[Unclenick]

Stick powders are harder to meter, but are also typically less sensitive to exact charge weight. The thinking is that when they pack tighter it obstructs the flow of flame and hot gas through them some, tending to make ignition slower and compensate for the charge weight difference.

Hatcher has an extreme example of that in Hatcher's Notebook. He had two similar burning rate powders, one with a short grain and the other a long grain. The arsenal loading machinery could meter the short grain to an extreme spread of 0.6 grains, but could only meter the coarse grain to an extreme spread of 1.7 grains (huge error by a handloader's standards). Yet ammunition loaded on that machinery using the coarse grain powder proved consistently more accurate than the short grain loads did, and became that year's National Match load and several records were set firing it.

Hatcher credited that performance to the ignition characteristics of the longer grain powder, and I think stick powders in general ignite more reliably than sphericals. One year I ran Accurate 2520 in my M1A, but could never get groups to tighten up as well as I could stick powders until I started deburring the flash holes. Then they snugged right up. None of the stick powders I used showed any change when I deburred flash holes for them, so this would seem to verify their ease of ignition and lack of pickiness.

This is also a reminder to try to work up loads that aren't to sensitive to powder charge. I once had a .308 load using Sierra 155 grain MatchKings and Brigadier 3032 powder that was even more insenstive than Hatcher/s example. It ran from around 41 to 43.5 grains, IIRC without the groups changing size. On the other hand, I had a 4895 load in that gun under the 168 grain MatchKing that drilled little tight clusters, but if you changed it eve a quarter grain, they opened up. I'll take the wide range load any day of the week. Don't have to worry about how your powder measure did or worry about it changing temperature or anything. Just load it and shoot it.

As to stick powder in the progressive, rather than invest in an electronic solution, I'd recommend the JDS Quick Measure. They make an adapter for progressive presses. The measure design can't cut powder grains, so it tends to drop stick powders very consistently. Within 0.2 grains in my experience. I've seen one online test review where the tester didn't do as well with it, but he still declared it measurably better than the Redding 3-BR, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Stabilizing the bench may not solve all your issues, but anything that improves consistency can't hurt.