Little Dandy & the 44 Special?

[ShortBBL]

Does anyone use the Little Dandy Powder Measure with UNIQUE for the 44 Special?

It appears that the #14 rotor will spit out 7.2 gr while the #15 will spit out 7.8 gr of Unique.

I have a pile of 240 Keith Style Boolits to load.... I'd like a load that would be good for Deer. My question is if the 7.8 will be too hot for the Ruger 44 Special.. or would the 7.2 be too wimpy!?

They also have a rotor that would spit out 6.0 and 6.6 grains of unique.... I think I read here that somebody uses 6 +/- for a play load?

Comments would be most appreciated!

Thanks

 

[c.r.]

I honestly doubt the 7.8 is going to hurt anything, but personally i error on the side of caution.

Unless I'm going to way each and every load, and trickle/subtract to get exactly 7.5 gr, I usually set my powder measurer to throw around 7.3 anyway. My experience with Unique in MY setup is that I routinely throw Unique up to 2/10ths over/under. I just cannot get Unique to consistently throw +/- 1/10th.

So in my case, while 7.8 gr might be acceptable, with a +/- 2/10th's varaince I could easily hit 8 grains. I doubt that is going to blow up one of these rugers, it's just more than i want.

So from my experience with Unique, I'd use the #14 rotor.

~c.r.

 

[mike7mm08]

First off check your rotors. I use the little dandy for all my pistol loading. The charts are not always the most accurate. You can get variations even with two rotors that are the same number. Different lots of powder can throw things off as well. I would also say go with the 14. It seems that most often the rotors throw a little higher than listed 7.8 is a bit warm to begin with anything more would be very hot. It is a 44 special not a magnum afterall.

 

[res45]

+1 on what mike7mm08 said I use the Lil Dandy to load most of my 38/357/9mm/9 x 18 loads with. My first order of business when I get a new rotor is to clean it up with some denatured alcohol and make sure it's nice and dry.

Then a take each rotor and all the powder I may be using with that rotor and run about 25 shots through it to get a good flow going,then I weight about 10 shots on both my beam and digital scales to see if they match and are consistent to confirm what that rotor # throws with that lot of powder,then I make a label and affix it to that lot of power as to what each of my rotors will throw with it.

Some rotors match the chart and some don't,when I worked up a load for my pistols on some loads 1/10th of a grain made a big difference in accuracy like in the 9mm and 9 x 18,so being able to know just what each rotor # throws with that lot of powder speeds up the loading process and keep my loads more consistence. I just use the most appropriate rotor to get me closes to the test loads I worked up. Some rotors are dead on what I need and some require the use of the trickler.

 

[willk]

I use the little Dandy a lot using Unique. A neat trick to assure consistant charges is to lightly tap it twice with your open hand following the up stroke and then lightly tap it twice again following the down stroke.

I don't really use the chart, I experiment to find what each rotor will actually throw and then make my own chart. However, as a check to make sure I picked up the correct rotor, I always measure my charges on my beam scale before I start loading.

(To assist in all this I managed to get quite a few rotors when a sporting goods dealer shut down a few years ago)

 

[buckbeans]

I agree with Willk
You need to tap the measure in some fashion when using the large flake powders like unique, Red Dot Green Dot.

 

[COR]

I used the dippers for a long time with unique and 44 spl load (7.5 grs)and my Lil Dandy is more accurate than it was but I still can't get the same consistency with Unique like I can with 2400... but when you are dealing with specifically 7.5 - 7.8 you should still be fine in a Ruger. I use a lot of 231 now too instead of Unique and it seems to be very consistent in my Lil dandy and shoots great. Just 2cents worth

BTW I also wipe the rotors out with a used dryer sheet occassionally seems too help.

 

[az6gun]

I've always went with 7.5 of Unique with a 240SWC, recently I've been loading 6.0 of Unique and love it! Accuate & fun to switch hands with.