700-X meters like crap!

somebody comes along to say how easy it is for him.
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And that would NOT be me :D

But . . .

sawdustdad has a point. You gotta work with what you have. I've gotten pretty good at not letting powder drops give me fits. It's part "not sweating the small stuff," and part not selecting difficult metering powders. Particularly the latter. I make the conscience decision not to purchase difficult metering powders.

But you have 700X. So it's best (IMO) to just use it to build loads purposed for things where powder variance isn't a big issue. And/or build loads with large calibers where the drops are large enough to absorb the variance. The bigger the drop, the more consistent it will drop. 700X may give a loader fits with 9mm, but may be no trouble at all with 45 Colt.

That's what I do with Unique - my most difficult metering powder (and it's really not that bad anyway). I load mostly 357 Mag w/ 125gn JHP's; and 44 Mag (less often) with 210gn JHP's. And neither load recipe is near the max. That's how I play it.
 
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I have a RCBS powder measure and it works fine on 700x....at least for pistol loads (I don't load for shotgun). I must be a lucky one, haven't had any issues with any of the big flake powders.
 
I have no trouble consistently dropping 3 gr of 700-X on my Dillon XL650. I keep the powder reservoir full and tap on the sides to make sure the powder settles before I begin.
 
My top 2 "lousy metering" powders are drop charging 4064 , and lee auto disc charging Unique (using the double disc setup). Unique meters slightly better using a single disc.
 
I have no trouble consistently dropping 3 gr of 700-X on my Dillon XL650. I keep the powder reservoir full and tap on the sides to make sure the powder settles before I begin.
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When I thump my powder hopper to settle it, the first drop has to be thrown back, because it is invariably heavy. I never thump it again, or I will have another overweight drop.
 
All Powders Settle

I find that ALL powders settle enough to change the thrown weights after pouring into the hopper - 700X is not different in this respect.

Personally, when setting up any new powder for loading, I tap the base of the powder measure rapidly about 20-30 times, then throw and return 10 loads before I finish "dialing in" the exact charge weight. Since my powder measures are always mounted directly on a press, the final weight checks are always done with fresh loaded rounds that have gone through the full load process for that particular setup. This generally keeps all charges after that right on the money. If I do not follow that procedure, I find that virtually any powder will increase thrown wights by .1 to .3 grains over the first 50 or so loads, caused by the gradual settling or compaction of the powder from on-going vibrations.

That regular rhythm of the same number of thumps, bumps and vibrations between each charge thrown is very important to achieve the most consistent throw weights. Even many of the loading manuals tell you to concentrate on hitting the stops at the end of each throw of the powder measure with the same force for uniformity. Another important aspect is either keeping the same volume of powder in the hopper or using an effective baffle to reduce the impact of the weight of the remaining powder column on the compaction of the next charge. My old RCBS Du-O-Measure has an adjustable baffle in it that makes this even better - I use small baffle openings for fine powders and larger openings for flake powders. This keeps the amount of powder in the small chamber under the baffle very consistent while loading. I have found that correctly matching baffle opening size to the type of powder is most important for consistency as the hopper volume gets close to empty.
 
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Another thing with powders like 700-X is I never try and throw loads under 3.0 grains. I load .45 ACP, 40 S&W, 9mm, .38 Special and .357 Magnum target loads with it but all over 3.0. When it comes to the small charges required for the .380 I stick with Win 231 or Bullseye.
 
One key thing here to remember is larger volume. The larger the volume the better it meters. Coarse flake powders tend to not meter well at low volume. I know Red Dot does this for me when loading .38 Special target loads. I bump up the load to 13 grains for my Mosin Nagant gallery loads, and it meters like water.
 
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