I got a few new bullets to play with in the mail. I decided to give my Perfect Powder Measure a second chance to help with load development. So I dug it out and played with it to see if it was as bad as I remembered. It was. Leaked like a sieve with ball powders no matter how I cleaned it out and adjusted the screw.
So built a little hopper to catch the leak. It attaches above the powder drop tube. You screw it off, put the powder hopper on, then screw the drop tube back on. The hopper has approx 4-5 grains capacity, I'm guessing. Slapped it back together. And dang. My little leak hopper was filled to capacity after just 30-40 throws of H335! That would be ok for a load dev, I guess, but it still sucked.
So i searched the web, and guy's Midway review stuck out to me. Guy had 2 of them and claimed one of them leaked, but the other one didn't. Reading this made me think the design was sound, but the execution (manufacturing) is where it fell through. So I took a closer look at the problem.
Looking at how the thing works and where mine leaked, it seemed like there's only a small area of the "cone" where good contact is critical. At first, I thought if I sanded down the rest of the cone so that there was better contact in the critical area, it might stop the leaking. But that would be difficult to do, to say the least.
So I slapped a piece of packing tape over the cone where I thought it might be of service. I trimmed away the excess with scissors. Then I cut out the bit of tape that covered half the hole with a razor blade. Stuck it back together, did a few throws which leaked. Adjusted the screw some more and tried again. And DANG! I just dropped 30 throws of H335, and a total of THREE FLAKES fell out into my leak hopper!
[Edit] ... Then I looked, and I realized the powder hopper was empty. Oops. Oh, well, back to the drawing board.
So built a little hopper to catch the leak. It attaches above the powder drop tube. You screw it off, put the powder hopper on, then screw the drop tube back on. The hopper has approx 4-5 grains capacity, I'm guessing. Slapped it back together. And dang. My little leak hopper was filled to capacity after just 30-40 throws of H335! That would be ok for a load dev, I guess, but it still sucked.
So i searched the web, and guy's Midway review stuck out to me. Guy had 2 of them and claimed one of them leaked, but the other one didn't. Reading this made me think the design was sound, but the execution (manufacturing) is where it fell through. So I took a closer look at the problem.
Looking at how the thing works and where mine leaked, it seemed like there's only a small area of the "cone" where good contact is critical. At first, I thought if I sanded down the rest of the cone so that there was better contact in the critical area, it might stop the leaking. But that would be difficult to do, to say the least.
So I slapped a piece of packing tape over the cone where I thought it might be of service. I trimmed away the excess with scissors. Then I cut out the bit of tape that covered half the hole with a razor blade. Stuck it back together, did a few throws which leaked. Adjusted the screw some more and tried again. And DANG! I just dropped 30 throws of H335, and a total of THREE FLAKES fell out into my leak hopper!
[Edit] ... Then I looked, and I realized the powder hopper was empty. Oops. Oh, well, back to the drawing board.
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