My Hornady press showed up at the door today. Ive got everything set up I am just wateing for the shell plate to show up. I have very little experence using a powder hopper before. I have always used lee powder dippers. Weighed the charge adjusted dropped charge in funnel. I decided to get the progressive for handgun rounds. I have no intention of loading super hot max charges with a powder hopper for those I will always weigh the charges. How many charges do you throw before you determin that it is time to start loading? Also what is your accepted varence in powder charges? Do you go by grain or precentage. Meaning is .3 g vareation in charges acceptiable or do you determin it by percentage? How often do you check you charge when using a progressive? I have hurd people say every 5 rounds some say every 25 rounds some say none at all they trust not doing it?

Thanks

When handloading, it is standard to measure every 10th powder charge... Of course when progressive loading that takes up a lot of time. Dillon recommends measuring every 100th round, some other's more and less.

you have to know what your measure is capable of. If its unreliable, measure every 10th. If its very reliable (meaning with a fixed cavity) you may only have to measure every 100th. I rather like Dillon's sliding bar measure; I like it much more than drum measures.

Just my experience speaking there. Drum measures, to me, seem to have a greater succeptablility to minor variations than bar measures do.

I rather like the LnL AP press, but I'm terribly sceptical of the measure. I guess if I owned one, I might be less-so.

In all honsty, 10% variation in charge will mean very little in most cartridges. This is the commercial standard for most companies. This is especially the case in larger rifle cartridges, but is equally relevant in handgun rounds. It is unlikely that you will notice anything more than a 'flyer' with a 10% underloaded cartridge.. Of course, a 10% overloaded cartridge is a bad thing when shooting max pressure loads. This is why QC is so important in max loads.

Once I get my powder bar set I rarely weigh the charges in the middle of a run. I like to throw 10 charges into the pan and weigh them until they avg at the charge I want. Then I weigh a few individual charges and go to work. Powder type,(probably most important) amount of powder in the hopper, humidity, and consistency of the powder stroke all contribute to the equation. The powders I use, Blue Dot, Power Pistol and WW231 all meter consistently within .2gr. Unless I'm approaching a max load, that is acceptable to me.