Best Powder for Lee Pro Auto Disk

[Triumph]

I cant bring myself to walk away from 2400, so I dont use AA#9, though its still pretty darned tempting.

What does this mean?

 

[Triumph]

Unique is a powder manufactured by Alliant. It is a flake powder, as are all of the popular Alliant pistol and shotgun powders. There is only one variety of Unique: it is a specific 'model' of powder.

All of the pistol powders manufactured by Winchester, Accurate or Hodgdon are spherical or 'ball' powders. This actually refers to the shapes of the powder grains, although some of them have the balls somewhat flattened to they somewhat resemble flakes. Winchester 231 is an example of this.

Ball powders generally flow very well through powder measures, although some of the faster burning ones with very small grains (like Accurate #9) can leak a bit from under the hopper of the Lee powder measure. Some of the flake powders don't flow quite so smoothly. One of the worst offenders is IMR 800-X. It's a flake powder that is used mostly for shotgun loads but can be used for pistols. It has very large flakes that can cause metering problems.

All of the Clays family are ball powders made by Hodgdon. That's all I know about them. With one exception, if a pistol powder wasn't on the market prior to the early 90's I haven't tried it. I don't have room in my life for any new powders until I use up more of the ones I already have.

THANK YOU!!!! Hard to make sense out of acronyms when I dont know anything about powder. Very helpful post. Thanks for stooping to my level and explaining!!

 

[twice barrel]

Hodgdon Universal.

 

[boom boom]

Tip on Autodisk

One thing that can cause the autodisk to throw a lighter charge than expected is that each can of powder can have a slightly different VMD--volume mass density. The values that Lee prints are approximate. See http://thefiringline.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-403901.html

You can also use a perfect powder measure set for a specific volume and then use that to calculate the powder vmd as called for in the Lee Autodisk instructions.

 

[ljnowell]

What does this mean

It means that AA#9 is a pretty tempting powder, but I like my Alliant 2400 too much to stray from it. 2400 and AA#9 fill the same niche for me, magnum handgun powder. Since I have been buying 2400 in 8lb jugs, I just cant see buying any AA#9

 

[muletrain]

new to reloading and have lee press with the auto powder disk, loading 223 with cfe223 powder. seams I am going to have to stack disk for the right called for charge of 26.gr, have you had any dealings with the stacking and am I heading in the right direction?

 

[joecil]

I've actually set up a triple stack system for rifle loads. I posted it here http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=701275

 

[GT1]

Yes, the double stack kit is easy to use. It is pretty easy to fine tune, also. Just remember if you are using two different sizes stacked up that the smaller one always goes on top.

Any ledges that powder can sit on are bad. Always make sure you are adjusted so the disk holes slide all the way so everything drops down into the funnel part of the measurer.

 

[LiveLife]

You can also double stack the Adjustable Charge Bars by filing the slide tabs of one and it will give you more powder charge adjustment options (see yellow arrows in the picture below). You do still need to use the 2 double-disk risers (AD2493) and 2 longer bolts (FD1471) but you can order these from Lee Precision.

I metered up to around 47 grains of I4895/H4895/Varget and 48 grains of RL15 which are plenty for most popular .308 bullet weights and powder charges.

 

[Bad Andy]

All the Accurate Arms and Western Powders pistol powder and Bullseye and Blue Dot have always worked very good for me. Stick rifle powders powders not so much.

If you have any problems with fine powders "leaking" use a fine file and lightly file the area of the top of the measure. Just tighten up the discs slightly.

 

[1SOW]

For pistols: Vihtavuori is A SMALL STICK POWDER. The lee Auto-disc system loads it as accurately as 231.
n320, n330 & n340 loads like a charm