Quote Originally Posted by jim_k View Post
Do not use ball powder in them. They clog up. An RCBS powder dispenser with a micrometer attachment throws ball powder plenty well. Ball powder is harder to ignite, so best groups may need a hotter primer, either a magnum primer, or a mil-spec primer.
Aye Caramba!!! Lots of problems in that sentance Jim. Ball powders in the Lee work perfectly fine, been doing it for 20 years. The issue is a combination of things. 1 is the tightness of the drum, folks LOVE to over-tighten and then warp the plastic. Next is the static, wipe the internals down with very fine graphite BEFORE you use it and all is well. Last occasional issue is the drum rotation stop. Some who don't coat the internals will have a sticking issue. pull the drum apart and snip it off, and you can dump the drum verticle if you like. The REAL reason to be cautious with volume compared to extruded, is due to ball powder having coatings control burning rates, not geometry.
As for the "Ball powder is harder to light, and use a mag primer". Roy Weatherby himself hated shooting his rediculous cartridges at full power. We know that, because at the time it was well known that he was using some VERY old tech ball powders(the only thing with a slow enough BR to make his creations work) and was downloading his cavernous cases massively. 300WBY case with 30-40% case fill. Well he came back from an elk hunt in the Rockies and convinced Federal and apparently the general population, that we "needed" a magnum primer to light that devil ball powder when it's cold....

So lets re-cap:
1930's cars were a POS, compared to what we have today.
1930's ball powder when filling a WBY case under 50%, is very hard to light.

If you want to make this a fair comparison and look at ball powders that are even remotely modern, then ball powders are VERY easy to light. Infact changing to a mag primer in several applications won't even change your pressures. Look at the pressure traces below, the only thing changed in that load was the primer.