The Harrel Premium Benchrest Powder Measure Review
For the scope of the test, I want to share that I tried two different types of powder. Single and double based, specifically spherical and short cut extruded stick powder. If you're not sure which powder type is single or double-based, your ball and spherical powders are usually double-based powders while your single-based powders are generally extruded, short cut, sticks.
After unboxing, I was pretty impressed with the overall quality. Some machining marks on the outside here and there, not a big deal. Nothing internally that would harm the functionality of the measure itself.
Looking at the instructions, to give you more context for my next points being made, the manual states: "your technique or the way you use this measure must be very constant from one charge to another." 'We suggest you move the handle up at a moderate speed until it just touches the top stop, then back down at the same speed."
They were certainly right. At first, I was receiving some wildly inaccurate throws. I then slowed everything down and touched the top of the stroke with a very slight touch. After that, things were great for an all-mechanical powder thrower.
In my first test, I used Match Rifle which is a spherical powder from Shooters World. I weighed out ten charges each. Below are the results set at 24.80 grains:
Average: 24.784 grains. Meaning, this yielded a .02 grain accuracy with this type of double-based powder. To me, that's pretty incredible and very impressive.
For the second test I used Long Rifle, a shortcut extruded powder from Shooters World. Upon which I've found to do great in other volumetric powder dispensers.
Set at the same measurement from the first test, I went straight into charging 10 cases. One of the biggest things I noticed, here, is that the Harrel did not like the shortcut extruded powder because it would catch the arm as it would go back down. it would do this periodically, causing inconsistencies in the throws themselves:
Here, we can see that it was very consistent at 22.68 grains, even though the original setting itself was at 24.80 grains from the previous test. We can also see, there were four outliers in our small sample: 22.78, 22.78, 22.78, and 22.90. These throws themselves "hung up" when indexing the arm down. The reason it does this is that the Harrel uses a cylinder essentially that opens up a gap to fill up with powder inside the measure itself. It can be manipulated to determine how much powder you want. Moreover, when the housing is full of powder, the gap fills up with your desired charge that's inside of the cylinder. Depending on the orientation of the kernels themselves, they can get "hung up" from when you index the arm down to charge, causing the gap full of your powder to hit the housing.
Moreover, this powder measure was really nice to use. I will say you have to get your "Mojo" down to receive super accurate results. While I am skeptical of using it with an extruded powder, especially if I don't check it with another scale, I feel completely comfortable using it with a spherical based powder. I'd really encourage anyone to try one of these out if you want to help lower your extreme spread and standard deviation from batch to batch when handloading. Harrel Powder Throwers
As always, shoot straight, be safe, and happy reloading! If you liked this article and think it was worth $1, please consider donating: https://www.patreon.com/Reloadingallday
Blake has been writing reloading articles for three years and helping out within the community to further enhance reloading education. In his free time, he works within the community to help out new hand-loaders by educating them on the many variables that come with this wonderful hobby. His passion is solely based on helping others so that they may pass on that information to future generations, keeping the art of hand-loading alive.
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