Are they as good as they say they are , looking for a good manual powder dispenser.
Bill

Yes they are. You will never regret getting it.

lawndart

Each & every manual powder measure is only as good as the techniques and skills of its user. None of them will automatically throw charges consistent to 0.1 grain regardless of who yanks the handle, or how.

Having said that, Harrel makes more than just several models of powder measures. Personally, the only Harrel I would buy is the one with the needle bearings. I think it is quite excellent, though MAYBE not QUITE equal to a Neil Jones (and that is debatable, not a certain fact accepted by all.)

Anyway, I think almost any shooter would be well served by a Harrell needle-bearing model measure, if he was willing to practice enough with it to learn how to use it correctly.

I own 6 powder measures but since I acquired a Harrel's, it's the only one I use for rifle charges (reason : repeatability. I made up a chart with powder charge settings and each change is always right within .1 gn). My only other measure in use is a RCBS micrometric Uniflow mounted on a progressive press dedicated to pistol reloading).

I have long wondered if the Harrell would be the one to replace my Redding BR measures?? The Reddings were a bliss to use after my initial Hornady, but they continue to be a source of delay and irritation when reloading. Apparently, the Harrell is no more accurate than a good many other measures, but I have been wondering whether it holds up better over the long term??

Additionally, if you are interested in scales, automatic dispensers and high grade powder measures, this one might just be the cat's meow: Prometheus Dispenser - albeit at $1200 a pop. Check here: Prometheus Comparison - 6mmbr.com for what these babies are good for.

- mike

I am using a harrel custom ( the " cheap one")and works great.. better of course with easy flowing powders. IN my opinon it is well over any of the usual commercial ones ( rcbs, hornady,lyman, ..)

When looking at a Harrell one needs to look at the Jones and Bruno's powder measures to compare. I got a Bruno just after he bought out the rights from Nesika it has served me well also the Jones and Bruno hold the highest resale value. I keep think about getting another one and it will be a Jones.

I bought the needle roller one. First off the service from the factory was great, I received it in the UK 4 days from ordering and way before I was billed.

With charges of fine powder for my 222 it was well within the 0.2gr+/- of my digital scale. For 40+gr of the 4350 etc family it's not accurate enough for me to want to throw direct into the case. It might be my technique.

that promethius guy is smoking crack. something must have been wrong with his harrell measure if he was only getting +/- .4 grain, even with varget, which imho doesn't meter all that well, relatively, as claimed below

quote:

The powder tested was Varget, a very popular 6BR and .308 Win long-range powder, which is fine-grained enough that it "should" work well through a powder measure.

Mr. Taliv, have you used a Promethius measure, I think not. I don't know about Varget in a Harrels. The majority of BR shooters use them I use a Bruno housing that has a Hensler micro adj drum. >025 on the Mitutoyo thimble is 2.5 grns difference. I have used Brand Cole's Promethius and would buy one if I were shooting 1000 yd. BR. For my hunting guns I use a Lyman with a Culver insert and trickle. Other than the Promethius, I think that the others are close to the same in preformance. It all has to do with practice and consistence in your methods of throwing powder. Butch

No one in 1,000 BR that I know would throw their charges. Period, end of story. After you measure all the ogives, weigh the cases and the primers and the bullet, run the bullets across a Juenke, etc, etc, trickling the powder doesn't seem like much of a chore.

The only competitors I know that throw are the pistol competitors, the F-class type shooters, and the short range BR guys. A large part of the reason the short range guys throw charges is the limitations of loading at the range.

For getting close, the Harrel is very good. If I need better consistency than a Harrel, an electronic trickler (that automatically trickles a load to the right weight) would be my choice. JMO, Dutch.

Mr. Dutch, do you uniform your meplats? David Tubb likes his Promethius. Butch

Butch, you are the first person I "meet", who has actually used a Prometheus. Would you care to share some of your experience with us, please??

I gather the device is mechanical, apart from an (optional) oohjah run by batteries, i.e. no mains connection. Correct?? How do you operate the thing, do you work the handle on the (RCBS?) measure integrated?? There must be trickling function involved, how does that come into play?? How long does it take to throw a charge??

Sorry if this is all too much. I find the device rather intriguing, but @1200$, it is going to take some convincing...
- mike

quote:

Mr. Taliv, have you used a Promethius measure, I think not. I don't know about Varget in a Harrels.

butch, i'd never heard of them before this thread, but that's not the point. I wasn't saying anything negative about the device, only the articles' obvious bias against harrells.

Mr. mho, the Promethius is quite a Rube Goldberg contraption.It is battery powered. You push a button to turn it on, manually throw the powder out of a RCBS measure that is adjusted to be just short on weight. It throws it into beam type scale. At this time the electrical trickler trickles until a photo eye lines up with a very small wire on the scale and shuts it off. You would have to see it to actually understand how it can throw to 1 grain and that is not 1 grain weight, it is 1 kernel.If you go to benchrest.com and do a search on powder throwing you will find people that have gone to great time and trouble to throw powder accurately. You can expect an extreme spread of .4 grain with a fine powder like V133 with the best powder throwers. To get closer you will have to use a beam scale and trickle it. Digital scales as we normally use just won't get it. They seem to hunt constantly, the least breeze from your heat or A/C system will cause it to hunt. Take a bullet and weigh it 25 times on your digital scale and check your spread. Also your powder throwers are throwing by volume, not weight. Weigh your powder out in the hot sun with low humidity and compare it to a cool day or just higher humidity. It will change. I think that I said in one of my previous posts that a majority of BR shooters use a version of the Harrells. A lot of the guys blueprint them and use custom baffles to help in repeatibility. Oh, by the weigh, as you are seating a bullet the Promethius is trickling your powder. It takes only very little more time than just throwing. Butch

I know that JLC at one time was redoing some of the Harrell measurers and like Butch said these type are by volume just have to tap the handle twice to find that out. As you increase the volume the error goes up. I've been using mine so long kind of have a system worked out. I load and test at the range when I find that good load I always make an extra round up and weight that powder charge at home. Best thing I've found is take that beam scale to the range and double check click value to powder. I use my Bruno 100% of the time but I always weight the powder charge when I'm making up hunting rounds and when I get above 35gr of powder for a varmit rifle and I weight each powder charge when I'm chronographing. Ball powder is the best it's not a volume type powder.

Thanks Butch, interesting!
- mike