thailand

Thanks for the idea Kenstone! I think the disk may be the way with smaller powder charges. I did do some more experimenting...spherical powder does a much better job through the drum than flake in my case. Lee did come through, they're customer service was great btw, and sent me another disc unit to try, and it seems to work better. I did notice a small, but significant difference between the one I returned and the new one. On the "pour" stroke of the drum, there was a shelf on the tube leading to the die. I think this shelf trapped some powder on the downstroke, and picked it back up on the upstroke, and not leaving any evidence to troubleshoot. The new drum setup has a more flush feel to it on that shelf, and seems to be dropping more consistent powder. Time will tell, since I'm only using spherical powder and haven't tried flake yet.

Edit previous post...its not fixed...I think it may be a lemon...the drops started drifting again, up to 20%, and no changes were made to the unit. I am going to seek an RMA for this unit from LEE. I don't think there is anymore things to try...I can only hope the next unit will be better.

Thanks Bill, look forward to learning some new stuff here!

Ok, so I think I found a solution to the issue. Time will tell. I only post it here, since I'd like to keep all the great advice on this thread in one place. I recently bought a new set of drums for the auto-drum. Since I'm only trying to drop 4.5 grains, I opted to use the small drum, as opposed to the large drum with insert. After cleaning the small drum with Dawn and letting air dry, I installed it. I put about 1/2 lb through to "condition" it, and started seeing 4.4-4.6 grain drops! I only did about 25 drops, but its progress. As an experiment, I tried the same thing, but with the large drum and insert. With that setup, the cavity for the powder is very shallow, as opposed to the small drum. And the results were back to inconsistent drops. Seems that the lesson is that you gotta use the small drum for the smaller grain drops. Even thought the large drum will "hold" those smaller grain loads, I'm guessing that the wiper shears off the top layer, and causes inconsistent drops, especially with the cavity being so shallow. Hope that helps someone out there.

Just a friendly hello. I was searching on Google on an issue I was having, and saw a great thread here, so I decided to join. Extra knowledge is never a bad thing. Always looking for knowledge from veteran reloaders and precision shooters. Although I did bump and older thread. (Saw that someone "hated" that in the Things I Hate sub-forum, sorry, but there was a reason behind it!!!) Hope I can share some experiences and learn some new stuff. Don't let the screen name fool you, I'm actually in PA now. Nice to meet all of you!

Hey all, I found this forum on a Google search, and although I know its an old thread, I hope its ok to post here and not start a new thread, so we can keep all these great tips and tricks together. I recently got the Lee Auto Drum, and for the life of me, can't get consistent drops. I read through all these pages (among other forums), and tried all the tips. Cleaned all the parts with soapy water, and air dry Lubed with graphite Ran pounds of powder through before taking measurements Made sure to have full range of motion of the drum Tried different "tightness" of the drum screw Tried different drums Kept motions of handle as uniform as possible Wiped with dryer sheet to check for static I read that some of you guys are getting as little as 0.1 grain difference. I'd be happy with 0.2. I am loading 9mm with Universal at a target of 4.5 grain. My drops are 3.9-5.1. A huge spread. Not acceptable if I want to use this Lee Pro 1000 as a progressive. Granted, the extreme high/low drops are not more than 10% of the drops, but that's still way too much. Right now, I'm weighing every load, but I want to trust this powder measure...but right now, I just don't. What am I missing guys??? Thanks for looking. I look forward to your replies.