Post by Admin on Sept 1, 2019 4:58:07 GMT
Yes it's expensive to set up at first but if you buy decent stuff you'll never have that expense again nor will your kids. Much of the stuff in my pic i inherited from my father and some of those machines have countless rounds through them. Lee dies are fine for the everyday shooter and i use lots of them but they are not suitable for something like long range precision shooting where every minute detail can make a big difference at a 1000+ yds. I too love the factory crimp dies and IMHO it's much better to crimp in a separate stage than crimp/seat together. I think it's impossible to ruin a round with them unlike a seat/crimp die where it's easy to crush a case if you go to far.
On the powder measure. Not sure if the one you have can be used for both or not but yes when doing single stage you want a stand alone powder measure. Also you want one that comes with or a baffle can be added to the bottom. While were on this subject. I'm guessing by the calibers and your shooting range that most of your shooting is just steel so very precise accuracy isn't needed. So when you add your powder tap the sides a bit to settle the powder. Not such a big deal with a baffle i think it still helps. Start throwing and measuring loads on your scale and when you hit your target weight weight 5-10 more loads(just dump them back in the top) to see how much deviation you're getting and if it's acceptable. Some powders throw better than others. Fine ball powders seem to stay more consistent while flake powder seems to be next and long extruded powder can have the most deviation. Always some exceptions. They make some short cut extruded powder(will have a SC with the number on the can) which throws pretty good and some large flake powder like 800X can have you chasing weights back and forth on your measure. I tell people to imagine dropping stones, leaves or sticks into a container and imagine how they fall, fill up the space and how repeatable it is. Sort of the same with the powder falling into the powder drum. I just loaded some 7.62x25 the other day using accurate #2(fine ball powder). Using 6 grains every time i measured a charge it was 6 grains every single time. Next day i loaded some 444 Marlin using IMR 4198(large stick powder) and the deviation was +/- .2 grains. perfectly acceptable for everyday range shooting, even hunting but for precision shooting it is not even close. If you desire to do this then you thrown charges slightly under what you want and use a powder trickler to work up to your load. Tedious and very time consuming, not something you do loading 500rds of pistol ammo
On the powder measure. Not sure if the one you have can be used for both or not but yes when doing single stage you want a stand alone powder measure. Also you want one that comes with or a baffle can be added to the bottom. While were on this subject. I'm guessing by the calibers and your shooting range that most of your shooting is just steel so very precise accuracy isn't needed. So when you add your powder tap the sides a bit to settle the powder. Not such a big deal with a baffle i think it still helps. Start throwing and measuring loads on your scale and when you hit your target weight weight 5-10 more loads(just dump them back in the top) to see how much deviation you're getting and if it's acceptable. Some powders throw better than others. Fine ball powders seem to stay more consistent while flake powder seems to be next and long extruded powder can have the most deviation. Always some exceptions. They make some short cut extruded powder(will have a SC with the number on the can) which throws pretty good and some large flake powder like 800X can have you chasing weights back and forth on your measure. I tell people to imagine dropping stones, leaves or sticks into a container and imagine how they fall, fill up the space and how repeatable it is. Sort of the same with the powder falling into the powder drum. I just loaded some 7.62x25 the other day using accurate #2(fine ball powder). Using 6 grains every time i measured a charge it was 6 grains every single time. Next day i loaded some 444 Marlin using IMR 4198(large stick powder) and the deviation was +/- .2 grains. perfectly acceptable for everyday range shooting, even hunting but for precision shooting it is not even close. If you desire to do this then you thrown charges slightly under what you want and use a powder trickler to work up to your load. Tedious and very time consuming, not something you do loading 500rds of pistol ammo
