emptying the Lee powder holder

[springmom]

Here's where all of you who gallantly state "there is no such thing as a stupid question" have your patience tested....

We had substantial damage to our house, and I am faced with packing up everything in my office, which includes all our reloading supplies. The Lee Classic Turret Press that we own has the Lee powder dispenser on it, and there is about 3/4" of Bullseye left in it. The obvious way to empty it is to sit down and reload until it's gone but I'm up to my eyeballs in alligators with this and would prefer to just take it apart, dump the powder back into the Bullseye bottle and carry on with my packing.

However, I cannot for the life of me figure out if there's a way to do that without sending gunpowder all over the floor.

And the question has application if I need to change the setting on the powder disks anyway...how do you do so while there's still powder waiting to shower your floor the moment you unscrew it from the press?

Told you it was a stupid question

Springmom

 

[The Bushmaster]

Unscrew it from the lee through powder/expander die and dump it...

 

[jcwit]

With the rectangle shaped hopper this is a problem. You have to remove the dispenser from the die to empty or change the disks. My suggestion when you have the time would be to upgrade to the Pro Auto Disk that has a round hopper. It has a shut off so the only powder left in is maybe 2/3 loads. Hope this helps.

 

[Claude Clay]

mine rotates 90 degrees to open/close powder flow. rotation is where the fat reservoir funnels to thinner. than you have a small amount of powder 'in the pipe line' to deal with. good luck

 

[springmom]

Bushmaster, doing that is what dumps the powder out.

jcwit, thanks...yes, ours is the rectangular one. Upgrading is good. It'll go on my to do list.

Springmom

 

[tribbles]

+1 on the upgrade. I did and didn't look back.

In the meantime, just remove the turret with the dies and the dispenser from the press, but don't unscrew the dispenser from the loading die just yet. Now you can tilt the dispenser/turret unit and pour the hopper's contents back into the canister.

Then go outside and tear down the dispenser, or just tear it down over a cookie sheet and recover the loose powder.

 

[GLOCK45GUY]

I have the round hopper.

Once I dump the powder, I puch the disk over by hand while holding it over the powder jar to get the last little bit out.

Hope this helps.

 

[SSN Vet]

springmom...

make a funnel out of a piece of paper (like a party hat)

take the entire turret off the press.

remove the cover from the hopper

pour the powder through the funnel into the plastic "keg"

Hope your home repairs go well and your insurance co. treats you right.

even though I have the pro-auto disk with the rotating on - off, I still do it this way, because it's just easier and faster.

 

[marlin.357]

My Secret Method...

Is to remove the complete turret and dump it back in the bottle. If it's a small mouth bottle I use a funnel.

 

[springmom]

Thanks, y'all. The office is part of my afternoon project list today, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Springmom

 

[The Bushmaster]

Springmom...Do you have the Lee Auto Disk II or the Pro? Yup...The Auto Disk II has the rectangle hopper and when I unscrew (remove the whole dispenser) mine from the through powder die I loose nothing until I take the lid off and dump it into the container...

 

[tasco 74]

are you sure your powder wasn't damaged?

if it got wet or otherwise damaged don't keep it.... put the powder in your flower beds outside as it's a good fertilizer.......... i have a LEE perfect powder measure and when i need to empty it it simply turns a little and the flow of powder is shut off.. then i hold it over the canister and turn it open again.... it empties real easy.........

 

[TX1911fan]

I close the powder hopper and then use an empty case that has not deprimed and "charge" it a couple times to get the extra powder out, then when you take off the hopper you don't spill any of it.

 

[SSN Vet]

fyi, for those using the Pro-Auto Disk, on the older (rectangular) model, there was no shut off.

 

[evan price]

My older Autodisk, I take the whole turret off, hold the lid on with my thumb, then turn it carefully upside down and lightly tap it to get the powder out of the disk. Then, still upside down, unscrew one hopper screw, rotate the hopper off of the disc, pull out the disk, change it or turn it or whatever to get the right drop, then swing the hopper back over, screw in the screw, and carefully flip it back over.

Going to seriously think about upgrading because my hoppers are starting to split at the screws again, and longer/thicker screws won't work anymore.

 

[floydster]

TX1911fan does the same as I do, works great. No problems.
Floydster

 

[Bronson7]

I've found that removing the turret and dumping the powder back into the jug (with a funnel) is the fastest and easiest way.
Bronson7

 

[armoredman]

Hope your house gets fixed as fast as possible with minimal fuss.

 

[springmom]

I can guarantee that the powder wasn't damaged. It went through the hurricane itself inside our gun safe.

Many thanks to you all. You got me "thinking outside the box" enough to quit concentrating on getting the powder reservoir itself off the turret. What I ended up doing was simply unscrewing the charging die...not the turret, just the die. The disk is, of course, covering the opening at that point, so it keeps the powder in. I had to unscrew the decapping die to get it out of the way, but that's no big deal.

So I removed the die, turned the thing over, tamped it a couple of times to get all but just a few grains back into the resevoir. Then turned it such that the lid was pointing about 45 degrees from vertical, tapped on the lid to (try to) get leftover powder off the lid, opened it and used a funnel to pour it back into the powder bottle.

Some small bit of powder landed on the box I was holding it over, but for such minute amounts, the wet paper towel was invented.

So it's done. Now if I could pack up all the ammo in that room with such little effort!

Thanks for the good wishes. It's going to be awhile, I'm afraid, although I have a personal goal of having it ALL done by Christmas. We'll see...got a guy coming in about 45 minutes to give me an estimate. Hopefully he'll be like the roofer....not only licensed but ready to get started soon (and not charging the earth!)

Springmom

 

[pilot teacher]

Put a large funnel into the powder jug and dump the powder in.

 

[ForneyRider]

The top of the Lee Deluxe rifle dies works great with dealing with powder messes.

Turn the Lee measure hopper off.

If mounted on a press, unscrew the powder drop from the die. Cycle the powder drop with the die cover underneath. Loosen the auto-disk screw. Put the top of the rifle die cover next to the Auto-Disk disk, then push the disk over the die cover. Tighten the screws, then dump the hopper into the die cover.

If not mounted on the press, just keep cycling the powder until no more drops. Then unscrew from stand and dump into the rifle die cover.

PPM is less messy than the Auto-Disk.