Pistol powder measure recs?

[Leftoverdj]

I find myself loading more miniscule powder charges now than I have done in my loading career and I am less than happy with my RCBS Uniflow for this work. Even the smaller of the two cylinders is a bit large.

What might work is a small bore cylinder for the Uniflow. Is anyone marketing one of these? Has anyone tried sleeving a Uniflow cylinder?

Failing that, is anyone marketing a good adjustable measure suited to very small charges?

[Lloyd Smale]

I love the rcbs little dandys for pistol reloading.

[coltfan]

You might want to refer to a post I originated a few weeks back. The last response was June 24, and it is titled "looking for a chart listing powder by type". There is an excellent reply from BFoster detailing several types of powder measures. As I note in my post I have been working with Titegroup powder and find it works extremely well, but small charges don't measure as consistantly as I'd likefrom my Uniflo measure, even with the micrometer adjustable stem. I have been considering a switch to WW231, since ball powders like H110 work very well with the Uniflo measure, but still have about a pound or so of Titegroup left to use up. I do have an old Pacific powder measure (now Hornady) which I plan on trying with the Titegroup. It's similar to the RCBS little dandy but it uses a slide rather than a turn knob, but does use a fixed capacity bushing to measure the powder. Still one other choice might be to go to the Sinclair website. They carry high end reloading equipment for benchrest competitors, and I do recall seeing some powder measures on their sight. I believe it is Sinclair International.

[Smokey Joe]

Sinclair International sells mostly to benchresters and other extreme accuracy people.  Their powder measures look great in their catalog, and they have one specifically for pistol charges. I'm sure it works really slick.  However, I for one haven't got the jack in my jeans to pay upwards of $200 for a powder measure.

So at a show I found an old Lyman No. 55 Dual Measure powder measure, which has 2 micrometer slides in the cylinder—a huge one, and a tiny one, and now I can measure my 2 gr. of WW231 for target pistol loads with the greatest of ease.   Haven't tried it yet for loads for a .458 WinMag, but I expect it'd do those well too.

If you can find a Lyman #55, you might stop looking further.

[Ron T.]

I agree with Smokey Joe...

I've used a Lyman #55 powder thrower for over 40 years and it's still doing just fine.  As Joe sez, the Lyman #55 remains very consistent as it throws very small powder charges.

To maintain its consistency from "throw" to "throw", I use the "Tap Method"... that is, I lightly "tap" the operating handle against it's final stop a consistent  number of times... usually 2 to 6 times, depending on whether or not I'm increasing the powder charge for just a few rounds or for many rounds.  If I'm doing it for many rounds, then I adjust the micrometered slides.

I've found that each "tap" is worth about 1/10th of a grain of powder as each additional "tap" compacts the powder in the powder cavity.  And so, if my Lyman #55 powder thrower is set pretty close to the exact weight I want to throw, it usually takes 2 or 3 light "taps" of the powder thrower's handle to maintain the consistency of the powder drop.

It's kinda hard to explain, but easy to do... and tapping the handle a few times is easy and makes for very consistent powder drops.


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.