Lee auto drum leaking?

motoman247

motoman247

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Relatively new to reloading and my auto drum is leaking and I can not seem to fix it, it is not much but it makes a mess over the course of a few hundred rounds. Using Win 231 right now, would switching powders help?
 
Odd. I used an auto-drum for many thousands of rounds with Bullseye, which is a pretty fine powder and never had any issues.

My auto-disk on the other hand... that thing leaked like a sieve.
 
Something's wrong mine didn't leak one granule of anything down to super fine H110. Can you post pics of the parts maybe someone can help?
 
I will get some more pics, but I have taken the thing apart more times than I can count and I have tried it with the nut barely tight, tight, and extremely tight and nothing makes a difference. Catfish what parts should I focus on in my pics?
 
818c4c4c9008aeb95465fbb9885a8d52.jpg


This is the amount it leaks after 300 rounds any particular part picks I should post?


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That is way to much leakage. I've used 3 different auto drums, 2 leaked nothing and the 3rd leaked about like yours. That one came with a press I bought and I'm not sure how it was treated before I got it but I took it apart completely a few times and even though nothing looked bad it has never been right. I chalked that one up to a bad casting from Lee.

If your auto drum is new I would see if Lee would replace it for you.
 
I will look into it, and yea this auto drum came with the turret kit. I wonder if those were cast different, I will call Lee and see where that takes me. If all else I can buy another one they aren't that expensive.
 
motoman247;n99346 said:
I will look into it, and yea this auto drum came with the turret kit. I wonder if those were cast different, I will call Lee and see where that takes me. If all else I can buy another one they aren't that expensive.
Click to expand...

Have you had any luck with your auto drum yet? This thread got me to thinking a little more about the drum I have that has a leaking problem. Had a little time on my hands last night and pulled it out one more time to mess with to see if I could get it to work right. Put a small wire brush in my dremel and ran it all around the inside, then took some metal polishing compound and gave it a good rubbing inside. Put it all back together and it now works almost perfectly. Ran some WSF through it, which is a fairly fine ball powder, and after cycling about 1/3 of a hopper of powder through it, it only had at most a dozen or so powder granules that had leaked from it. Night and day different than before. Im guessing there may of been some high/rough spots that were not readily visible or felt before that I knocked down. Going to give it one more polishing to see if I can make it perfect, but if not I will relegate it to more coarse flake powders. Maybe that would work for yours, either way good luck.
 
@dav33, I have not loaded since this post, but I will try that when I get the chance

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@dave33 I just went out and used my dremel with a fine sandpaper attachment and roughed everything up, realized I did not have any metal polish like I thought I did, but I put everything back together and it slowed the leak down for sure, will do a final update when I polish everything.
 
Hope it works for you. While you're at it check the drum insert for any rough spots too. Also, make sure there aren't any obstructions in the outer groove that would stop the powder from funneling down to the bottom drop hole.

Oh yea, if you get it all back together and it still leaks, try the other rotor insert to see if it leaks as well.
 
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