rcbs pro powder drop crept up a whole grain

[edfardos]

I typically weigh ever dozen rounds, and never saw a wild change in powder weight on my rcbs pro 2000, until today! Was 23.5, and crept up to 24.5! I eventually noticed the grub screw was loose that secures the dial to the measure, the measure was able to turn by itself with the dial never actually moving.

luckily I was loading .223 and one grain is only 5%, plus I load on the mild side.

anyhow, don't forget to constantly check your settings!

edfardos

 

[KansasSasquatch]

Reminds me of the time I was loading up 1000 rounds of .223 with 50gr ZMax and 26.2gr of Varget. Around number 600 (best I could tell) the lock nut on my seating stem came loose and the seating stem slowly back out more and more until my overall length was over 2.26". The first 500 were for me, the 2nd 500 were for a friend. Somehow I was careless enough to drop them off with him and he found out that most of them were too long to fit in his AR mags. So I had to travel down 45min and fix them with a hand press. Overcharging wasn't a concern since I've found I can't physically get too much Varget in that load, but over pressure was still a possibility if the bullets could have jammed into the leade of his barrel. It's a mistaken that I've learned to avoid the hard way. Re-seating 500 bullets is no fun with a hand press.

 

[Tom488]

That exact same thing happened to me... I had disassembled my Uniflow to give it a good cleaning, and negated to tighten the micrometer screw into the drum all the way. The constant cycling up and down of the micrometer stem allowed it to back itself off. A 4.6 grain load of powder eventually creeped up to 6.2 grains before I noticed it.

I got real good at pulling down 9mm rounds, and ALWAYS make sure everything is good-n-tight before proceeding. We live, we learn.

 

[GW Staar]

A good heads up for everybody. Reloading is not a set once and never check again hobby...for sure. Thanks for the reminder.

With a press as simple and easy to use as the Pro 2000, we can easily get too complacent. Maybe that's an advantage Lee progressive users have.....constant tweaking means they never get complacent.

 

[FROGO207]

I prefer using a scoop for that exact reason. AND I use the batch method checking propellant levels with each loading block full. Not the fastest way for sure but I want to make darn sure that an explosion inches from my brain bucket is a safe one. Not to mention that it is always more accurate IMHO and a way to assure no squibs. As a side note a couple friends that I shared my reloads with at the range who used to shoot them as fast as possible now tend to slow down their trigger fingers a good bit when after helping me reload some realized the time it takes to make ammo.

 

[beatledog7]

Whenever using a powder drop, a reloader should check the weight every 10 rounds or so, maybe after as many as 30 after the first three 10-rd rechecks are ok. It's part of QA.

 

[Schwing]

I use a lee pro 1000 (feel free to queue the laughter). when I first started reloading, i did not realize that the powder though die gets pushed further back by a re-sized case than by one that has not been re-sized. The result was that I was putting a random case in the powder through die position to verify that my disks were measuring right. I came to find out that there is a good half grain difference dumped when a re-sized case is used... luckily, I was not reloading even close to max.

 

[TheCracker]

Maybe try out the lee stuff!

 

[stubbicatt]

Just a thought. You likely have isolated the issue of the grub screw. However, if you leave your powder in the powder measure in a humid climate, the powder will absorb moisture, and cast a heavier charge for the same volumetric setting.

 

[silicosys4]

I have also had issues with my LnL throw, with humidity and/or excess one-shot dry lube to cause powder to act "sticky" in the throw, not filling it totally, and throwing light charges....until the clump works loose, or the extra lube dries up, then blammo....the throw is filling fully and charges have gone up in weight significantly.