Lees Perfect Powder Measure

O

OverPressure

New member
I am interested in knowing if any of you folks that use the lees auto disk
have found the Lees Perfect Powder Measure to improve your reloading.

Right now i am tweaking some IMR 800X Loads For My 1911 5" and My Colt Defender 3". I am going to list some data below so you more experienced
reloaders have a better idea of what i am doing.

6.2 gr. IMR 800X , 200 gr S&S SWC Colt 1911 5".CCI 350 Magnum Primer
829,841,816,813,843.

Same Exact Load Shot Out Of The 3" Defender.
682,728,722,666,741. I attributed this to a slower burning
powder than what i normally shoot and low pressure.

I boosted the charge to 6.6 gr. Everything else stays the same.
798,816,787,725,779. Not Bad For This Powder Except For The 725.

I Took It To 7.1 gr. 888,860,888,841,851. Not bad for this powder.
But i shoot action with the Defender and Prefer The Softer rd.

Which gets me to the Lees Perfect Powder Measure. That 725 could just
be a light charge from the .71 auto disk!!! Where are you guys that under
stand the the Lees Perfect Powder Measure With Its Ability To Drop A
More Consistent Charge?

I use a 5/8 X 5/8 1 Mill Paper Towel Wad To Hold The Powder Against
The Primer Otherwise The Spreads Turn To Garbage. 90 fps +or -
The 90 fps spreads were from the Colt 5".
 
I had a measure which was....

a dead ringer for the Lee Perfect Powder Measure and I didn't like it.

I want to emphasize that this one was not from Lee. It was an inexpensive knock off and may have been worlds inferior to a Lee. I have never used or examined a Lee but at the 30.95 price tag, my thought is that the Lee couldn't be all that much better. Again, I have never compared them.

The measure that I had was so rickety that I could not get good consistent loads from it.I finally junked it and bought a Hornady LnL. That is a good measure in my book.
 
I can't answer for the powder you're using but it's my goto measure for IMR or H 4895. It's always +/-.1 grain of my loads for the Garand, K31, and the 223R loads.
 
Hornady LnL

Do You Understand how the Hornady Lnl is able to drop these chunky powders
evenly and get a continuous accurate powder drop vs the port on the auto
disk?

I am looking at the manual and it gives a parts schematic but nothing on
how it works.

What I don't understand is that the auto disk works on gravity and the large
chunks with powder like 800X don't settle the same every time a charge
is dropped. And I Do Tap The Side Of The Powder Hopper.

What gives the Hornady the ability to deal with these chunky powders?
 
I have a LEE PPM. It has been my most accurate measure.
But there is a big Butt to it.
They dont come that way. I went through two of them until I figured out the LEE PPM code.

So if you think your gona order one and have the Cats Arse right out of the box.
Your just going to get upset and throw it out in disgust. ( I did)

But if your willing to take your time with it and under stand how and why it works.
For $29 you can end up with a very good measure.
The one I have now purrs like a kitten and drops very accurate loads.
I will have it for life. You could not wrest it from my grip.

I have one of the new LEE Auto drum measures. I am finding it to be very very good with flake powders. With flake powder is all about the weight of the powder in the stack above. Flake powders drop in all different angles and its the air space between the flakes that give the variances.
With the PPM you tap the measure to sit them all flat before you make your drop.
With the Hornady, Uniflow, ect you have a big funnel leading to the drop tube. As long as the powder stack is consistent it will pack the flakes in a consistent manner removing the air spaces.

With the new LEE Auto drum. It seems they hit on a working compromise.
They still have the small hole leading to the drop but now there is a bigger space above the tube. This seems to be working. The right amount of weight on the flakes to pack them down and remove the air space.
At least I am finding it to be very very accurate.
 
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I have a Lyman #55. I use my Lee PPM almost exclusively. I even bought a second one, to leave on my turret press. http://store.gun-guides.com/The-Perfect-Handgun-Adapter-for-LEE-Perfect-Powder-Measures_p_41.html makes an adapter for press mounting and it works great. My first PPM is clamped to a plastic cutting board to be portable. I do all my case prep and priming first. Then I can charge and seat the bullet with my Lee hand press - Anywhere!
Sure, the PPM can leak small grain powder. The cubic centimeters volume measure is way handier than I thought it would be. Gets me very close with the first drop.
Heed Lee's instructions and run a hopper full of powder through before using. This coats the innards with graphite from the powder which is still useable.
 
I use a Lee perfect powder measure to feed extruded type powders into the pan of my scale and I trickle up the load from there. However I'm not worried about speed.

My Lyman measure is far superior to the Lee but it sucks with extruded powders...

Tony
 
My Lee PPM works well with everything except the really fine grained stuff like H110/W269.

Well enough for me, anyway.
 
I am looking at the Lees Perfect Powder Measure Online and i think
i am following some of the technology. The weight of the powder and a
longer chute . I really haven't figured out how the drum works.



I am just assuming that what ever feeds the drum has already layered
these flake or extrude powders???

On these flake or extruded powders do any of you have a accuracy
by weight idea. Are we talking .1 or .2 of a grain?
 
I only use the auto-disc for mid-range handgun loads-too much variation for hotter loads.
I use the Lee hand throw measure for most other ammo I load. It has some quirks but is consistent and easy to adjust. I have 3 or 4 and keep a couple of them set for common loads I use so I don't waste time re-setting(can't afford to do that with a $100 measure).
Some of mine have dumped several thousand charges and still work fine. The one on my "sequential" turret press has dumped a minimum of 5K charges of ball powder w/o adjustment. Occasionally, one will get some powder granules in the wrong place(especially fine grained pistol powder) and require a partial dis-assembly and blow out with canned air.
 
I only use the auto-disc for mid-range handgun loads-too much variation for hotter loads.
Click to expand...

That may be a powder compatibility issue, because my auto disks, which I have for every dedicated caliber turret, are very consistent. There may be issues I am not aware for large charges in rifle cartridges, but the auto disk is a welcome asset in handgun loading ( I do 13 calibers and variations).
 
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On these flake or extruded powders do any of you have a accuracy
by weight idea. Are we talking .1 or .2 of a grain?
Click to expand...

I don't expect extreme precision from coarse powder in small charges. Perhaps my best example is 700x in 44-40, which is accurately measured every time I check it, but there all the apertures are in proportion to the powder particles.
 
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You are over thinking this. All powder measures are volume-metric. The powder flows into the adjustable volume. Then you dump it out. The measure does nothing else. It is just like filling a glass with water.
Settling can be influenced by tapping the measure consistently.
 
I love my Lee PPM. It drops consistently. I tap the side occasionally as I don't use a baffle.

But since I moved my rifle reloading to an RCBS turret press I use my Lee Pro Auto disk mounted on the press itself, similar to my Lee Classic Turret set up.
 
Do You Understand how the Hornady Lnl is able to drop these chunky powders
evenly
Click to expand...

Yes I do , IT DOESN'T !

I have the LnL and IMO is sucks when using large stick powder like IMR 4064 . It not only does not throw a consistent charge but will lock up because a piece of powder gets stuck in between the rotor and the measure body . Now you can play with the handle a little to get that piece out of the way but that throws that charge off . Or you can power through it forcing the rotor to cut the piece of powder causing a big jolt to the powder measure that likely throws off the next charge .

That all said The LnL works good when throwing powders like H335 and OK with short stick powder like 4320 . Using the pistol rotor works good as well but trying to throw 4064 is a joke , I mean it's off by a 1/2gr some times .
 
I discovered something about my PPM.

There's a silicone wiper in the cone that tends to flatten out and let the finer powders spill out the side. I took a piece of paper and fit it behind the wiper (which simply sldes out), forcing it further out into the contact area.

That, and cleaning it with alcohol on a q-tip on occasion cuts down on the bypassing powder.
 
Chris this is a great tip/trick bit of leementing! Thank You for sharing.

"a piece of paper and fit it behind the wiper (which simply sldes out), forcing it further out into the contact area.

That, and cleaning it with alcohol on a q-tip on occasion cuts down on the bypassing powder.
 
Metal god

Ok, I decided to weigh out 25 or 30 charges from my auto disk.

I am weighing 800X 6.6 gr. which is .71 on the auto disk.

Once I set the lees scale at 6.6 gr. the range was 6.6 to
6.1 gr. The Average spread about .4 of a gr. I was tapping
the hopper before dropping the charge. Not Tapping Just
gave me a lighter charge with about the same spread.

What i think i can achieve with the Lees Perfect Powder Measure Is A
Method Of Getting My Load Exact. If it drops 6.4 gr i can just make a
slight adjustment until i get it right.

I Will Have To Purchase A Digital Scale To Speed The Process Up
From The Lees Scale Method Of Checking Each Load.
 
Skip the PPM, go straight to their new auto drum measure. The PPM will have to be operated MANUALLY for each shell. It's real easy to forget. The auto drum activates when the shell goes into the powder through expander in the lee standard die sets.

Basically the new auto drum is an upgrade to Lee's line of reloading equipment. At least as far as powder drops/measure go. Case activated means hands off operation. It could even be used on a progressive like a dillon or LNL. Upgrade you say? Yes, the auto disc has set holes in the disc that seldo match the charge you want. They tried to solve that with the adjustable measure bar, but it don't work well at the tiny charges like for 380 shells and 38 wadcutters. Also even the stacked disc set-up would not go to 80 grains like the auto drum will.
 
Yea after my last post I realized what powder you were using . My post really went to large rifle powders . So far the L nL seems to throw pistol powders pretty well
 
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