Powder thrower capacity with big cartridges

[UpNorthMI]

For years I've used a $35 digital scale I bought off the internet (dead reliable to two decimal points), an RCBS balance scale to check it, a teaspoon and a trickler. Face it ... you are not going to load 100s of .375 rounds at a time.

Other than load development I typically only load 100 or more at a time in .375 H&H, 9.3 x62, .338 win mag, 300 win mag and others, I think it’s important to have the consistency of a reasonable batch size in the loading and in the shooting.

Same with buying bullet heads, I try to stick with limited choices in a larger quantity.

 

[Edster]

I’ve got 2 electronic RCBS throwers on the bench. One is about 8 years old the other is 7 years old. Haven’t had any issues.

 

[Lone Star Bluegrass]

Auto Trickler is the best one I’ve seen or used. It is priced accordingly.

 

[Prairiedog]

I'm a savage, I use Lee stuff. Not exclusively, but I started with it...kinda stuck with Lee products.
Best trick to get the Charge thrower to throw consistent charges is to go 'that store' and buy a ladies personal massager. About the size of your thumb is best.
Black tape it to the powder charge area, turn it on and throw a few charges...weight them out on a good digital scale. Likely notice the charges are about 0.5-0.7 heavier after adding the 'helper'.
It will consistently fill the throw area 'most' times. Obviously tipping the lever to fill and going for a coffee is going to give you 'too big' of a charge...if you are all set up and have a routine going...it works great.
If it seems silly but works...it ain't silly.

 

[Rez Exelon]

So my personal process on large throws starts with a note that I only load large throw rounds in smaller batches, and I'm not running in hurry up mode while I do it. That said, I like to not trust throwing a double charge so I invested in a Hornady Auto Charge.

Now. For consideration is that the Hornady Auto Charge, does speed up the process, but is maybe not what I would call "100 percent trust worthy". Like, it seems to fudge the numbers a bit sometimes. not significantly to where there would ever be safety issues, but .1 or .2 gr difference can affect point of aim, FPS, etc and I mess up enough shots on my own without help already.

So what I do is with this, and any other auto that I've used, I set it up side by side with what I call my "scale of record" which ultimately is the scale, out of the few that I have, whose measurement is my golden standard for what I am weighing.

Sidebar: I check my scales against each other from time to time and they're reliable, but I just count that a single scale is my master. So if I write down load notes, the charge going in the book is the one from that scale so that if there's every any deviation, I can work it out and adjust accordingly)

Anyways, back to the throw. With the two side by side, I'll turn the hornady on with the pan and zero it. Then I move the pan to the scale of record and zero it. I set the Hornady to throw .2gr below what I actually want. So if I want 70.4gr then I set the hornady to throw 70.2. With the charge in the pan (calibrated between the scales) I move it to the scale of record and trickle the rest in to be exactly where I want it.

That might be slightly overkill, but it's my process to simplify the throw while making sure it's perfectly spot on to what I want. If I was throwing two charges and then putting them together I'd be weighing them all anyways.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

The Lyman ( 1200DPS? ) Was good when it behaved but at random it would dispense to much powder, give out its beep and pretend everything was OK.
Dangerous. I gave up on it and in a dumpster it went.
The RCBS one did not keep zero and would turn it self off at random.

I have the Lyman 1200DPS. Too bad you threw it away. I know exactly why it behaved that way. A grain of powder slipped around the weighing pad. Can be a pain getting it out of there. Care must be taken to avoid touching the pour spout when lifting the pan off the pad to pour a load into casing. Just a touch to that spout and a grain or two will fall on the pad resulting in subsequent charges being light. If real clumsy and bump the spout hard, powder flies everywhere with some potentially slipping underneath the pad. Been there. In spite of these potential issues, I love this dispenser! It is usually very accurate.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

I'm a savage, I use Lee stuff. Not exclusively, but I started with it...kinda stuck with Lee products.
Best trick to get the Charge thrower to throw consistent charges is to go 'that store' and buy a ladies personal massager. About the size of your thumb is best.
Black tape it to the powder charge area, turn it on and throw a few charges...weight them out on a good digital scale. Likely notice the charges are about 0.5-0.7 heavier after adding the 'helper'.
It will consistently fill the throw area 'most' times. Obviously tipping the lever to fill and going for a coffee is going to give you 'too big' of a charge...if you are all set up and have a routine going...it works great.
If it seems silly but works...it ain't silly.

The tickler trickler.

 

[375er]

For quite a few years I have been using the Lee Precision Measure Kit. That and a trickler. With that much powder per charge I want to go slow and steady to get right. Hasn't failed me yet.

 

[smp005]

I use the Hornady Auto Charge Pro and it works great for everything.. I do still use my Lyman powder measure for handgun loads - quick and easy..