Which powder measure? Harrell's or Lyman #55

[Safra460]

Anyone has first hand experience with either powder measure: Lyman #55 and Harrell's powder measure?
I want a decent powder dispenser that can throw ball and stick powders within 0.2gr or less deviation.

Plan to load 308Win and 460Mag first then will start to load 357mag and 223 later. Had prior loading experience and using Forster press.

Any advise is greatly appreciated.

[dwtt]

I use the Lyman powder measure and it's consistant. It will throw powder charges within 0.1 grain. The variation is actually less than 0.1 grain but my scale is incremented in 0.1 gr increments and the charge never varies by that much. The variation I have seen comes from the powder measure using up the powder. At the start of a reloading session, the powder measure is full of powder, but when you use up the powder and get down near the bottom, there's less weight on the powder and you'll see a slight change in the weight of the charge. The little knocker on the Lyman helps, at least I think it does.

[17+1]

I've found the consistency of the Lyman 55 depends on the user more than anything. It will dump Varget (extruded powder) pretty consistently if you use good technique. IE: settle the powder the same everytime, pull the handle the same speed, etc. That said, I also have a Lee perfect powder measure and it is a great value for the money.

Just looked up how much a new Lyman 55 is...ouch. I got mine used...remember paying $20-30 for it.

[dwtt]

^ You're very right. That's why I use the little knocker and cycle the handle the same way every time. It also forces me to slow down and concentrate on what I'm doing, which isn't a bad thing.

[BSlacker]

Mounted solid and using a smooth stroke the #55 will do the .2gr with most powders. The Harrells is better but they cost much more. The issue I have with the Lyman is the powder container is a plastic tube, it is held in a groove very lightly in the body of the dispenser. I use good ole duck tape to hold it in but some drill the body and use a small screw to hold it in solid.

[afrancke]

Anyone has first hand experience with either powder measure: Lyman #55 and Harrell's powder measure?
I want a decent powder dispenser that can throw ball and stick powders within 0.2gr or less deviation.

I have a Harrell's and I didn't quite know what to expect when I first got it - "perfection" or something close to it was what I was hoping. I don't have anything else to compare it to, but from reading other reviews and from my own experience over the past year or so, I would have to say that perfection is not really attainable from a powder measure - though your definition of success,+/- 0.2 gr, is probably achievable most of the time.

There is plenty advice from reviewers and users about using a consistent technique, learning the way the measure responds to the speed of the pull, or how long you pause for it to fill before pulling, or whatever, but my instinct is that this plus the type of powder you are using matters a whole lot more than the measure itself. You might get similar results from nearly any measure, I would wager, if you have learned these things about operating yours, and have a good throwing powder, better yet.

In general, my Harrell's is definitely within the +/- 0.2 gr range you list as acceptable, and though I haven't sat down to throw a large number of charges in sequence to record the results and examine the distribution, my gut feel is a large percentage will be +/- 0.75 gr, another large percentage will be +/- 1.5 gr, and some low percentage will be beyond that. Ball powders like TAC or CFE223 don't seem to be dramatically more consistent than good stick powders (I'm using 8208 XBR for comparison). I think the XBR might even be more consistent than the other two. I have not tried throwing Varget, everybody's benchmark for a "difficult" throwing powder.

I also have some intuition though again I have not confirmed that the variation is higher for smaller charges - not as a percentage, but on an absolute basis. In other words, throwing ~22-24 grain charges for .223 cases had more frequent significant under or overthrows vs. throwing 43-45 grain charges for .308 cases (usually one follows the other - an underthrow, with powder stuck somewhere in the system, and then an overthrow that includes the amount left from the previous underthrow). I would have to confirm this, since I have not used the same powders for both and it might be more related to those than anything else.

I will say the Harrell's is nicely repeatable - you can dial in a number of clicks and get the same result every time (within the +/- variation), which to me is quite valuable and I have no idea how others compare in this regard. Most reviews focus on the variability while sticking at a single setting.

For pistol, I'm not sure if you can use the Harrell's regular meter successfully or whether you need the Schuetzen.

[Safra460]

Thank you all for your input, it sounds like Lyman 55 and Harrell's are all dependent upon throw technique with the better measure having smaller deviation from throw to throw.

Yes the two powders that I want to experiment with are the TAC and CFE223.

Will report back what I decide.

[sjg1966]

Redding 3BR...love mine!