Warners
Member
I just started loading 44 magnum, and I bought some W296/H110 to do this. Initially, I started with the single 1.57cc powder disk, which seemed to throw 24 grains pretty consistently, just like I'm used to when loading with HP38.
In actual practice though (with the turret spinning around instead of me cycling the flaring/powder charge station over and over without letting the turret spin, I found that was getting a wide variety of powder charges, and they were fairly consistently OVER the 24 grains that I wanted, often running as high as 24.6 grains. THAT wasn't going to work! While loading, I found myself delicately dumping small bits of powder from the case back into the powder bin until my charge weight was correct. VERY time consuming and NOT what I was looking for with a turret press.
I recently purchased the double-disk kit for the Lee press, so figured I'd give that a try. After putting the double stack kit on, I decided to go with a combination of .88 on bottom with a .66 disk on top, totaling 1.54 cc's. After doing this, I got weights between 23.6 and 24.0 grains, but never more than 24.0 grains. The difference in weights was DIRECTLY related to whether or not I ran the turret around or just ran it like a single stage press, charging the case then weighing it, over and over. If I ran it as a single stage press, I'd get the lower powder weights. If I ran it with the indexing bar in (so to speak), I'd get consistent weights of 24.0 grains. I believe the reason for this is because as the turret spins around, it shakes up the powder bin, causing more powder to "shake down" into the disk holes. To me, that HAS to be the difference.
I got to a stopping point reloading (had to pick the wife up from work), but when I start back up, I'm going to test again repeatedly, weighing each individual charge again. If I don't see any charges OVER 24.0 grains after loading another 50 rounds, I'm going to feel more comfortable that I won't overcharge any cases with this double disk setup. If some cases "only" have 23.6 grains, I can live with that.
This W296/H110 is like freakin' SAND!
Thanks for any and all feedback!
Warner
In actual practice though (with the turret spinning around instead of me cycling the flaring/powder charge station over and over without letting the turret spin, I found that was getting a wide variety of powder charges, and they were fairly consistently OVER the 24 grains that I wanted, often running as high as 24.6 grains. THAT wasn't going to work! While loading, I found myself delicately dumping small bits of powder from the case back into the powder bin until my charge weight was correct. VERY time consuming and NOT what I was looking for with a turret press.
I recently purchased the double-disk kit for the Lee press, so figured I'd give that a try. After putting the double stack kit on, I decided to go with a combination of .88 on bottom with a .66 disk on top, totaling 1.54 cc's. After doing this, I got weights between 23.6 and 24.0 grains, but never more than 24.0 grains. The difference in weights was DIRECTLY related to whether or not I ran the turret around or just ran it like a single stage press, charging the case then weighing it, over and over. If I ran it as a single stage press, I'd get the lower powder weights. If I ran it with the indexing bar in (so to speak), I'd get consistent weights of 24.0 grains. I believe the reason for this is because as the turret spins around, it shakes up the powder bin, causing more powder to "shake down" into the disk holes. To me, that HAS to be the difference.
I got to a stopping point reloading (had to pick the wife up from work), but when I start back up, I'm going to test again repeatedly, weighing each individual charge again. If I don't see any charges OVER 24.0 grains after loading another 50 rounds, I'm going to feel more comfortable that I won't overcharge any cases with this double disk setup. If some cases "only" have 23.6 grains, I can live with that.
This W296/H110 is like freakin' SAND!
Thanks for any and all feedback!
Warner