How often do you weigh your powder charge?

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Sevens
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Re: How often do you weigh your powder charge?

Post by Sevens »

Oops

Had you not said that... I would have figured I lost it.
I did not realize that I didn't have it jammed in the back of the bottom drawer of my load bench.

I have the one I truly love, and I have the one that it replaced also. The one you apparently liberated from me has been out of service since the 90's. :P

For my part, I think I owe you a lump of cash for half a bullet buy, but it seems like that has been a good bit of time ago also. :oops:
I like to swap brass... and I'm looking for .32 H&R Mag, .327 Fed Mag, .380 Auto and 10mm. If you have some and would like to swap for something else, send me a note!
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keepitsimple
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Re: How often do you weigh your powder charge?

Post by keepitsimple »

I've been loading .38 Special, .357, and .45 ACP for a little over a year now using a Lee single stage, Lee powder measure, and the Lee safety scale (I got the Challenger kit for my birthday last year). I used to weigh every single throw, but I'm comfortable enough with my process now that I'll weigh every 10th or 15th throw once I get going on a batch.

When I get to the powder dropping phase of my load session, I'll load up the hopper on the powder measure to about 3/4 full and throw individual charges into the little pan that comes with the scale, weighing each one until I get 5 or 6 consecutive throws that are all consistent and on-point with the weight I'm after. Once I know the measure is consistently throwing the weight that I want, I'll drop powder into 10 or 15 cases at a time and randomly weigh one of them. If the weight of that test subject checks out, I throw the charge back in the case, visually verify that each of the other cases in the tray has powder, place bullets into the case mouths, then seat and crimp each of the 10-15 rounds before moving on to the next group of 10-15.

I've found that the advantage to this type of 'small batch' loading is that if anything were to happen with the measure or something happens where the weight of the charge becomes questionable, I get distracted, etc. I only have to dump and re-do the 10-15 cases that I'm currently working on instead of a full tray of 50. It's also good if I'm working with limited time window as it only takes me a few mins to process one of these batches from powder drop to bullet crimp.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
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