Not Flaring With Dillon Powder Measure

[mmc45414]

I am probably just being anti-establishment, but one thing I never liked was flaring with the powder measure. It just seems like consistently measuring powder is important enough that the measure should just have one job. A while back I migrated to using the Hornady Lock-N-Load measure and I like them and will continue to use them for rifle, but it seems like with high volume pistol loading I was experiencing problems with the thing returning, even after I added more symmetrical springs like I posted about here. But I really liked being able to flare with the Universal Case Expanding Die and since the Hornady measure wasn't using the return rod it was no problem to flare separately in station two and move the measure to station three. But it seems like no matter how much spring pressure I added the Hornady measure was more prone to getting dirty and sticking. The no-brainer would be to clean the thing more often, but...

I decided to go back to the Dillon measure and use station three for the powder check probe I got for rifles. But after only a couple hundred I remembered what I do not like, pulling the flare die out of the case is just clunky, and maybe I am just becoming a old girly man, but is at an awkward point in the cycle of the handle. And I think this is why there is a lot of spilled powder, because this happens while the shell plate is being rotated.

Then it occurred to me that if there is room for the bullet on top of the charge there would be room for the flare tool to do its thing after the case had been charged. So I shortened the flare tool to leave only what it needs to do a 9mm case and installed one of the rifle powder funnels that doesn't flare. But the rifle funnel was too short to actuate the measure. I looked at the chart to see if maybe there could be a longer rifle funnel, but then decided I had an extra 9mm funnel to experiment with. Used a cutoff wheel and then a sander and this is working great!



I decided that with the mechanical reset of the measure I can live without the powder check.

Anyway, just throwing this out in case anybody else cares

[OfficeCat]

I'm not a fan of Dillon's powder die and expander system either, for the same reasons you mentioned. Too much of a clunk when the case pulled free of the expander, causing various disruptions. I switched over to a Lee Auto Drum powder measure in conjunction with a Lee expander die and am much happier.

[Hambo]

Video, man. I need to see this thing run.

[LittleLebowski]

I’m confused, I’m guessing this is for 9mm?

[mmc45414]

I’m confused, I’m guessing this is for 9mm?

Yes, 9mm, but I got the idea from the rifle funnels that are an inverse funnel that centers the case under the hole the powder is falling through. My first thought was to drill away the nipple that goes down in the case (that must be yanked out) and leave the drill tip angle up in the funnel. I tried to but the funnel is harder than woodpecker lips and the drill wouldn't scratch it. I decided the hole would be small enough to be centered enough so I cut the sucker off as pictured.

Video, man. I need to see this thing run.

Not sure you may remember any of my posts in the F.A.R.T. thread about how I am not that worried about having a dryer for my wet tumbled cases, blah, blah, blah, but it will be tomorrow at this time, at the soonest, before I can get any action video. But it is just like the thing is now, without the nasty clunk right in the middle of the upstroke of the handle.

[LittleLebowski]

I’m still confused, bear with me. I’ve no problem flaring for 147s, why isn’t your setup working?

[mmc45414]

I’m still confused, bear with me. I’ve no problem flaring for 147s, why isn’t your setup working?

The factory setup works, I wasn't having trouble flaring, just IMO it is literally (legitimate use of the word literally...) clunky. The flare funnel runs down into the sized case, probably almost 0.200", before it gets to the part that flares. Then on the way back down the powder measure follows along until it hits the bottom of it's travel with a clunk, and then it takes some force to continue to move the handle upward to pull the flared case down offa the flare funnel. Coincidently about the same time the indexing is indexing, causing the shell plate to surge and sometimes spill a little powder, and all this is when your arm (I am doing this standing) is in a funky spot with less leverage. If you have used the Dillon measure with one of the conical rifle funnels it is much smoother, that is what I was aspiring to replicate, and did. But the case leaves the charge/flare station without being charged, so I had to scheme a way to flare it in the next station.

I am probably just being a snowflake about this, but it really is nice and smooth now. I am also currently loading empties that have been sized/decaped on the APP (so I could swage the primer pockets on the APP) so loading is smooth as butter now (ETA: Explanation of why I sized on the APP is here and here). But if you are sizing on the press the force of extracting the case from sizing (I still have a size in the 650 in case something snuck past the APP, but typically it is doing little or nothing) then the force to pull it from the die is followed by the force to pull it from the flare funnel right at a time in the stroke you are trying to slow down and smoothly index the shell plate.

So maybe a point of clarification might be that this is not a fix, it is a tweak.

[EricP]

Did you get rid of the powder check station?

I replaced my Dillon powder funnel with SSI Alpha funnel. It’s shorter and doesn’t engage the case quite as much. It is still clunky, but not as bad as it was.

https://benstoegerproshop.com/ssi-al...s-innovations/

[SecondsCount]

I’m still confused, bear with me. I’ve no problem flaring for 147s, why isn’t your setup working?

Nothing against the OP but I don't have any issues or clunks with 9mm, 40, or 45ACP. For rifle, I have been playing with the auto drum as I feel it is more consistent than the Dillon measure, but it still isn't perfect.

[TiroFijo]

I've reloaded a lot of rounds into a lot of calibers with the Dillon setup, and never had any problems.