Leaky Lee Auto Drum Powder Measure

Has anyone had experience with one of these leaking really bad?

I got one a couple months ago. When I first used it I was incredibly impressed. I was using 4064 and it really did well....until it broke a gear the second time I used it. Lee quickly sent me a new part and I put it back together. I then used it with 2400 and it worked great.

Fast forward to tonight, I went to load some 40 cal and was using W231 and the thing leaks like a sieve.

The drums just aren't a good fit to the body, and there's obvious space around the drum and powder leaks from there every throw.

I had probably 5 grains of powder on the press and the floor after maybe 100 throws.

Check out my pics. The drum can't go in any more than pictured because the inside of the drum butts up against the middle round gear.

Let me know if yours looks like this, maybe I got one really out of spec.

Both drums fit the same, both the small and large, so it's not the plastic drum.

I also was not at all impressed with the consistency with W231. It did great with around 46 grains of 4064 and charges around 24gr of 2400, but not so hot with the W231. It was really hard to adjust. Sometimes I would back out the adjustment to increase the charge and the charge weight would actually drop instead of increase. It would take ten or so throws after a tiny adjustment for it to settle down, and that's with charges around 4.5 grains.

It's like the thing was possessed.

I used it before with 2400 and didn't notice it leaking like this, and it was very easy to dial in my charge, using the same (small) drum. I am not sure what the deal is.

I can't figure out why it would leak with W231 and not with 2400.

And it's not because I didn't have it tightened enough, I had it as firm as it would go and still rotate freely, which is how I had it set up last time I used it with 2400.

This thing has me thrown for a loop. ??? Help!

Is the O-ring still on the plastic washer under the nut? Maybe the very large plastic washer is permanently deformed from tightening it too much. The drum should never bind up against the gear. Do you know why the gear broke? I can't see that happening unless the drum was cranked down really tight or the drum chamber was hitting something external. As a reference I run mine pretty loose. Take the play out of it and then about a eighth to a quarter turn.

StickShaker said:

Is the O-ring still on the plastic washer under the nut? Maybe the very large plastic washer is permanently deformed from tightening it too much. The drum should never bind up against the gear. Do you know why the gear broke? I can't see that happening unless the drum was cranked down really tight or the drum chamber was hitting something external. As a reference I run mine pretty loose. Take the play out of it and then about a eighth to a quarter turn.

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Yeah the washer is still there. I think I got it working now, I just didn't have it near tight enough. Mine has to be pretty tight not to leak, and I didn't think it would rotate if I went any tighter, but it does just fine.

Thanks for the help!

Looks like they changed them a bit since I bought mine. The two I have leak a bit as well and some powders leak much more than others. For the 20 bucks I payed for each I'm not complaining.

I tightened mine up and moved the plastic washer to the correct position and got it to leak quite a bit less. It still leaks maybe 3 specs of W231 each throw, but before it was ten or more each time.

I still couldn't get it to be consistent with that powder trying to throw around 5 grains. WAY too much variation when I was flirting with a load near max.

So, I busted out the perfect powder measure and it was throwing charges dead on. It was also leaking though, these measures just don't like W231. I never remember it leaking bullseye that bad, and it doesn't leak 2400 that bad.

I got some tightgroup today to try, we will see if it does the same.

It still works great for 2400 and 4064 throwing much larger charges, so I do have a use for it.

I'll see how it does in the auto disc. It leaks too, with Unique, but not much.

I am a loyal Lee customer but they are losing me lately. I had this auto disc break, but they did send me the part within 30 minutes of my email. Had a four hole turret break after just a couple uses and no reply to my email from weeks ago.

Got a bullet mold recently that was just terrible.

I don't think my 40 cal sizing die is sizing the brass properly and the bulge buster doesn't seem to fix some of the bulges.

I guess you get what you pay for....I've been very happy with Lee stuff until the stuff I bought over the last 6 months or so.

HoCoAR said:

Hornady case activated is consistently precise with no clean up.

http://www.loadmastervideos.com/forums/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1950

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That's what I need to do. I have always been happy with Hornady stuff. I have their electronic powder measure and it works great, it's just too slow for loading up handgun rounds unless it's 44 mag or something.

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