slight bump against the workbench or disturbance to the dispenser sees balls escape from the trickler tube. Once out they get everywhere and that includes inside the ChargeMaster to places which don't help operation or accuracy!
BigDMT
Not gonna quote that post, you must be able to type over 100 wpm
I was not calling you a yayhoo sir. By that I meant some of the folks you will see online talking about the LEE measure like it is the golden standard that all other measures should be judged. So a yayhoo basically means a person talking nonsense.
IMO, what good is a measure if it cannot throw all types of powder? What if my favorite load used a fine ball type powder? Which some rifles do. So that is my reasoning for calling it a piece of junk.
I was not calling you a yayhoo sir. By that I meant some of the folks you will see online talking about the LEE measure like it is the golden standard that all other measures should be judged. So a yayhoo basically means a person talking nonsense.
IMO, what good is a measure if it cannot throw all types of powder? What if my favorite load used a fine ball type powder? Which some rifles do. So that is my reasoning for calling it a piece of junk.
BigDMT
Laurie said:Well like everybody else I do talk cr*p on occasions especially on our so-called 'leaders', and especially when I've imbibed a little too much alcoholic liquor (Hic!)No offence understood or taken, my friend.
LOL. Very good
BoydAllen
Gold $$ Contributor
Laurie,
Good info. I have found that powder height, and baffle height and configuration can have a big effect on measure performance, and have tried a lot of different throwing techniques. One thing that I have found is that in order to get the most out of a measure, I may have to modify a technique that worked well on a different measure. Also, with the same measure, different techniques were required to do the best results throwing different powders. All in all, except for ball and very fine stick powder, staying inside of +- .1 gr. requires a post graduate degree in powder throwing, and as I am sure that you know, when the granule size and/or shape exceeds certain parameters it is either throw and trickle, or Chargemaster.
Boyd
Good info. I have found that powder height, and baffle height and configuration can have a big effect on measure performance, and have tried a lot of different throwing techniques. One thing that I have found is that in order to get the most out of a measure, I may have to modify a technique that worked well on a different measure. Also, with the same measure, different techniques were required to do the best results throwing different powders. All in all, except for ball and very fine stick powder, staying inside of +- .1 gr. requires a post graduate degree in powder throwing, and as I am sure that you know, when the granule size and/or shape exceeds certain parameters it is either throw and trickle, or Chargemaster.
Boyd
a big reason I started this post is because a lot of us don't compete and once you start measuring every charge, you really debate on its worth for my shooting. I've had very good luck with ammo thrown right from the measure. so for me I'm looking more for a powder, bullet, primer combo that works best for me out of a measure. untrickled. because for me trigger time will be of more benefit.
chevytruck_83 said:
If you can afford an RCBS Chargemaster, that's the answer to your problems. Simply dump any charge that the device says is outside of the set weight after waiting a few seconds after it's been dispensed. Mind you, for shorter range shooting, absolute charge weight consistency simply isn't necessary as long as short-range groups are tight.
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