Lee Classic Loader - .308

[Bill Steele]

So today I gave my new Lee Classic Loader a try at the range.

I had finished my 50 rounds of load workup on some new bullets and had a few minutes. I had brought the LCL in a small tool box, along with a mallet, a primer pocket brush, a bronze bore brush for the necks, some bulk 150gr FMJ's, some WLR primers I had popped out of some other pulled rounds long ago and had loose in a small plastic box, a plastic card to scrape off the charge level and a 1lb bottle of 4064.

I had tested the 3.1cc powder dipper that came with the kit a few nights ago with my RCBS 1010 and it seemed to jump around quite a bit weight wise +/- .5grs and that was after I had gotten the dipping and credit card scrape technique kind of down. It gave me a new found appreciation for a powder measure that can drop 4064 +/- a few tenths. The good news is the charge I was working with was pretty mild and the worst case dip I tested was still only mid-range.

I decided to use the same case for all the loads to help as much as possible with the SD's and a friend suggested I index the case with a marking pen and load it at 12 O'clock each time to again help as much as possible with consistency.

The result were 5 shots almost exactly 1 MOA at 100 yards. Not bad for no scale, SD's that probably were in the 60's or 70's with a gun that doesn't favor light loads very often.

Next time I will try BL-C(2) which I have gotten down to a few tenths of a grain variation in the garage (it also meters well in my powder measure, makes sense) and I will be using a 3.1cc dipper which will get me a little closer to the velocity my gun seems to favor.

Who knows, I might just quit using scales and fancy presses and dies to make my ammo.

[Whiterabbit]

I would be REALLY curious if you performed an OCW workup (Metcalf on a 4th sunday?) and found a dipper at that charge weight, if doing this exact same test (even at +/- .5 gr) would yield better groups.

Assuming of course the OCW charge you got shooting tighter than 1moa.

[Bill Steele]

I would be REALLY curious if you performed an OCW workup (Metcalf on a 4th sunday?) and found a dipper at that charge weight, if doing this exact same test (even at +/- .5 gr) would yield better groups.

Assuming of course the OCW charge you got shooting tighter than 1moa.

I do have some idea about what seems an optimal charge for both IMR 4064 and BL-C(2) with these bullets, or at least similar weight jacketed bullets (this was only the second time I have shot these exact bullets, which I generally use for fouling rounds).

Today, I was not really close to anything that has yielded good to me (i.e. .2-.3 MOA) results with these components. Today was about testing more of a worst case and seeing if hammering away on the bench with the Lee Loader might yield it. I will admit that using the same case and clocking it was a bit of cheating in that pursuit, but otherwise things were pretty random and bare bones.

My next test will be to try and get to some velocties that have yielded .2-.3 MOA in the past with these components. I think with the large extruded powders like 4064, it is probably not likely that I will ever be able to stay in the "sweet spot" as my spreads are likely to never get much below about 70-90fps, even if my dipping technique gets much finer. In my experience, 70-90fps spread won't get me .2MOA, at least with that rifle (my best one, albeit still kind of home built and definitely not a big bucks rig). With BL-C(2), I have already gotten my dipping technique down to about +/- .2 gr and while its energy density is such that it won't translate to half the velocity spreads I am seeing with 4064, at +/- .2gr BL-C(2) should be a lot better.

I suspect, at least with the rifle I am shooting these tests on, anything better than about .5MOA will require something in the .1gr +/- consistency and that will require a good scale, but I might be surprised.

As well as things went today, I can say with a fair amount of confidence, fancy dies and presses are in the last order of importance when it comes to making tight groups. Of course, having the advantage of using the very same case (one that had been annealed before its first firing today), clocked to the very same spot in the chamber, had to help in the results, for sure much more than weighing cases, etc.

[stilly]

LIES! we must have presses and fancy schmancy thingies!

It is how we show our true colors! (I am a leo so naturally I favor red and blue!)


How did you get your shot accuracy? Bipod or bench?

[Bill Steele]

..How did you get your shot accuracy? Bipod or bench?

.2 MOA is a concrete bench, with a really heavy three point rest up front and a bag on the rear, and also not a shaky day on the trigger...

I actually am giving the dipper some thought. I think a narrow but deep dipper, cut to the exact length to yield the ideal charge will give very consistent charges with ball powders. Consistent enough to shoot really small single hole groups using the Lee Classic Loader.

One side benefit, although just a theory right now (beyond my barrel getting nice and cool between shots) is the peening on the case bottom seems to help tighten primer pockets back up, kind of a reverse swager.

[stilly]

.2 MOA is a concrete bench, with a really heavy three point rest up front and a bag on the rear, and also not a shaky day on the trigger...

I actually am giving the dipper some thought. I think a narrow but deep dipper, cut to the exact length to yield the ideal charge will give very consistent charges with ball powders. Consistent enough to shoot really small single hole groups using the Lee Classic Loader.

One side benefit, although just a theory right now (beyond my barrel getting nice and cool between shots) is the peening on the case bottom seems to help tighten primer pockets back up, kind of a reverse swager.

interesting... I was wanting to get one of those lee loaders for 9mm and see how many times I could load up a shell at the indoor range before it broke. One day I will still do this. You need a mallet though or a hammer?

[Bill Steele]

interesting... I was wanting to get one of those lee loaders for 9mm and see how many times I could load up a shell at the indoor range before it broke. One day I will still do this. You need a mallet though or a hammer?

I started using one of those plastic hammers (the kind with a hard and soft side) that Lee recommends, but switched to an all brass hammer. It seems to help peen the primer pockets a little more.

[Bill Steele]

I kind of had a breakthrough tonight with regard to figuring out how to make dippers work with large grained (extruded) powders and get reasonable charge to charge consistency. In fact what I learned applies to any powder, as a reducer of error.

I got to thinking about the dippers I was using and how I was using them with IMR 4064. After getting a heaping dipper of powder, when I was scraping the the 4064 with a business card along the mouth of the dipper to get a level charge, the little logs would fly around and the result was an uneven surface along the top of the dipper, which also resulted in an uneven charge weight (like as much as +/- .6gr, or about 40-50fps with my rifle and the bullets I was testing). I also found the way I filled the dipper greatly affected the consistency. Slowly pushing the dipper into the bottle of powder allowed it to settle uniformly. Faster dipping resulted in less uniformity. The two above factors greatly affected my charge to charge weight (and my extreme spreads velocity wise which was in the 100fps range).

When loading normally, I have always used a technique in dropping extruded powders like Varget and 4064 into a case. The way to get the maximum in the case is to pour the powder along the sides of the funnel and let it settle slowly. I found tonight that this proper settling technique, also resulted in more uniformity of charge (less randomness) when I employed it with my dippers testing. I think there is a technical term for a powders propensity to settle (ball being better, extruded being worse), but I can't remember it now.

I combined these two observations to create a vessle that would hold the exact weight of IMR 4064 I wanted (when proper settling technique was used with the funnel) and combined it with a theory that a long narrow cylinder with a large aspect ratio of length to mouth diameter might yield the best uniformity, even when the same scraping with a card technique was used. In essence, the error created by the scraping of the top surface was a smaller percentage of the whole charge than the relatively wider cylinder and mouth of the Lee dippers versus their volume (smaller aspect ratio), hence the greater error of the Lee dipper.

Bottom line is by cutting the neck off a used case at the level of where one of my optimal loads fills using my funnel settling technique (long case, narrow mouth), I was able to get charge to charge weights by volume measure that were about +/- .15grs (versus +/- .6 gr just using the technique that comes with a Lee dipper). I think maybe my new "dipper technique" will good enough to get my extreme spreads low enough to shoot down in the .2-.3 MOA range with a large Lee dipper (using it only as a powder scoop), a case with the neck cut off at the exact place to yield the desired charge when my funnel pouring technique is used to fill that case.

As for BL-C(2) and other ball powders, I think I will be able to drop consistent charges wth just the calibrated case and a big Lee dipper as a scoop at the range, that will yield charge to charge consistency as close as any trickling charge I have ever thrown (basically unmeasurable differences).

I am kind of excited about the prospect of making rounds at the range with my Lee Loader and brass hammer that rivals my best Bench Rest round I make with painstaking care and a $1000 worth of reloading gear in my garage.

I also now know how to make a bench rest powder drop that will drop any type of powder you choose to unmeasurable differences charge to charge. It just takes a really big rotor to handle a narrow column of powder and a way to feather the powder into the cylinder to allow it to settle uniformly. Too bad there is so little money in reloading gear.... FWIW, 338LM would take a REALLY big rotor. :0