Can you load precision ammo on a progressive?

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azrocks said:
Was just out in the garage setting up a new tool head & came upon this. From page 16 of the 550B manual, circa 2016:

"Extruded pencil type powders will not flow smoothly through smaller sized powder funnels because of their length. Another problem with extruded powders is getting them into small necked cases. Many times these powders will "bridge" across the case mouth and cause spillage and erratic charges. There is no fast way of dispensing these powders, and if you insist on using them in small mouth cases it is best to weight every charge by hand. Modern ball type powders will do for most reloading situations. These powders will do everything the pencil powders will do, but without this problem. Warning: Do not use I.M.R. pencil lead type powder in cases smaller than .30 caliber".

Perhaps their definition of small-neck needs to be expanded up a hair, but could this explain your problems, particularly when you speak of 'big' stick powders? Have you considered that any inaccuracy inherent in the flow of extruded powders would be magnified by the sheer volume you're putting into each case?
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I was loading 300 RUM. 30 caliber, so thats not it. One of the powders was IMR 7828. But the whole point of buying the "Belted Magnum powder measure" was to alleviate all those problems. It didnt/doesnt/will never work. Wasted my $180 bucks buying it. I consider it dangerous to use it.

No way will I ever trust, be comfortable, willing to risk, putting my face behind the bolt when that piece of crap dropped the powder in. A charge weighing over 100 grains is dangerous enough, without Dillions measure dropping 1 grain or more over, what it was supposed to.
If others have better luck with them...Im very happy for you.

I do not. If yours works...Id love to know how you make it work. Ive tried everything...and failed.
 
They told me to tape a fish filter pump to the hopper.

My response was something along the lines of...thats less than creepy engineering, and if thats all the better they can do...they best go back to the drawing board.
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Sounds to me like looking for a solution to a problem vs just cursing at it. Some of the methods I have seen are a little out there but if they work and your wife or girlfriend doesn’t mind...

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When we were building a float zoner to grow silicon crystals we needed a way to make sure we had consistent particles in the tube and flowed argon up through the column and vibrated it at the same time. Worked well enough that Samsung bought them, when’s the last time you think they paid for American engineering?

The vibrators needed to look a bit more professional or less creepy than the above setup so we just put “massager” motors/counterweights into aluminum housings we machined, that clamped to the quartz tube and controlled them with PWM power supply’s.

The one on the right has the cover removed so you can see the little motor and brass counterweight.

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jmorris said:
When we were building a float zoner to grow silicon crystals we needed a way to make sure we had consistent particles in the tube and flowed argon up through the column and vibrated it at the same time. Worked well enough that Samsung bought them, when’s the last time you think they paid for American engineering?

The vibrators needed to look a bit more professional or less creepy than the above setup so we just put “massager” motors/counterweights into aluminum housings we machined, that clamped to the quartz tube and controlled them with PWM power supply’s.

The one on the right has the cover removed so you can see the little motor and brass counterweight.
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Time to build an aftermarket powder reservoir with built in low powder sensor and auto powder shake down?
 
If you are required to turn your efforts into an engineering problem I consider that a factory and product failure. This is why people pay big money for reputable products, and how a company is considered premium quality. I might entertain that from a bargain product but not one being argued as the best.
 
DanK3Pos said:
Time to build an aftermarket powder reservoir with built in low powder sensor and auto powder shake down?
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I’m sure there is a market for one. I just use powders known to meter well with progressive measures, that goes for all of them, the Lee, RCBS, Hornady and Dillon.

A number of other devices out there for the powders that simply don’t volume measure well.
 
AJC1 said:
If you are required to turn your efforts into an engineering problem I consider that a factory and product failure. This is why people pay big money for reputable products, and how a company is considered premium quality. I might entertain that from a bargain product but not one being argued as the best.
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Well, you must understand, not everyone has this issue. So maybe people pay “big money” because they actually do work.

I have a dedicated Dillon powder measure for every caliber I load for. Obviously I don’t think they are junk. Are they the best? I’ll leave that up to others to argue. They work for me.

O5C3oYK.jpg
 
AJC1 said:
If you are required to turn your efforts into an engineering problem I consider that a factory and product failure. This is why people pay big money for reputable products, and how a company is considered premium quality. I might entertain that from a bargain product but not one being argued as the best.
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maybe you're addressing something different, but pretty much everyone recognizes dillon progressives as the premium product for consumer reloaders, but almost nobody loads "precision" ammo on them because they weren't designed to do that. my two 1050s will crank out 2000 rounds per hour of 9mm and somewhat less than that of 223, which is what i bought them for. it's not precision ammo.

people are starting to figure it out though, and there is intense interest in loading precision ammo on progressives. if society doesn't collapse i bet 5 years from now we will have commonly available tools to make it pretty routine. or flying cars
 
I figured that I would need pictures and ended up deciding that a video would probably be better. I’ll throw a bunch of charges and report my findings with and without the vibrator later. I’m also going to try it with 6V instead of the 12V because it is really loud. Once it’s figured out, I’ll put one on the other 550 and dress the cables.


 
Why wouldn’t you weigh 30 drops with and 30 without and post the ES and SD and include that in your video. We can’t tell you what we think until you tell us if it works or not
 
I'm just hypothesizing here, but I'd think that the vibrations would be of most benefit as the powder is recharging the cavity on the Dillon powder measure. The vibrations allow the powder kernals to "settle" in a consistent way resulting in a more uniform bulk density in the cavity before the charge is thrown. Your setup kicks on as the charge is being thrown and turns off as the measure returns to be refilled. If powder bridging was the problem your unit would certainly fix that.

ETA: I think it would be better to just let the vibrator run. If you can stand the noise.
 
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Laphroaig said:
I'm just hypothesizing here, but I'd think that the vibrations would be of most benefit as the powder is recharging the cavity on the Dillon powder measure. The vibrations allow the powder kernals to "settle" in a consistent way resulting in a more uniform bulk density in the cavity before the charge is thrown. Your setup kicks on as the charge is being thrown and turns off as the measure returns to be refilled. If powder bridging was the problem your unit would certainly fix that.

ETA: I think it would be better to just let the vibrator run. If you can stand the noise.
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My theory that just letting it run, especially when the hopper is full, will inconsistently compact the powder when there is a stoppage. Think SPP .45ACP get in the mix or the wife has something “important” to talk about. Antidotally, the bosom of my stroke time is very consistent. I want to have the same amount of vibration on every charge.
 
taliv said:
Why wouldn’t you weigh 30 drops with and 30 without and post the ES and SD and include that in your video. We can’t tell you what we think until you tell us if it works or not
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I’m actually going to and I’ll do it with various voltages (motor speeds) range is from off, 5V, 6V, 9V and 12V. I’ll report my findings even if my idea is crap. In which case I’m our a few hours and about $25
 
five.five-six said:
My theory that just letting it run, especially when the hopper is full, will inconsistently compact the powder when there is a stoppage.
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I would expect that effect to be very minimal. The affect of the vibrations is to make the powder consolidate into a more dense state. There is a limit as to how dense it could become, and the density/time curve becomes asymptotic as you near that point.
 
I've yet to get seriously into reloading, but I have my thoughts on this.

If everything else about your reloading is "precision" (brass, primers, bullets), then it seems to me that you ought to be able to sort after the fact for precision.

Seems to me the question would be the brass itself. But from talking to serious reloaders on this, even that is part of the package with them.

If all your brass weighs the same...and all your primers are uniform in weight...and all your bullets are uniform in weight...then simply produce a few "standard" rounds in which you precisely measure out the powder for each round. Then weigh each finished cartridge to gather data on the consistency of their final weight.

Then set up your progressive and afterwards weigh each bullet to sort out the ones that meet your criteria, as any differences ought to be due to the powder charge.
 
there's a lot of variation in case weight and it's not nearly as important (for long range precision rifle) as weight of the powder charge. i've never bothered to weigh brass or bullets for any of the matches i've shot, but i weigh powder to .02g

if brass and bullets were indeed uniform, what i think you're suggesting might be interesting.
 
taliv said:
there's a lot of variation in case weight and it's not nearly as important (for long range precision rifle) as weight of the powder charge. i've never bothered to weigh brass or bullets for any of the matches i've shot, but i weigh powder to .02g

if brass and bullets were indeed uniform, what i think you're suggesting might be interesting.
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I only mention this because a couple people I used to know in the Navy were very much into precision shooting...and it was amazing to me the lengths they went through to accomplish the accuracies they were achieving.

That was a number of years ago (dare I say "decades", now), and I don't honestly remember all the things they discussed. I do remember case length being one of them, but of course that has no real bearing on the fine points of case weight. They did sort brass by make, too. (Perhaps because different manufacturers may have different internal volumes which might affect performance? Just guessing.)

0.02 g poweder charge accuracy...seems to me there may be at least that much variation in bullet mass during production!

Guess it wouldn't really be all that good a methodology for precision shooting...unless one put some serious time in weighing/sorting the individual components. Which would take more time than weighing each charge.
 
Yes, you can. Dandy trickler into a tuned RCBS 1010. Dillon funnel and UniqueTek floating toolhead.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
Guess it wouldn't really be all that good a methodology for precision shooting...unless one put some serious time in weighing/sorting the individual components. Which would take more time than weighing each charge.
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I've been down this rabbit hole, but it was a single stage press and 45acp.

I decided one night to make very precise ammo. I weighed and sorted over 700 Hornady 230gr HAP's. I weighed and sorted a lot of new Starline brass as well. I ended up with fifty pieces of brass within .4 or .5 grains, and loaded them with fifty bullets weighing 230gr. I then weighed every powder charge as I loaded them like I always do.

My results:

They were no more accurate than any rounds I had made with that load previously. Good, but not noticeably better.

They were VERY consistent in feel. Recoil felt identical from round to round. My gf observed that they were ejecting to almost the exact same spot from shot to shot.

If I were shooting long range competition rifle I might go to those extremes again, but probably not for a 3" 45acp at twenty five yards.

chris
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
I only mention this because a couple people I used to know in the Navy were very much into precision shooting...and it was amazing to me the lengths they went through to accomplish the accuracies they were achieving.

That was a number of years ago (dare I say "decades", now), and I don't honestly remember all the things they discussed. I do remember case length being one of them, but of course that has no real bearing on the fine points of case weight. They did sort brass by make, too. (Perhaps because different manufacturers may have different internal volumes which might affect performance? Just guessing.)

0.02 g poweder charge accuracy...seems to me there may be at least that much variation in bullet mass during production!

Guess it wouldn't really be all that good a methodology for precision shooting...unless one put some serious time in weighing/sorting the individual components. Which would take more time than weighing each charge.
Click to expand...
The only real reason that I know of to weigh rifle brass is to estimate case volume.
 
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