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wncchester · June 24, 2011, 10:41 AM

Actually, the Lee "Perfect" measure is perhaps the best available for coarse (tubular) powders but it is tricky to adjust correctly for ball powders.

You can be certain that all of the current iron bodied measrures from RCBS, Hornady, Redding, Lyman, etc, are quite good and perform virtually identically. They all do quite well with ball powders, none do so good with flake powders and none are sufficently consistant with tubular powders that you can expect great precision with them without weighting each charge. But then few of us would be reloading enough volumes of .300 mag for that to be of much concern.

Lyman's excellant 55 has a unique three way adjustable powder cavity that allows us to achieve about as good consistancy as is possible with a measure but there is a learning curve to adjusting it that some can't seem to get over. All of the others require seperate chambers for large and small charges so that can run the final cost up a bit.

Last I looked, only Redding still has a nicely calibrated 'micrometer' adjustment head without buying an overly costly add-on.

Few, if any, of the current (highly expensive) "BR type" measures drop sufficently large charges for even medium sized hunting rifle cartridges, never mind any real magnums.

June 24, 2011, 10:41 AM	#9
wncchester Senior Member Join Date: December 1, 2002 Posts: 2,832	Actually, the Lee "Perfect" measure is perhaps the best available for coarse (tubular) powders but it is tricky to adjust correctly for ball powders. You can be certain that all of the current iron bodied measrures from RCBS, Hornady, Redding, Lyman, etc, are quite good and perform virtually identically. They all do quite well with ball powders, none do so good with flake powders and none are sufficently consistant with tubular powders that you can expect great precision with them without weighting each charge. But then few of us would be reloading enough volumes of .300 mag for that to be of much concern. Lyman's excellant 55 has a unique three way adjustable powder cavity that allows us to achieve about as good consistancy as is possible with a measure but there is a learning curve to adjusting it that some can't seem to get over. All of the others require seperate chambers for large and small charges so that can run the final cost up a bit. Last I looked, only Redding still has a nicely calibrated 'micrometer' adjustment head without buying an overly costly add-on. Few, if any, of the current (highly expensive) "BR type" measures drop sufficently large charges for even medium sized hunting rifle cartridges, never mind any real magnums. Last edited by wncchester; June 24, 2011 at 10:48 AM.