When do you stop...

In this wonderful hobby, we are allowed to be as anal as we want to be and no one will be the wiser. I weigh all extruded powders each and every time. Ball powder, eh...not so much.

I don't know. I have about 2000 down range and 1000 in ammo boxes, mix between 9mm, 7mm RM, .223 and .380 and I still weigh every charge by hand. Can't help it, I'm a little OCD, I'm an Accountant, so I probably won't every stop.

Do things take longer? Yes.
Do I load less in a sitting? Yes
Can I sleep soundly at night? Yes
Am I worried about my gun blowing up, when I pull the trigger? Nope not as all

YMMV though. I like the single stage. Gives me a reason to get away from the wife and kids for a couple hours each night.

For the 25-06, might as well keep weighing them. If you're loading quantities of 9mm, .223 or similar, weighing is going to slow that process way down. I'll make concessions with some loads to keep from weighing (like changing to a well metering powder or backing off a hot load a little).

I weigh from the measure till I get the charge wanted. Then I throw 10 charges from the measure and divide to check the average. Then I throw 1 charge to check to see if its still the same as the first one. Then I'm good to go, I do check periodically as the powder goes down in the measure, and if needed refill.

Now then, I do not load to max, I load for accuracy and comfort when shooting. No since having a hobby that causes pain.

I don't pay any attention to how long it takes me to handload. The majority of the time saving measures I take are in cleaning and prepping brass, not building rounds.

When I load a batch of more than about 30 of the same charge weight, I calibrate and use the powder measure, but I still weigh every 10th drop or so to make sure the device is in spec. Once set, my drops (Hornady LNL) are good to +/- .2 grains with ball and flake powders...+/- one tenth 95% of the time.

The only rounds I ever load in that sort of volume at a sitting are handgun rounds at low to mid range power, so if a drop is off by a couple tenths of a grain, I'm still safe and probably won't even notice when I fire them.

It's far more common for me to load batches of fewer than 20, and those get weighed individually by hand.

Never,
I guess I don't reload as much in volume as most folks, what I do reload is measured by an electronic scale, and every 5th charge is double-checked on a beam-scale (I don't trust electronic gadgets) It might take me a couple hours to reload 100-.243 cases, but I KNOW for certain that every cartridge is EXACTLY what I intended it to be

For me its a HOBBY, I enjoy reloading, and the time spent at the bench is a perfect time to unwind, and forget about the chaotic day I may have had, and just concentrate on some remedial task that does not require complex equations or 3-dimensional thinking like in my current day-job

I think most benchresters only use a measure to throw charges, after establishing that the measure is throwing the desired weight with a given powder. Heck, some not too old benchrest championship was won with Lee scoops.
I mainly use a powder measure and might check it anywhere between 20-50 to 1000-5000 after I've verified the throws.

And if you think about it, 1/10 grain of five grains is way bigger that 1/10 grain of fifty or somesuch. It's odd so many people feel much more compelled to weigh rifle charges as compared to handgun. Maybe it's because they load like twenty for an outing or even a whole year of shooting out of their deer rifle.

It's odd so many people feel much more compelled to weigh rifle charges as compared to handgun.

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For me, handguns are loaded w/ powders that meter and not at top potential velocity. Rifles (most) are loaded w/ powders that do not meter as well and often at the upper end of pressures.

When you have your measure dialed in and have variations that are acceptable to you, then you can decide how often to weigh...

MtnCreek said:

For me, handguns are loaded w/ powders that meter and not at top potential velocity. Rifles (most) are loaded w/ powders that do not meter as well and often at the upper end of pressures.

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I hear you. Many people load at the top of the chart with both. Many powders throw as accurately (well, more accurately, on a ratio basis) with "large" charges.
To be the equivalent of a five grain charge being 1/10 of a grain off, a fifty grain charge would have to be one grain off.
With good powders and a good measure, that fifty grain throw will be +/- 1/10 of one grain.. which is much more accurate than a tenth at five.

There is logic to what you're saying, but I don't think the math is that simple. I have upper limit (beyond book) loads in 9mm where an additional 0.10 gr is still 'safe'. I have a hot (but w/i book) 300 wm load that cannot take another 1gr and be safe. The wm is running at close to twice the pressure.

For me, pistol accuracy is solely limited by my capability. A 100 fps ES is not going to keep me off paper. With a rifle at range, it will.

Edit: I guess it all boils down to what we're trying to accomplish. I could take an Arkansas stone to a horses hoof, but I get by fine w/ a rasp.

MtnCreek said:

There is logic to what you're saying, but I don't think the math is that simple. I have upper limit (beyond book) loads in 9mm where an additional 0.10 gr is still 'safe'. I have a hot (but w/i book) 300 wm load that cannot take another 1gr and be safe..

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That's exactly what I'm talking about.. does your measure throw your chosen powder to +/- one grain given a 50 grain charge? I've never seen one that wouldn't do it to 1/10 of a grain.. never mind. And how do you know to what pressure I load my handguns? I'm no Clark though, that's for sure.

I metered every charge for the first few years that I reloaded. Didn't even USE my powder measure at that time - I'd just use dippers to fill the pan until the scale balanced at the desired charge.

Realistically though, I mostly reload for volume savings. I'm not a benchrest shooter. With that in mind I've found that the deviation on the powder measure is perfectly safe at the mild loads I typically use. I'll set it once at the start of a session (checking several throws to make sure its consistent), and then I'll roll with it without checking again for as long as I need (often a few hundred rounds).

If I leave the bench and come back to it later I'll do a single check with the scale to make sure its still where I thought I left it but so long as it is I'll keep going.

I think a big part of it is are you loading for extreme accuracy (fine if it do, but its not really my goal), and do you load near max loads. Again fine if you do, but particularly in pistol I'm often shooting just barely hot enough to cycle the slide reliably.

jcwit said:

I weigh from the measure till I get the charge wanted. Then I throw 10 charges from the measure and divide to check the average. Then I throw 1 charge to check to see if its still the same as the first one. Then I'm good to go, I do check periodically as the powder goes down in the measure, and if needed refill.

Now then, I do not load to max, I load for accuracy and comfort when shooting. No since having a hobby that causes pain.

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I never understood measuring 10 charges and taking the average. What happens if one charge got hung up and another dumped heavy? If I am taking the time to weight charges then I weight each one.

When loading single stage for the hunting rifles or important stuff I weight each one. On the progressive once I get the measure set I probably weight every 10 to 20 throws but if the eyes or gut tell me to check a round I do.

I used to weigh every single charge for everything.

It was very thorough !

I started realizing somewhere along the line that the only charges I was rejecting were the ones in the control and setup group- like Walkalong above.

Although, for my precision .308, I do reject a lot of them.... Mainly just because I can, and on those its more of a look before the scale even settles- and 9 out of 10 times I'm right.

As to when I made this transition ? It was probably somewhere right around the 6th caliber I started loading for- which was consequently when I started loading shotgun.

You don't get to weigh shotgun charges. Well, you could, but its not the same as dispensing powder from a measure in the metallic cartridge world.

That (shotgun loading) gave me the confidence to set the measure, and double check as Walkalong does above- and then carry on until the end of my run. If some little green commie wanted to sneak in and adjust my powder measure while I'm not looking..... he'd have to get past my cats first, and I don't give martians that much credit.

I dispense the charge into the case, examine that charge, seat a bullet, and move along.

Except for my really good .308 ..... Maybe one day.


For those of you who like Walkies "average" method above, you can dial in your powder measures using ten throws of powder into a medicine bottle or similar container. This is how I average out pistol throws- 10 charges of my 45 ACP w231 for example should be 51.0.... but I accept a margin of error as high as 51.9, an average of .1 over on each throw but one. If I dispense 10 charges and it weighs out less than 51.0, or more than 51.9, something is wrong- and I adjust it down and try again with another ten.

This WILL show you that your powder dispenser is throwing the right charge time after time. If you have a heavy scale, you could even do 100 charges if you felt so inclined.... I would lose count after ten- I can't count that high.

Well, I'm not a high volume shooter but I've weighed all charges since the 1980's. My Pact Precision electronic scale bought when they 1st went on the market in the early 1990's has sped things up. I have an RCBS manual powder dispenser that doesn't get used.

After all these years I finally bought an electronic scale (simple MTM 750 gr).
I think it will be helpful in quickly assessing throw weights rather than adjusting the wheel on the scale.
That said I usually weigh all my rifle charges that I do on single stage, 223 & 308 I do on a 550 and I check 5-10 drops and again when I reload primers.
I think the important thing with the powder measures no matter the brand is to keep them full enough that they never expose the baffle and you get pretty consistant throws.

After all these years I finally bought an electronic scale (simple MTM 750 gr).

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I recently picked up an electronic too. Actually its technically a jewelry scale (a Jennings JS-50XV) but it'll weight in grains. BrianEnos.com actually sells the exact scale (without naming it ) as a reloading scale for $75 but if you search they're all over the web for $25-30.

Its faster than the beam scale I was using but my 3.1gr charge of Bullseye that I had setup from my beam scale registered exactly 3.1gr on the electronic too, so I"m getting the same results from both.

I think rcmodel weighs every kernel/grain. He'll never see this so I can say this slanderous thing in safety.
Of course joke.. he's probably avoided this thread because it's been all talked about.