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Best Measure/Dispenser for Ball Powder

Rickhem

I'm finding that ball powders don't work well in the powder measures that I currently have. I have a RCBS uniflow, and a few Lee Perfect Powder Measures. I keep the Lee measures set up for specific loads using Varget and IMR4895, and they perform smoothly and accurately for those powders. The other Lee and the Uniflow are for when I'm using other powders, or other charge weights.

Since getting a 6mmARC, I'm loading with CFE223, and with Leverevolution, both ball powders, and neither work well in my equipment. The ball powders seem to get into the rotor on the Lee and bind it to where it is hard to move the charge lever, and they must find their way out the sides of the drum on the Uniflow, cause I end up with a mess of powder on the bench around it after loading.

A scale/dispenser that drops to a specific weight really isn't what I want right now, so I'm ruling those out, although they seem to be the latest-greatest these days.

If anyone has personal experience with a powder measure that delivers consistent and accurate drops with ball powder that doesn't leak powder in the process, I'd like to hear about your experience.
 
I use my old Belding and Mull for ball powder. I tried a Harrells and wound up sending it back for repair because the ball powder got inside the mechanism and froze the lever. The Harrells pistol measure might work since the cavity opens wider.
 
Rickhem said:
If anyone has personal experience with a powder measure that delivers consistent and accurate drops with ball powder that doesn't leak powder in the process, I'd like to hear about your experience.
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Redding is your answer. One year I was loading for my annual prairie dog hunt. I normally dispense stick powder on the 2 RCBS CM's. But I was going to use WC844 (H335 pull down) in one of my loads. But I wanted to confirm I wasn't sacrificing anything in accuracy. So I loaded 25 with the CM, and 25 with my Redding. Shot them both at 200m for accuracy and chrony results. Were identical. I went ahead and loaded 2500 rounds of that load for my hunt. So much faster by throwing them than letting the CM's do the work.

I've never had the Redding experience any leakage or binding with any powder. And of course it handles ball powder the most accurately.
 
Rickhem said:
I'm finding that ball powders don't work well in the powder measures that I currently have. I have a RCBS uniflow, and a few Lee Perfect Powder Measures. I keep the Lee measures set up for specific loads using Varget and IMR4895, and they perform smoothly and accurately for those powders. The other Lee and the Uniflow are for when I'm using other powders, or other charge weights.

Since getting a 6mmARC, I'm loading with CFE223, and with Leverevolution, both ball powders, and neither work well in my equipment. The ball powders seem to get into the rotor on the Lee and bind it to where it is hard to move the charge lever, and they must find their way out the sides of the drum on the Uniflow, cause I end up with a mess of powder on the bench around it after loading.

A scale/dispenser that drops to a specific weight really isn't what I want right now, so I'm ruling those out, although they seem to be the latest-greatest these days.

If anyone has personal experience with a powder measure that delivers consistent and accurate drops with ball powder that doesn't leak powder in the process, I'd like to hear about your experience.
Click to expand...
RCBS has great customer service. The drum to measure body fit of your Uniflow should not be so loose that ball powders leak. I do not think that this sort of thing is usual for those measures. I would give RCBS a call and explain your problem. Let us know what their response is.
 
Have 3 of the Lyman Brass Smith measures, work well with all my 17 pistol and 4 223/556 powders. Have never had to clean up any spills in the 3 years of use. Best value in mechanical measure out there.
 
My Harrell’s measure works great with ball powders. It’s the only one I’ve ever used, so I can’t compare it to other models.
 
I used an RCBS powder measure for a while, it was ok for dispensing low and trickling up 223.

I recently got a newer Hornady dispenser for my progressive and the Hornady is way more accurate! I use it for bulk 9mm and 223 on my progressive. The RCBS is crudely built in comparison.

For a few bucks more, the Hornady Benchrest model is supposed to be even better. I may pick one up for 223 just because I hate switching between pistol/rifle drums on my progressive setup.
 
I like how the internals of the Lyman 55 seem to leave no space for any of the tiny granules of powder to get into and bind up the mechanism. Haven't really looked at others. I do know that my Lee units don't work well with Ball powder no matter what tension I put on them. And my Uniflow has the large drum installed, so maybe I'll try the smaller one. That may leave less space for leaking granules.

I got rid of an older Texan .410 shotgun loader because the 296 I used would be all over the place after loading a few shells. Sliding the charge bar back and forth had so much powder escaping that it looked like someone with a pepper shaker went rogue on my bench.
 
Reloadernoob said:
Have 3 of the Lyman Brass Smith measures, work well with all my 17 pistol and 4 223/556 powders. Have never had to clean up any spills in the 3 years of use. Best value in mechanical measure out there.
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Both you and @Kracken McGraw have said what others have told me. I'm hearing that ball powder doesn't leak from the Brass Smith and nobody has any showstopper observations.

This one seems to be the best value too.
 
I've been using a RCBS Uniflow powder measure for longer than I can remember, and it seems to work just fine with ball powders. Now I haven't been loading any rifle ammo lately, but it was accurate enough (for me anyway) to just set it and use but keep checking the powder weight every 5-10 cases.

The Dillon seems to work well with ball powders and imo it was basically designed for ball powders.
 
I agree, I have a few older RCBS uniflow powder measures and I have had any issues with them with ball powders, using TAC, AA2520 or Shooters World Match Rifle, the only messes I get are from operator error!
 
I like the Lyman 55 for ball and flake powders and a Lee Perfect Powder Measure for extruded. The Lee jams up with ball and flake powders, the Lyman does not. The Lyman cuts extruded powders, the Lee does not. Both give me great powder drops when checked on an RCBS balance beam.
 
Mark611 said:
I agree, I have a few older RCBS uniflow powder measures and I have had any issues with them with ball powders, using TAC, AA2520 or Shooters World Match Rifle, the only messes I get are from operator error!
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My old one is throwing Xterminator very precise.
I did add a baffle later on.
 
Another vote for the Redding BR3. Also, I've also had good results with an old, unknown vintage, RCBS Uniflow, that was just as accurate as the BR3 but a bit of a pain to adjust.
 
I disassembled my Uniflow this weekend, and it turns out I already had the smaller bore drum in that. Been that way since I got it a few decades ago, never needed to change it. I swapped out for the larger bore and will see how that likes CFE223 and Lever.
I also loaded up some other ammo this weekend using my Lee units. IMR4350, IMR4895, and Varget all go through the Lee with no issues at all.
 
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