I've been considering purchasing one to work up rifle loads instead of trickling them. Once I have a load established I'd like to also use it for charging cases as I reload.

For those of you that use them, are they good for both of these purposes? Accurate for load development and fast enough for reloading once a load is established?

I'd be using it mainly for stick powders in heavy bullet 5.56x45, heavy bullet 7.62x51 and heavy bullet .300 Win Mag.

Also, what brand and model do you recommend?  I'm leaning toward the RCBS.

ETA: I should mention that these are being built on a single stage press, not progressive.  I am not loading thousands of these rounds. More like hundreds.

Auto dispenser? Do you mean something like a RCBS chargemaster? All depends on what you were doing. I actually prefer a case activated powder drop for Speed. If you get it set right the the Hornady one works great.

Yes, like the charge Master. I should mention that these are being built on a single stage press, not progressive.  I am not loading thousands of these rounds. More like hundreds.

I have the Hornady one. It's accurate, but it's picky about powders. Flake seems to do alright without setting an early stop. Stick powders however have to be set to have it start trickling several grains earlier otherwise it'll overshoot.

For a lot of my shooting though I use a volumetric measure instead.  Much faster. For AR-15 sizes cartridges I've liked the RCBS "competition" pistol thrower.  I only use the dispenser now for precision stuff and load development.

I don't know about the RCBS model since I have the Hornady.  The RCBS is probably more popular and somewhat more expensive.

They are inherently slower than a volumetric powder measure but probably as quick or quicker than trickling to weight.  They are also probably more accurate than a volumetric measure depending on powder type since they do dispense based on weight and not volume.  They can also be somewhat finicky to get set up since, speaking for the Hornady only, some of the settings are not immediately apparent.  Accuracy, as can be expected with a low-cost scale, is +/- 0.1 grain and, once again speaking only for the Hornady, they will overthrow a charge frequently.  When that happens I dump the powder back in the hopper and let it throw again which effectively doubles the time to get an accurate charge.

That said, for my purposes, I really enjoy mine.  It irritates me from time to time but given the choices of it, a volumetric measure, or manually trickling to weight I'd go that route any day.  Something along the lines of an AutoTrickler with a very accurate scale would be far more accurate but then I only have $150 tied up in this machine.

Just an FYI, if it's throwing over pretty frequently, hold down the mode button. After a couple seconds the screen will change and slowly increment 0.2 at a time. This causes it to slow down and trickle that many grains sooner.

It's not apparent this feature is there. I think it's mentioned in the manual, but I don't have mine (the manual) anymore.  Just be aware that if you set this before hitting dispense, it will also change you from auto to manual. This issue doesn't happen after you've already started dispensing.

Will you be using extruded or large flake powders frequently?

That's what I meant by some of the settings not being "Readily Apparent" ;)

You are absolutely right though.  It does resolve problems with some powders and it is in the manual.  You'd think they could stick another button somewhere or change the label or something.

Something else I've found is that occasionally a few kernels of powder will get down in the tube that goes between the scale plate (the red plate where the powder pan sits) and the load cell under it (not the feeder tube).  Lift the scale plate off and look down the tube and you can see the load cell beneath.  It may just be my unit but it doesn't like it when powder gets down there and I have to get it out with a barely moist, twisted Q-Tip.

Once you get it adjusted and get a tube reducer a Chargemaster is great. I can do other steps while a new charge is being trickled in the pan.

I use it with hand dies and an arbor press for precision 6 BR rounds.

Loading Varget or VV 550.

I have the Frankfort arsenal Intellidropper and, for me, has made reloading a million times more enjoyable.  The scales annoyed me along with my rcbs powder thrower that would have weights all over the place.  

On my intellidropper I have very few overages.  Everyone in a while I get one thats under by a 0.1 gr and I hit the trickle until its correct.

With that said, I loaded up so 38/357 with 700x and I wanted to throw it.  Those charges were all over the map.

Yes, exclusively extruded powders. I am looking for something that will get me away from having to trickle each load. For ball powders my Redding powder thrower works exceptionally well, so don't need the auto dispenser.

Lots of Charge master deals come Black Friday if you can wait.

I have been using one for about  7-8 years. I think it finally went bad as it started getting a little flakey. I happened to buy a second last Black Friday and  just opened the box. So much smoother than old one.

If I had the funds, the V3 would be my choice. Maybe if stock market pops back up.

I've heard that auto powder measures have a lot of trouble with extruded powders.  I have no first hand experience with it, as I skipped the cheaper options.

I ordered an Autotrickler V3 and it works flawlessly.  It's overkill in some regards, but in others, it's kinda the minimum to get perfectly weighed charges nearly every time with difficult-to-meter powders.

I use both an old RCBS branded Pact dispenser/scale and the newer RCBS Charge Master lite...both work fine, the CM lite is more accurate then the old pact...I do run every load off both over a GemPro 250 to verify the charge weight...but the CM lite does a very good job of staying within 1 grain 99% of the time..I load mostly all extruded rifle powders, but both scales have had zero issue with any kind of powder...I would not hesitate to buy another CM lite...

I love mine makes load dev much better easier to alter drops. Mines been accurate, rcbs CM.

I will most likely pickup a auto trickler v3 one day cause I like tools/toys.

I do mainly use powder measures then trickle up with the CM when loading my match ammo.

The CM is fully programmable to change the way it throws powder.

I have the Chargemaster and like it.  There are newer versions of it out now that I might sell mine and upgrade.

As with all things in this game, the correct answer depends on your budget ...

The Autotrickler is today's gold standard.

The Chargemaster is fine. A little slow, a little quirky.

I had a Hornady some years back and didn't like it much. Drifted despite doing all the usual voodoo tricks, then it failed completely and quit working.


... and your need ...

Unless you're shooting at distance and absolutely need to keep velocity spread down, or really chasing that last 1/2 MOA of precision, they're more trouble than they're worth. Thrown charges will get 90% of shooters 90% of the way there.


... and just what you feel like doing ...

They're cool gadgets, and this is supposed to be fun, right? If I had a nickel for every cool doodad I have that doesn't really move my shots closer to center ... I'd have enough for a couple Snickers bars, probably. Get one. Enjoy.

I have the Chargemaster Lite and I'm happy with it; that said, it's all I've ever used so I dont have much perspective for comparison to other options.

I have the Lyman meter/scale. Mostly I have 8208xbr in it since that is what I use in my Grendel. I prep and prime all my brass, (I did the same when I shot High Power) then I just charge the brass and seat the bullets on my T-7. I can easily change the powder in my Lyman to not only try different charges but different powders. I have H4350 for my Creedmoor and some VV N140 for heavy bullet 223’s. All meter very well out of the Lyman.

For bulk 223 I load prepped brass in my 650, but I load that in batches of 500-1,000 rounds. My more precision rounds are done in batches of 30-200.

Thanks for the great replies. I used to shoot benchrest and F Class. I prepped all my cases by weighing cases, neck turning, primer pocket uniforming, checking runout, etc. etc.
Always chasing smaller and smaller groups. I definitely spent way more time handloading and cleaning guns than I ever did shooting.

That has changed. Now I shoot more and handload/clean less. Most of my handgun and rifle ammo is done on a progressive. My hunting and long range stuff is handloaded. But instead of chasing groups, I am chasing game out to 400 or so and steel out to about 800. If it dies or goes clang I am happy.

Sounds like one of these gadgets would work fine for what I do.

I went from a RCBS to a Lyman gen6. Shoulda gotten the gen5. Great for precision loads.