powder dippers

C

CrustyFN

New member
I have not done any reloading but am getting interested. When I start I won't have a lot to spend so I have been looking at the Lee kits. I was wondering how reliable the powder dippers are. I will be reloading 9mm. I am going to buy a reloading book and read it before I buy. I have a lot of questions but will wait until I read the book and ask what it doesn't answer. Thanks in advance for your help.
Rusty
 
M

mjrodney

New member
Rusty, for middle of the range handgun plinking loads, dippers work well....if you can find one that gives you the right charge for your powder of choice.

Likely, you will not, at least not in the handgun ranges, but you can easily make ones that do.

You will need an accurate beam scale. Lee's $19 model is as accurate as any for your needs.

My set of Lee plastic dippers have been retired, and they have been replaced with cut down, spent 9mm brass cartridges, with an eighth inch diameter brass rod soldered to the bottom for a handle. Fill with powder and weigh the charge. Too much? File it down some more and check again. In time, you will hit the load you are looking for.

Its accuracy is more than adequate for casual paper punching. Dip, tap once, dump. Dip, tap once, dump.

Alternatively, you can drill and tap the bottom of a .5cc Lee dipper, or a spent 9mm piece of brass, for a #8 screw. Insert a #8 machine screw with a locknut and you have an adjustable dipper.

You don't need a lot of equipment to get started in this enjoyable pastime, and for the low volume reloader, the Lee line is more than adequate.
 
C

cloudcroft

New member
mjrodney said:

"Alternatively, you can drill and tap the bottom of a .5cc Lee dipper, or a spent 9mm piece of brass, for a #8 screw. Insert a #8 machine screw with a locknut and you have an adjustable dipper."



Pretty good idea!

-- John D.
 
B

Buckythebrewer

Moderator
Mjrodney,excellent idea:).I have dippers but I am using small-medium extruded powder and find my Lee perfect powder measure works excellent and saves me a bunch of hassle. The measure works great for my 600yrd loads.:D

If your not too fussy the dippers work great and usually give you a load that will work(at least for the rifle cartridges ive loaded).But if your tuning for accuracy thats were the finer adjustments come in that the standerd Lee dippers usually don't measure to what you wan't..I love Mjrodneys idea for fine tuning though.
 
M

mjrodney

New member
A bit off topic, but I sense an opportunity to learn somthing here.

Tim R., Buckythebrewer (Ice up the keg, I'll be over), perhaps you can help me learn something here about the Perfect Powder measure.

I use dippers because my powder of choice, plain old Clays, tends not to throw accurately in my Pro AutoDisk powder measure, the one that mounts to the press.

And when you are throwing 2.9 grains (soft, target load), a small amount of variation can be felt at the firing line.

The dipper route, however, has always been consistant for me. Dip, tap once, dump. Dip, tap once, dump.

I can see the level of powder with each load, so I never have to question if I have too much, or too little powder.

The dippers only add 5 minutes to my 100 round reloading time, which is about an hour. I shoot 150-300 rounds a week, so trading a bit of delay for the confidence I have in my powder levels has been worth it, so far.

Not so with my Pro Auto Disk. Yes, I can look into the cartridge and see the powder, but I have trouble seeing even a 25% variation in a .38Spl cartridge. Too deep and old eyes.

Now, all this being said, you both seem to like the Lee Perfect Powder Measure, the bench mounted measure.

I have no experience with this unit.

Have you used this measure with Clays? With small loads of Clays?
 
S

Superhornet

New member
MJRODNEY---a man after my own heart..I have been making dippers from .380 and 9mm cases the same way for the past 45 years....they work and work well....Also load a lot of rifle calibers using the Lee Dipper set...fast, reliable and the parameters never change...IMHO
 
A

amamnn

New member
dippers

When you get your Lee die set, it will come with the most appropriate dipper and an info sheet that will tell you which dipper (hopefully the one that came on the set) to use. The dipper measure some amount less than the max charge which is just fine, since you'll never want to start out with the hottest load.

Lee says their dippers are figured for a capacity that will be less than an overpressure load even if the density of the powder you are using is at the high end of allowed tolerances. At some point you will want to get a scale for various reasons. I find it easier to get powder densities since I got a digital scale that measures in grams besides grains. Used in conjunction with the dippers, it makes the calculation easy.
 
C

CrustyFN

New member
Thanks everybody for all of your advice. Great idea from Mjrodney about the adjustable dipper. The best thing to do now would probably be to get a book and read. Thanks again,
Rusty
 
B

BigJakeJ1s

New member
I switched from Lee dippers to the Lee Perfect Powder Measure with Trail Boss in my 45 colt loads. It is very consistent (<= .1 gr variation) and much quicker and easier than dippers. For the price (<$20), it is impossible to beat. Trail Boss is bulky enough to easily see even light loads in tall, skinny cases for a visual check too.

Andy
 
B

Buckythebrewer

Moderator
Mjrodney,,I am limited to what powders I have used.Here goes H335.h322,2015br,h4895,imr3031..So its rifles for me:)The thing I found at 1st(and I didn't like it:(.)Is long extruded powder like imr 3031 SUCKS in the Lee powder measure(as far as consistent charges)in my experience..So my 1st impressions were not good.Then I used a fine (correct me if im wrong)flake/ball powder H335.That I don't like either because it leaks out of the measure no matter how much I adjust the tension in the measure(pissed me off!!)so 2nd bad impression.Then one day I just figure I would try the measure again when I was trying to get A more accurate load for my ar15.Thats when the magic happened!! small extruded 2015br metered GREAT.within 1/10 gr.Then later I tried my Medium extruded h4895(for longer/heavier 77-80gr bullets in my ar15 for 600yrds)Again excellent results within 1/10 gr charges consistently...That is all I can tell you.Im not sure if it will work with the clays powder.If its too fine I would think that it might leak out on your bench a little and piss you off like it did me.It still might throw an accurate charge though.I would get one because they are so cheap.Its worth a try and if you use small to medium extruded powder Im sure you will be happy with it.:)By the way :) Ive brewed up some nice beer,cider,mead,in the past(my other favorite hobby).right now im out:( in the middle of moving into my wife and I's new house:)
 
D

Dave R

New member
I use a powder measure any time I'm going to reload more than 30 or so of the same load.

However, I do a lot of low-volume loading. Could be working up a load, with 7X of each charge, or it could be a 20 count of lite loads. Or maybe comparing 20 each of a pistol load with Unique vs. TiteGroup.

For those, I find "dippin and tricklin" faster than constantly fiddling with the powder measure. So I still dip from time to time.
 
C

CrustyFN

New member
Thanks again everybody for all of your replies. I bought a Speer reloading manual #13. Very interesting. It is answering a lot of questions.
Rusty
 
H

Hafoc

New member
I use the Lee dippers whenever I can. They're slower than a regular powder measure, but make up for it because they have zero set-up and take-apart times.

I also like the fact that, not being adjustable, there's no way to misadjust them. About all you could do is grab the wrong one, and that's easy enough to check for.

You're limited on which powders to use, though. If you're determined to use the dippers, and you don't have powder already, you might want to look at the data beforehand and buy a powder for which the dippers throw a good loading in your particular caliber.

I only did one really stupid thing with dippers in my career. That was to use them to load some .45 Colts, using Unique, without checking the dipped charge on my scale. The charges came out far too light; I'm lucky it didn't happen the other way around.

I think this was because a year or three ago, Alliant reformulated Unique to make it burn cleaner. I was using old Unique I'd had around since God was a teenager.

Goes to show you you should doublecheck everything.

I have checked the dipper's charges on my scale for other powders, and never found another powder where they didn't match. I've also found that the dippers throw very consistant weights, better than my Lee Perfect measure does, maybe not any better than my Lyman. Dippers are about as low tech as you can go, but that doesn't mean they don't work!

I've been thinking of loading some .45 Colts with a black powder substitute, just for yucks. The instructions for American Pioneer Powder say to fill the case such that the bullet compresses the powder just a bit. I'd thought to make a dipper out of a fired case, cut to the proper length. I'd like to thank Youze Guys for mentioning that some of you do that in your own reloading, and that it works well.
 
M

Mike Irwin

Staff
"I'd thought to make a dipper out of a fired case, cut to the proper length."

Now that is a nifty solution I don't think I ever would have thought of.
 
O

Olaf

New member
I use the Lee dippers often, for loads I have already tested in my rifle. I take the next largest dippper to the charge I am using, then put the measured charge in it. After working out a "settling" routine for each powder I use (usually about 3 taps on the side of the dipper, with my forefinger).....I mark the level of the powder in the dipper, with a Sharpie pen. Following this, I run a series of tests, filling the dipper using slightly different techniques, checking how close to my desired charge wt. each technique produces. Once I've settled on an exact technique, I can almost always dip charges to within .1 or .2 grain plus or minus. I then label the dipper accordingly. Using the dippers (after this procedure) is much faster than weighing each charge individually. To check myself, I weigh 1 in each 10 or so dipped charges, chosen at random. I find that this works very well for me.

Do not try to depend on the dippers if you wish to produce "match grade" ammo.....because .1 or .2 grain is (in my experience) the normal range of variation which will occur. Perhaps this can be improved upon using ball powders (because they will settle so consistently)..... I don't know. I don't use them, so I cannot comment on that. I can only say that the dippers can produce good results.....and save time in some circumstances. They are also rather cheaper than a powder measure device, to say the least. As with anything involving handloading - safety first. DO NOT load maximum charges with the dippers.
 
C

CrustyFN

New member
Thanks again everybody for all of your help and great information. Thanks Skeeter1 for the links. I am hoping to be able to start buying some of my equipment by the end of the month. We had a IDPA match at our range and I was able to pick up around 1200 to 1500 pieces of brass. I am going to sort it soon and my first purchase will be a tumbler. Will it be ok to clean the brass and let it set for a while before I size it, or should I wait until I buy my press and dies? Is it also better to buy the carbide dies to avoid case lube, or would I still need some kind of lube?
Rusty
 
R

rem33

Moderator
Lee's powder dippers are handy, I bought some when I first started reloading over 25 years ago. Now of course there is a lot of equipment on my bench but I used the dippers just yesterday. They can and will be handy. Loaded 20 reduced loads, not enough to mess with a powder measure. Lee dippers were prefect to get the measurement close in the scale tray.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top