Lee Loader

OK after digging out from the snow all day, I came down to the new reloading bench and figured I'd finish setting up the loadmaster.

I did a test run of 15 small rifle primers, and they loaded OK with the exception of one which was flipped, but that very well could have been me, as 1 slipped slipped down into the shoot as I was putting the tray into it.

Next I installed the Pro Auto Disk. Reading Lee data, it says the .66 cc disc should deliver 6 gr of Unique for a starting load.

Well it doesn't, it delivers about 5.4 gr.

I moved up to the .71cc hole, and it's delivering about 5.8 gr. zwhich is probably an OK starting load for plinking.

Is Lee's data normally that far off on the Auto Disks?

I found out early on in my reloading endeavor (which started way back in 2011 ) that the Lee data for Unique when comparing volumetric data to weight data was somewhat "off". I would imagine that the volumetric data for dippers (my experience) is in the same category as the volumetric data for the disc measurements. I found that the .7cc dipper that Lee data called to carry a 6.4 gr load of Unique was only carrying about 5.8 gr of Unique. Granted, this was from my then current lot of Unique so I checked again about a year later from a totally different lot of powder .... that time it measured (on two different scales) at 5.9 gr per 0.7cc scoop.

Other powders I checked (AA#7, AA#9, A2400) were within about 0.2 gr of the Lee weight to volume calculations, which to me is well within the "lot to lot" variation potential. The Unique thing still has me puzzled though.


jd

Well we are talking about Unique, right? Your example is one reason I moved to Lee's drum measure.

Et2ss wrote:Next I installed the Pro Auto Disk. Reading Lee data, it says the .66 cc disc should deliver 6 gr of Unique for a starting load.

Well it doesn't, it delivers about 5.4 gr.

I moved up to the .71cc hole, and it's delivering about 5.8 gr. zwhich is probably an OK starting load for plinking.

Is Lee's data normally that far off on the Auto Disks?

It's not that Lee's data is off, its that the powders specific gravity is off its spec; hence, the volume is off. I start every new bottle off by determining the VMD for that bottle, and I write that number on the side of the bottle. From there it is very easy to determine the exact charge that any disk cavity or cc setting will deliver before you start.

I have a spreadsheet that can be downloaded that will help with these calculations to include determining the VMD of your charge. If you want to use it, download it, and I will answer any questions you might have. The file is an Open Office file that can be downloaded into excel, some of the formatting might be lost. I started to use the Open Office software (free) and never went back to MS.

The first thing to do is take several samples of dropped charges from the powder and device that will deliver it. I make it simple when I do this, I drop ten charges, one after the other, and then weigh them, and then divide that weight by 10. From there you enter the sample's cc and weight in the "Calculate VMD" boxes. When you have the VMD of your powder for your delivery device, go to the "Powder" tab and enter the VMD in the appropriate column. I also add the powder's lot number just as a reference.

Cool!

I downloaded it, but it's coming up as "This file is corrupt" in excel.

I'll have to try it at work, or later down in the reloading room with Open Office, ( I don't have it on this new laptop my kids bought me for my birthday last year)

I get the same message with Excel for the spreadsheet.

I will uploaded a new copy later tonight.

It works with Open Office.

Just save it as an .xls, and upload for folks with excel