I have only been reloading for 6 months or so but find myself having a hard time trusting my powder drop. For .223 I reload Hornady Zmax 55ers with 25.3 grains of H335. When I use my Lee powder drop I can get anywhere from 25.1 to 25.7 grains of powder. Is this variation too much?? Reason I ask is now I use my RCBS digi scales and measure EVERY charge which obviously takes a lot of time. Will my accuracy be affected a lot by the. 6 variation I am getting out of my powder drop or am I over-thinking it?

No, the Lee Perfect Powder Measure is known to drop spherical powder with varying levels of accuracy. It also leaks powder bits underneath it randomly. Sometimes people can tighten it up, some never get it going with ball. Otherwise it's fine, I drop Titegroup for 45 and my handloads are more accurate than me, but it still leaks.

A baffle may help; I haven't tried one, but want to. I bought the Hornady powder trickler and their small electronic scale for accuracy/max loads, but I have yet to use the combination.

I had read to use a used dryer sheet and rub inside well and did that. I did look and haven't noticed any sticking. I have ran a couple of pounds through it at least because I have loaded 500 .223 rounds. Due to the inconsistent measures i just started setting my powder drop around a 1/2 grain short and topping it off with my trickler.

I'm using the same powder measure.  I'm not too thrilled with it to be honest and am looking to upgrade shortly to RCBS or Redding.  



I mainly use IMR4895(stick) and AA2200(ball) and it leaks ball powder badly and cuts stick powder.



As to your throws, you'll be fine. Just don't run your hopper to max load...

.6gr is a little much for me, I would look into getting a better measure if you can(you'll end doing it anyway soon).

A Hornady LnL powder measure isn't very expensive and will drop most ball powders better than +/-.1gr.

It sounds like a new powder measure is in the works. I was thinking that .6 grains was a little much. Thank you guys for the input!

Huh, I use my PPM with a variety of ball powders and it's very consistent. I threw a baffle in it because it tended to lighten up at the bottom.

Try a quirky routine. I tap the handle twice with my middle finger, and then bump twice at the bottom of the handle's travel. I've had no more random low charges after I started that.

If you think about it you are talking about less than a 1% swing either way.  Will it effect accuracy?  Probably, but not anything you are going to notice out of an AR.  That said,  I load AA2230 with my Dillon. It consistently stays true within a tenth either way but the scale also has a margin of error of a tenth.  Hopefully you don't have those types of swings while loading your pistol stuff.

That's like 2%.  

As far as safety is concerned, with his desired charge is no big deal. Accuracy is another story. At .6gr low my 55gr V-max groups open up from 1" to about 2.5".

My Lee can vary by a couple of tenths using WC844, but it's almost always to the high side. Usually it's pretty much right on though.

I used to hand measure my .223 powder.
I too noticed variation in powder weight dropped from my Lee measure (+- 0.3 gr).
I used to hand trickle to try to get exact charges.

Then, one day I looked at powder sitting in the charged cases in my loading block.
The powder level was higher on some cartridges, and lower on others, even though I was
trying to trickle and exact charge.

I jiggled the cases to try to get the same density, but the variation in level seemed to be
more than I expected due to case variation.

I tracked the problem down to drift in my RCBS digital scale.  Even when I allow the scale to
re-autozero between every charge, the scale would drift.  I even measured one fixed charge
multiple times in a 10 minute period to see the drift of the scale.

So, you may actually be decreasing you charge accuracy if you chase the drifting scale.

This is an excellent addition to the string. The reality of what we really know versus what we think we know can be two different things. Eightring has excellent skills in terms of noticing the problem even when he thought his digital scale was a good reference. Unless you test your scale like Eightring did, do not assume anything about charge weights. Keep your eyes open for other signs of danger, especially as your load development creeps up on the high end.

Unless you are measuring pressure or strain directly, watch everything you can in terms of feedback from your gun and brass. Get some good check weights.

Good points eightring & RegionRat.  

A drifting digital scale is why I switched to a beam scale & check weights.