superdave wrote:If youre gonna load a relatively low volume ie less than 300- 400 rounds per year then the above setup will work ok. It will be time consuming, but you'll get there.
Less than 300-400 per year?
I did 350-odd 6.5x52mm, .303 and 7.62x54R over two evenings last week with the Breech Lock Press. The 6.5 and 7.62 had to be lubed as well as I don't have collet dies for those.
I also did some .243, .204 and some more .303 and 6.5x52mm earlier in the week.
I used the pile of milsurp ammo to test the Lee powder thrower and came away impressed.
I threw loads of 28.5gn, 36.0gn and 40.5gn of AR2206H and regularly dumped them on the scale before seating the bullet.
Variation was within about 0.3gn at worst, and usually were within about 0.15gn. I'm certainly going to be using the powder thrower for all my milsurp loads from now on. I'm yet to try Trailboss in the thrower but I expect it will require dumping to a pan first and then funnel it into the brass.
It's possible to throw more accurately than that using the Lee Powder Dippers, but it takes longer and requires a funnel. The dippers get less accurate as they get bigger. Up to 1cc, the dippers will throw very accurately with AR2206H and AR2209, but Trailboss varies up to one-tenth. I can only throw totally consistent Trailboss loads with the 0.3cc dipper. From 1.3cc to 3.4cc they throw within 0.3gn accuracy, but bigger than that the accuracy is poor - as much as one grain variation. The larger mouth area allows greater variation in the level of the powder so I think a better design would be bottle-necked dippers so all have the same mouth area. If I want to throw 28.5gn of AR2206H then two 1cc dippers will throw 27.8gn consistently, which is easily topped off with the trickler. A single 1.9cc dipper though will throw between 27.1gn and 27.4gn.
I've found best accuracy with the dippers is achieved by several smaller dippers rather than one bigger one. But there is the risk of miscounting when using multiple dips.
Also, Lee states that you need to card the top off for accuracy, but I find better accuracy by swamping the dipper and allowing the powder to find its natural slump.