Lee charge bar

W

Wendyj

New member
I got this today and it will not adjust at all. No matter which way you turn it. Maybe not holding my mouth right. Screw is almost too tight to turn by hand. Any ideas.
 
There really isn't much to the thing or how it works, or should work. If the screw which is the only moving part on the thing won't move I would be calling Lee. Then too seeing the Lee Precision Adjustable Charge Bar on Amazon Prime for about eight bucks I really am not seeing a precision volume metering device. While I have no issues with many of the Lee dies I view most of their powder throws and stuff like this as overly plastic junk. Not overly priced but not quite a presion repeatable device.

Ron
 
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The LACB works well as long as you're not on the low volume end for a given powder. It meters +/- 0.1gr repeatably for most of my pistol powders. It is designed to be hard to turn the adjustment knob, so that it will not shift during use. Instructions say not to try to make the "thimble friction" less than factory setting. It doesn't sound like anything is wrong, Wendyj.
 
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"Only took two replies to start bashing Lee and disrespecting those who rely on their products".

I was not bashiong Lee, I spoke fine of their dies. What I said and stand by is for the most part their powder measures are junk. Now if you dislike my opinion it's fine with me. The point was you get what you pay for and an $8.00 powder volume metering device is hardly a repeatable or good part. I also have a few Lee presses which work fine but I call junk just that regardless of who makes it. The fact you may not agree is fine with me. I also did not disrespect anyone so get over yourself.

Ron
 
I finally got it loosened up and it's turning good now. I was wanting 4.2 grains of HP 38 and it was throwing about .2 off. The charge bar put me where I needed and I did check all of 60 rounds of 9 mm on a digital scale. Dead on every time. It did lose some powder under it when I went to clean up. So far so good.
 
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That's great, glad to hear you got it worked out. Sometimes when you hit something like that, bouncing it off other folks keeps you from doubting yourself so much.
 
Wendyj, nice to hear you got it going. Good job. I received one when I bought an upgrade kit for my Auto Disk that the screw holes finally broke out on the plastic hopper. I have used mine and it works well with HP-38 and AA#5 but moreso with the HP-38 because it is not as dense.

Reloadron sorry to hear you are disappointed with the Lee measures though I have to disagree with your evaluation. I have 2 Auto Disk measures and an Auto Drum measure which I use exclusively. I have been using these for almost 2 full years with some very fine granule pistol powders like AA#5 for one. I have found I have near zero leakage from the disk measures with these powders. The drum has finally quit leaking.

As for consistency I have used the Disk measure to load charges as small as 3.0gr of HP-38 and have easily been able to maintain 3.0gr to 3.1gr.. Now I don't know about you but I would call that pretty consistent! And I have done that with a disk, a drum and the adjustable charge bar.

So sorry to say but I have found quite different results than you are expressing. Not attacking you, just expressing the other side of the coin. I will continue to use my Cheap Lee Junk powder measures because for me they just work..
 
I have a Hornady and a rcbs dandy and a Lee perfect powder thrower. Or say had a Hornady and a Dandy. The perfect is a pain to screw in from small charges to large but it's very repeatable. I bought another one and set one for pistol and one for rifle. They've been going 4 years now. The auto disk is even better. For stick powders I use Hornady loc n load electric charger. If I can ever remember to buy everything for the turret I am going to try 30-30 with h4895 and benchmark in 223 through it. I ordered 4 turrets from Amazon and they sent one. I forgot to order the short charging bar. 9 mm was Rcbs dies so had to order flaring powder die. It came today with the one turret and I loaded quite a few before having to stop and start rearranging loading room to handle more equipment. It's starting to get full. Spare bedroom is my loading cave.
 
For the money that Lee powder measuring products cost they are remarkably good. For many years quite a few top bench rest shooters swore by the LPPM as it didn't crunch stick powder and it throws exactly the same as a 350 dollar harrell (+/- 0.2, as all measures do that work by volume, regardless of brand).

Some people can't stand to see others do well for a fraction of the price, it irks them for some odd reason. *shrug*
 
Wendyj

I finally got it loosened up and it's turning good now. I was wanting 4.2 grains of HP 38 and it was throwing about .2 off. The charge bar put me where I needed and I did check all of 60 rounds of 9 mm on a digital scale. Dead on every time. It did lose some powder under it when I went to clean up. So far so good.
Click to expand...

I bought a couple of the charge bars back when they first came out and both of them did the same thing to me. Just twisted back and forth for a few minutes and it broke free also. Also screw the bar all the way in and out several times to break it in, that will loosen it up making it easier to adjust small adjustments when setting up a load. Contrary to some opinions mine are consistent dropping exactly about 80% of the time with the remaining always within .1 grains even with Unique, but that is with pistol rounds don't load rifle. I like it so much that I haven't even considered buying the new Lee Auto Drum measure.
 
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With my autodisk and adjustable charge bar i set my scale to desired weight. Throw at least 3 drops, dumping powder back into hopper.
Then weigh 4th or 5th drop.
Adjust bar.
Another 3-4 drops and weigh.


I've used the double disk kit, and done throwing twice on powder.
Still prefer weighing each rifle charge.
 
Glad it's working out for you Wendy . When I first started reading the thread I thought oh no she's going to hate me for talking up the charge bar . Your results mirror mine with HP-38 . So far I like mine but it is hard to adjust and to fine tune a charge can be challenging . Example : When trying to throw a specific charge . I've gotten close like .1gr from the intended charge but every subsequent adjustment either threw to heavy or to light so I had to except the .1gr avg difference from the intended charge . That does not happen often but has happened . That's still much closer then any of the discs got me to any of my established loads .
 
I was just looking at the rcbs powder cop die. My 9mm is the only one I have an extra turret in but also the most dangerous without visually checking. I see Hornady has one also but don't know which one would be better. I like the function of the rcbs. Is it worth it???
 
Wendyj. I'm having a bit of trouble following your question. Do you man the 9mm is the only one with an open die station? Meaning you are only using 3 dies in a 4 die turret?

If that is the case I would be hard pressed to decide which would be more beneficial. A powder Cop dies or a Factory Crimp Die. The reason I say this is because when using the Lee Powder measures for pistol loads I have found that with most every pistol powder I've used I can very easily maintain 0.1gr of my target load and the very worst case being 0.2gr which because I never load anywhere near max I feel confident with what I am doing. Also because of the fact that I can easily visually see into each case after the powder has been dropped. Which again a double charge or no charge is obvious. Also I do not know enough about the Powder Cop to know if it is sensitive enough to detect a 0.2gr deviation over or under.

On the other hand I do all my loading with a 3 die pistol die set and have never had a problem until recently with a gun that I recently picked up that has a very tight chamber. After all I've done with this barrel I am beginning to believe a FCD might be the answer.

Anyways, that's my take on it. Which I know isn't much help.
 
The RCBS lock out die? Great on a progressive, I don't see much use for it, or a powder cop type of die(not worth having in any case) on an LCT.

I use the lock outs on my 650 because I have the room, a lot more is going on, and the lock out doesn't require me to watch it even though I already am looking in the cases anyway. It is cheap insurance(I might blink and miss something some day).
 
Wendy,
I've seen the "cop" die on progressive presses like a Dillon. Not sure if it would work with a turret press.
I put a string of LED lights on my press so i can see down into a casing.
You should have all 4 stations in the turret filled for 9mm.
Full length size/deprime. Expanding through die. Seater die. Crimp die.

Std7mag
 
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