I have been using a Lee powder measure for over 10 years. Now I want to upgrade to a Lyman or RCBS. I see that the RCBS Uniflow is not recommended for black powder whereas the Lyman 55 is. RCBS does make a black powder measure at almost twice the price. Any thoughts as to which hand cranked measure turns out a consistant load?
Michael Moore, 10261
Neither the Lyman 55 or the RCBS Uniflow are recomended for black powder. The Lyman comes in a variation that is however. I has a larger brass hopper with a drop tube and the price to go with it. That said; I have been using an R C B S Uniflow for 39 years and I still have all my fingers. Use a powder baffle and get to the grain charges from top to bottom of the hopper.
Lee makes a plastic powder measure that sells for about $18. It's called the Perfect powder measure; it drops accurate loads if you keep it at least 1/2 full. It's small enough to mount on a square board and clamp to the bench. At that price you could have one for each gun. I've used them for years and black powder has no effect on them.
Cheap and Good, a great combination.
Walt Magee
i use the lyman 55 with aluminum baffle and powder resevoir and drop tubes. i find that for throwing bp it works great very stable in charge weight the problem is that when you have to change the charge it is trial and error till you find the right setting. it is very difficult to read markings on the slides and the bottem drum cant be seen at all unless you have the handle rotated. as for throwing smokeless i have never gotten this measure to throw anything even close to being consistant it is all over the place one high next low so i only use it for bp.
if you can mount high enough to use the drop tubes the do work well, also this measure can be press mounted which is a great thing if your using a progressive press or a turret. expensive yes, difficult to set the charge yes but very well made and very accurate onece the charge is set. just keep the screws tight and make sure that the left hand screw that holds the whole thing in is very tight or you will get increasingly heavier charges.
matt
winslow's battery 9775v
Have you considered buying a used Belding & Mull powder measure. I have been very satisfied with that one. I bought mine used from Joe Hepsworth, he's into long rang muzzle loading (and holds some world records), and is the owner operator of J. Cunard & Co. at 740-345-6646; http://www.jcunard.com .
Awhile back I did a short study on how accurately I could throw charges with the hand held powder measures using Swiss 2F and 1.5 F, and Schutzen 2F.
I also used the Bell and Mull measure just to see how well it did.
I posted the results of this non-scientific study on the LRML (Long Range Muzzle Loader) forum. I'm going to try to retrieve that info and post the results here. I think you will find the results very interesting. Here's the LRML Forum post: http://www.lrml.org/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.pl
"I spent the afternoon yesterday doing an experiment wherein I used three different powder measures accumulated over the years with all of them set to a reading of 85. I hand threw loads (3 each) for Swiss 2F, Swiss 1.5F, and Scheutzen (Wano) 2F and recorded their individual weights.
I then used a Belding and Mull Powder Dispenser with one of the powder measures to throw the charges again for Swiss 2F, Swiss 1.5F, and Scheutzen (Wano) 2F. The individual charge weights and averages are in an Excel spreadsheet which I will attach and hope you can read as it is not one of the listed supported file types. If it doesn't work, I'll skin the beast another way and post that. It's now a PDF file.
The spreadsheet also contains the process I used, some important info on the way the Belding & Mull powder dispenser works and some of my observations that resulted as I was performing the experiment. The results definitely show that the graduation marks on your powder measure cannot be relied on to correspond to a particular charge weight. The powder measures all differ with regard to the weight of charge they thow for the same setting for the same powder sometimes significanlty (up to 5 grains for Swiss 2F and and 7 grains for Swiss 1.5F for example at a setting of 85).
If you are interested in the Belding & Mull powder dispenser, I'm going to start another topic in the Powder & Bullets (LRML Forum), etc. section where I'll post a picture and mention a couple of mods I made to mine that I feel are nice improvements. "[attachment=0:f4avyltt]Powder Measure Test by Weight & Brand.xls[/attachment:f4avyltt]
Moderator
What the B&M selling for? I have one that I don't use and have been thinking about selling.
MR. GADGET
NRA LIFE BENEFACTOR MEMBER
Rowan Artillery
N-SSA National Provost Guard
Just remember!
When a pot needs stirring, someone needs to do it...
I took the advice and bought a belding and mull measure on eBay for $48. I also bought just the rotor portion of a Lee Perfect Measure so I could set it up for my revolver(I have the hopper already). I paid $7.00 for it. Thanks for the help from your years of experience.
Michael Moore, 10261
Like anything else, there is a range of prices for the B&M, with features such as reservoir (brass or plastic) and size and type of drop tube as well as overall condition affecting the overall value. As the previous poster showed, you can sometimes find one on the low side of $50, but generally a brass reservoir measure in good shape and with a good drop tube is going for somewhere one the order of $75 to $125 with more for a micrometer drop tube, original box and instructions, etc, etc. As you can tell from the tone of my answer, I don't think there is one simple definitive answer to your question, but that is the best I can manage based on a bunch of gun shows and collecting of reloading stuff.Originally Posted by MR. GADGET
HTH ~ Froggie
Charlie Shaeff
1st Valley Rangers
N-SSA # 12345
Michael, it sounds like you snagged a B&M powder measure for a very good price. Congratulations!
As I indicated in an earlier post (and on the LRML Forum as well) I made two mods to mine that I thought I would make sure you knew about in case you haven't visited the LRML Forum.
First, I replaced the spring. The original spring which you may or may not have is very stiff. If the spring is very stiff, I recommend you extract it from the measure and replace it with a weaker spring. Operation is a lot smoother that way.
Second, the glass in the sliding hopper is easily broken. I like to take things apart and mine quickly developed a line crack. When reading-up on the B&M initially I learned this was a common occurence and one recommendation which I liked was to replace the glass with some clear Lexan. I did that. I went to Lowes and found an 8X10 inch sheet of Lexan that is approx .1 inch thick. I cut a 1.4 X 1.4 inch square piece out of the sheet with a fine bladed hacksaw and filed it to fit the hopper window. It works great, looks good, and it ain't gonna break.
If you want me to cut a like-size piece out out of the remaining part of my Lexan sheet for you me know and I'll be happy to send it to you with my compliments.
Thanks Pat for the Lexan. I changed the spring and it works a lot smoother. The drop tube measure goes from 0-50. The numbers don't correlate to grain charges but once set I can use the numbers as a reference for charge sizes for my different weapons. Is the micrometer drop tube worth the expense or ease of having a second drop tube preset for another size charge?
Michael Moore, 10261
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