Newbie ? - Crushing Powder w/ Measure

[doubleshot]

I understand when you use a manual powder measure (like RCBS' Uniflow measure) that some kernals of powder will inevitably be crunched or crushed while dispensing large extruded type powders. With that... am I correct in assuming that some automated tricklers or dispensers (like the RCBS ChargeMaster) would be "gentler" on the powder?

or should I not be concerned about the crushing of few kernals of powder?

First post - be gentle

DS

 

[Jim Watson]

The few kernels of powder that are cut by the measure aren't going to have any effect on the load. Might affect the accuracy of the throw, though, so I always checked the weight any time I got an appreciable "crunch" on the measure. Sometimes I threw them back because they were too far off.

Past tense; I recently got a PACT dispenser (Post-Christmas sale at Midway, and I already had the PACT scale.) and will be using that for extruded powders.

Ball powders are no sweat in a rotary measure and faster than the dispenser (unless you are doing what I did today and are loading a few each of several different charges for testing.)

A rotary measure, beam balance, and manual trickler are very accurate and a lot less expensive than a powered dispenser... if you don't mind the time and effort to get weighed charges that way.

 

[Mal H]

I have found the same thing concerning the crunch that Jim has. At first I would weigh the suspect powder load after getting a significant crunch from the measure. They were never close to correct, usually off by .3 grains or more. Now when it goes crunch, I just toss the powder back in the hopper and continue. It doesn't happen that often, but why bother weighing what you know is an incorrect amount of powder.

 

[koja48]

I solved this and other inconsistency problems by buying a Harrell Brothers measure . . . accurate & a work of the machinist's art.