Digital Powder Dispensers And Other Handy Stuff For The Loading Bench
John Markwell
The Sartorius scale was used to check the accuracy of all the dispensers tested by the author. The RCBS Charge Master, shown here, and the Lyman DPS 3 proved to be the most consistent in their charge weights.
sophisticated system for dealing with powder – mainly be- cause my priority was buying guns, not loading equipment. My powder measuring system has been pretty simple (some would say primitive) and similar, I’m sure, to that of many shooters out there. My two old reliable RCBS Unifl ow powder measures and an RCBS balance scale have served me well for a long time. For more years than I care to acknowledge, when working up loads I have dipped powder from my trickler with a tea spoon, poured it into the scale pan, and then trickled up to the desired weight. Once a powder charge was fi nalized for any given cartridge, all my loads were assembled with measure-thrown charges or even better yet (for the stuff I shoot a lot of), on one of my progressive loading machines. Like many folks out there in reloading land, I had consid-
A
ered trying one of the automatic electronic powder dispensers but, quite frankly, was afraid of “getting burned.” What if, after spending a serious amount of cash, the dispenser didn’t work as advertised, was inaccurate, slow, inconsistent, or just more trouble than it was worth. Sound familiar? Well, I hope this brief evaluation will help anyone out there who has been con- sidering a powder dispenser but has had similar reservations. For this article I obtained The Lyman 1200 DPS 3 Digital
Powder System, the RCBS ChargeMaster 1500 Scale and Dis- penser, Hornady’s Lock-N-Load Auto Charge, and the Smart Reloader iSD powder dispenser. I loaded both 223 Remington and 250 Savage ammunition with powder charges dispensed by these ingenious machines. The 223 ammo was loaded with Winchester 748, a ball powder. The 250 was loaded with H4350, which is a short stick powder. I also ran some IMR 3031 through
Page 18 Spring 2012
fter 45 or so years of handloading, it’s time to come clean. Like many gun guys, I never have had a very
Left to right: the RCBS Charge Master Combo, the Hornady Lock-N-Load Auto Charge, the Lyman 1200 DPS 3, and the Smart Reloader iSD.
these dispensers to see how they handled a long-grained pow- der as well as some Winchester 231 to see how each handled small, pistol weight, charges. The Hornady Lock-N-Load Auto Charge was thoroughly
reviewed By Rocky Raab in the January 2011 Issue of The Varmint Hunter Magazine®, and so will get only a brief men- tion here. My times to dispense powder charges were very similar to Rocky’s. Since this was the fi rst of the dispensers I dealt with, I, too, learned the hard way to close the powder drain on the right side of the dispenser before adding powder. I liked the positive click I got when entering data via the key pad but found the time to dispense all charges of all types of powder to be pretty long, compared especially to the RCBS and the Lyman units tested. Like Rocky, I found that the charges dispensed often went over the target weight (maybe 20 percent of the time and, for me at least, mostly with ball powder) and that the trickle function was almost painfully slow regardless of “speed.” The Lock-N-Load Auto charge retails for $229.95. The Smart Reloader iSD, from Helvetica Trading USA,
retails for $319.95. Designed in Europe and manufactured in China, this unit’s directions seemed to suffer some in their translation. Despite this, it didn’t take long to get the iSD up and running. Much like the Hornady unit above, the iSD seemed painfully slow and often stopped 1 to 1.5 grains short of the target weight. After watching a U -Tube video on adjusting the speed of the iSD, the dispensing speed was increased consider- ably and anyone interested in this unit is advised to watch this video. This unit seldom went over the targeted charge weight. The display on the iSD is easy to read, the powder hopper is large enough to take more than a pound of powder, and the unit has a storage capacity of 50 loads as well as an auto repeat
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