PSA: cased activated powder throwers

[guzma393]

I just got the below Hornady powder cop. So each round can be visually verified. I looked at another with an audible alarm, but I just don't do enough reloading to need that level. I have a 6 station press so had room for it.

Hornady Amazon

I have a spare station. I think I'll make my own 3d printed powder cop out of an audio alarm, and a linear displacement switch, where squib range and double charge range closes the circuit and normal/not engaged range is open. Would be a fun project.

 

[John from MD]

I didn't know powder has graphite in it. I'll have to call lee and ask what they think.

Not all powders are coated with graphite. I don't have the manual that told me about that anymore but it said something about the grains being tumbled with graphite to polish it or something.

 

[trickg]

I didn't know powder has graphite in it. I'll have to call lee and ask what they think.

That's actually part of the literature for their Perfect Powder Measure. They talk about how once the powder measure is used a little bit that the graphite from the powder helps to lubricate the plastic parts, and that actually makes it work better.

 

[lazarus]

PSA, perform your powder throw checks often, particularly in case activated drum units. I caught my lee auto drum seizing up, resulting in no powder throws on the last few progressively loaded rounds.

Out of abundance of caution, I purged the batch into the defect bin to be pulled later.

In hindsight, I'm overdo in maintaining my powder dropper. I've loaded tens of thousands of rounds without even thinking it will fail. I guess this was the day, and I'm lucky to catch it on the bench rather on the field.

Today is not the day to reload for me. Going to have to service my lee auto drum or perhaps replace it with a better one if I catch any noticeable wear/failure points or perhaps outfit an audio sensor to alert a drop and disable upon reset.

To the reloaders brain trust, what measures do you take in maintaining your case activated powder throwers and what preventative measures do you take?

My current method is I check powder throws every 5-10 rounds, but the batch is pretty much ruined if even one spiked round is in the bin. I do batches of 100 because of this

On my Lee classic I can easily just look in the case for most calibers to see if there is powder in there. They also make powder checkers for progressives. Takes up a station.

 

[lazarus]

I've noticed that my Dillons will shift ever so slightly over a batch - I don't check as often as some, but I'll usually check the measure after a batch of 100. Depending on the powder I use, it might shift by about 1 or 2 tenths of a grain - not always, but sometimes.

Otherwise, I just make the adjustment and keep going, and I don't worry about it past that - I've never really had cause to question it.

I have two Lee classics. I’ve yet to see any shift over hundreds of rounds in a session. It isn’t perfectly accurate. Flake and ball it generally seems to be within a tenth of a grain plus or minus for a .223 load. Usually it is spot on or minus a tenth. Unoccasionally a tenth over. Rarely two tenths under.

Only time I had an issue with one of them was I screwed the drum on way too tight and it bound up. I’ve of course installed a drum too loosely and leaked powder. It doesn’t like rod powder very much. It works, but much less accurate +.1 to -.3gr is the typical spread. I really need to measure rod powder drops. At least the couple I’ve tried. Okay for for plinking. Flake and ball works great. For match loads I measure and trickle.

Sometimes I see a shift replacing drums or a new loading session a day or a week later. Rarely more than a tenth grain. Usually just a tiny tweak to the setting, measure a couple rounds and rock and roll.

 

[trickg]

It doesn’t like rod powder very much. It works, but much less accurate +.1 to -.3gr is the typical spread. I really need to measure rod powder drops. At least the couple I’ve tried. Okay for for plinking. Flake and ball works great. For match loads I measure and trickle.

That seems to be a "feature" of extruded powder - particularly ones with longer grains - is that powder drops don't tend to like them too much. I think that's part of the reason that H4831SC (short cut) was created - I think the idea was to come up with a powder with essentially the same performance as H4831 that metered a bit better.

I plan on trickling anything I load that uses extruded powder - I haven't loaded any rifle bigger than 223 yet, but it's coming, which is why I have a trickling sitting on the shelf waiting.

 

[John from MD]

That seems to be a "feature" of extruded powder - particularly ones with longer grains - is that powder drops don't tend to like them too much. I think that's part of the reason that H4831SC (short cut) was created - I think the idea was to come up with a powder with essentially the same performance as H4831 that metered a bit better.

I plan on trickling anything I load that uses extruded powder - I haven't loaded any rifle bigger than 223 yet, but it's coming, which is why I have a trickling sitting on the shelf waiting.

Well, at least you probably have the electronic trickler and not that damned manual one we had to use back in the day.

 

[guzma393]

Update on this. I spoked with Chris from Lee precision about it yesterday and they never heard of their auto drums binding in the fashion that I experienced, but he did provide some useful input on the matter:

- Routine maintenance is a best practice that should be performed to assure proper and optimized function. Moisture, oils, debris, or any other particulate build-up can occur overtime, so wiping and inspecting the contact surfaces of the drum/powder dispensing mechanism with a clean cloth, and inspecting all mechanisms, indexes, and/or interfaces is encouraged whenever you are going to perform any mass volume/progressive loading session, i.e. loading 500 rounds on a weekend, etc.

- Some powders do not have graphite in it. Because of this, cycling graphite powder through the auto drum will "season" the powder measure enough where it should not dilute the powder drops to any significant or substantial degree. This should be done if a wipe down has been performed, or if using a powder that does not have graphite in it.

- As for complete disassembly of the auto drum, there's this handy dissasembly video that breaks it down such that each component can be inspected or serviced. According to Chris, there has been some rare cases where the main spring broke, linkages/gears seized, or any other anomalies caused by a multitude of reasons (dirty/warped/cracked/defected/worn parts from wear and tear, external trauma the unit (dropped, bent, bumped, damaged from shipping), etc.)

 

[lazarus]

Well, at least you probably have the electronic trickler and not that damned manual one we had to use back in the day.

I use a Frankford arsenal manual trickler. So long as my lee auto drum is setup right, it adds about 10 seconds to dump the case in the pan, check weight, trickle a tenth or three grains it might need and dump it back in the case. Faster than most autotricklers I've seen. Even less time when the weight is dead on (which is most cases if using flake or ball).

But for plinking, especially flake and ball, I don't bother weighing the charges because that tenth, or occasionally two tenths range of variance is too small to impact things really. I notice group sizes seem to shrink about 10-20% by trickling flake and ball powders.

Ehh, match and hunting loads sure. Halve or a third my loading rate for that accuracy is worth it. Plinking no.

Extruded, the variance is so much more I often see group sizes shrink 25-50% by weighing and trickling. Often because I will have a big flier in every 5-10 rounds because often I get a round or two in 10 that is like four or even sometimes 5 tenths of a grain light and the occasional one that ends up a couple of tenths high. I running Accurate 2495 for my .30-06 loads, I was running a little over 4MOA for my Garand and cut down 1903A3 (irons both, a hair better than what PPU and S&B M2 ball get me). Weighing charges and adjusting dropped that to 2.2MOA. Probably worth it even for plinking.

Pistol, no bother. I've never noticed a group size difference. I am sure there is some, but my pistol powders seem to come in with very low SDs anyway, except direct blow back guns always have high SDs, no matter what I do (still reasonably accurate). Like I see 25-30fps for 32acp and about the same for 9MAK with Bullseye. In comparison my 9mm loads and 38spc tend to run around 6-8fps SDs. My 44 mag with Titegroup seem to run around 16fps SDs, my BE loads are around 12-13fps.

 

[John from MD]

Pistol, no bother. I've never noticed a group size difference. I am sure there is some, but my pistol powders seem to come in with very low SDs anyway, except direct blow back guns always have high SDs, no matter what I do (still reasonably accurate). Like I see 25-30fps for 32acp and about the same for 9MAK with Bullseye. In comparison my 9mm loads and 38spc tend to run around 6-8fps SDs. My 44 mag with Titegroup seem to run around 16fps SDs, my BE loads are around 12-13fps.

I never heard a hog complain if I hit him with a load that gave me an SD of 40.

 

[lazarus]

I never heard a hog complain if I hit him with a load that gave me an SD of 40.

If he gets up and argues with you about your load's standard deviation, just hit him again.

 

[John from MD]

If he gets up and argues with you about your load's standard deviation, just hit him again.

 

[DaemonAssassin]

That seems to be a "feature" of extruded powder - particularly ones with longer grains - is that powder drops don't tend to like them too much. I think that's part of the reason that H4831SC (short cut) was created - I think the idea was to come up with a powder with essentially the same performance as H4831 that metered a bit better.

I plan on trickling anything I load that uses extruded powder - I haven't loaded any rifle bigger than 223 yet, but it's coming, which is why I have a trickling sitting on the shelf waiting.

I will not run extruded powders on a Dillon. Lesson learned the hard way with IMR3031.

I have a RCBS Chargemaster 1500 combo that does everything I could ask for. It'll run extruded, ball, and flake with a high degree of consistency.

 

[Sticky]

I have yet to run any extruded powders in my Dillon, but I have loaded enough of them with an old RCBS Uniflow that I could see where one may have issues. Never had any problems with the Uniflow and whatever extruded or other I throw with it, but you do find yourself cutting through some of the extruded powders at times and this takes a bit more force than the ball or flake powders for sure. I can see where it may be an issue with a case activated powder measure.

 

[BFMIN]

Only auto dumps I use are Dillon. They are subject to some charge weight migration if you don't keep the hopper volume level away from the very bottom but otherwise I have had no issues. They are pretty consistent with flake and ball powders.

This^^ I was actually surprised that the sliding bar Dillon handled IMR 3031 with its particularly long grains so well.
I have polished the inside of the bottom casting & have a small cheap aquarium pump running & strapped to the reservoir though. I added a second powder baffle once, but didn't find it made enough difference to bother with it.