Hi,

I thought I´d write a catchy phrase to get your attention -and I make no claims to "the truth"!

I´ve now assembled the measure and loaded my first rounds with it and it works well. The plastic, carnival prize, feeling of the Lee did disappoint me but looks aren´t everything.

My old measure was a Pacific and the major difference between these two is that one must be a lot more careful when using the Lee -it´s not possible to hurry the process. The Lee takes more time to measure and before I found out what I was doing wrong it was throwing loads +/- 3-4 grains! You have to handle it slowly, I guess the measuring cylinder is a lot smaller than on the Pacific. Function is smooth and using VV N165 I had no leakage or hangups.

The Lee is good, especially when you look at the price, but I wouldn´t recommend it for high volume loading, it´s a bit too slow for that.

Everyone has their own preference.

I've used Lee products for many years and they'll back them up when they fail. Just send them back with a letter of explanation. It does take a week or two from further away, but, they do take care of customers. Their products are quality made at a fair price. You can't claim that with some other brands.

The Lee Perfect measure, is not perfect, but, it's mighty good IF treated half way decently. I've loaded many thousands of rounds with one and they've all been right on the tenth of a grain until adjustment has been moved. They will leak the real fine ball powders though. They work best with short cut, or regular sized granule type powders like 4895, and such.

Lee's bullet molds, pin/gauge/cutter case trimmers can't be beat for simple accurate trimming. Just chuck the pin & cutter in a drill press. make up a handle to hold the shell holder and get to work. I've welded the threaded base section to a short length of square steel tubing and just change the lock ring/shell holder part and pins in the drill press. And can trim 2-300 or nearly 400 cases per hour without tearing up my fingers, or getting blisters like on those junky high priced hand cranked minilathes several others sell. I do suggest you buy an extra of each pin as the tiny split threaded ends on them will break off fairly easy. I've written several times and send in the broken one's. They replace them at n/c, but, it does take a couple weeks to get the new one back. I don't like to be in the middle of something and have to wait, so I get extra's of each pin. That way I've got a backup while the other is being replaced. Hell, they are only $3, why not??
I have less than $80 in my trimming equipment and that's including $40 for the drill press and at least 25 different trimmers and many extra parts.

The molds, I only buy and use Lee 6 cavity molds. Cast bullets by the two gallon buckets full. Used a .38 SWC mold for at least 15 years am sure I've cast over 100,000 bullets with it, and when the hinge pin broke, mailed it back for repairs and they replaced it with a brand new mold for $8. Who else would do that??

At the same time I sent a ProPotIV back for repairs as the nipple clogged up and being dumb, tried to drill it out and ruined it. They rebuilt the whole unit with new heater and inner liner and nipple assy for $12. Looked like brand new when I got it back. That had been used since the mid 1980's. Who else would do that??? There's no doubt at all that pot has melted no less than five ton's of lead over the years.

They may use a lot of plastics, but, it works and they last a good long time. and can be repaired very easily and cheaply. Any problems, just write an explanation and mail it back, they'll fix you right up.

Lee Precision is a good reliable, older company that is honest in their dealings with fair prices.

I highly recommend you give them a try.
IF you have any problems, write, or call Dave Shono, Lee's head of customer service. He'll take care of your problem.

George

Carnival prize........I like that. I thought I might be the only one who thought that too. There are very few things I have that are Lee products for the same reason. Some just "scream" cheap....but some like the Auto Prime II are a must have. I also have a couple sets of Lee dies that work just fine.

I use the Lee Auto-Disk on top of my expander die.

For handgun reloading, it can't be beat, and it's built very well.

You're only limited if a powder charge you want falls between a disk aperture interval.

I don't like the new Lee prime system that hangs off the turret press, but the vast bulk of Lee gear is built and designed very well and is priced affordably to allow many people to get into reloading.

I find the Lee Perfect Powder Measure to be a good choice. I have two screwed permananently to a hard wood board and routinely get +/- .2 gn or less consistency. For hunting, I'm not sure who could complain about that consistency. I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to it being a bit slow. I find it adequate for any type a reloading I may do. For rifle reloading it is more than fast enough. For 200 rounds/week of handgun calibers it is just fine as well. Are you saying the friction screw is a little too tight? Other than that I do not know what you mean. It is not slower than the BR-3 I almost bought.

Possibly he means that with some charges you can rotate the drum faster than the time it takes the powder to fill the tube. Set it for a large charge and rotate the drum. Notice how long it takes for the powder to finish filling the tube as evidenced by the powder level dropping in the hopper. The tube is small enough diameter that this takes longer than say an RCBS Uniflow might.

But if you keep an eye on it and get an idea of the rhythm, it works just fine. I use mine all the time. Charges are more consistent with ball powder or short cut extruded than with something like IMR-7828.