From the Bench

Family-owned Hodgdon Powder Company recently acquired RCBS from conglomerate Vista Outdoors and has wasted no time in introducing new products that improve two mundane items on our loading benches: the powder funnel and powder measure.

Funnels have been around probably since the end of the last Pleistocene ice age, and it doesn’t seem as though there’s much that can be improved upon. Wide at one end and narrow at the other, right? Ho-hum. Yet, some handloader at RCBS who wasn’t satisfied with the sometimes sticky and slow passage of powders through the ordinary funnel came up with an idea to speed things up. Maybe that handloader is also a housewife.

The RCBS MatchMaster Funnel is an idea that apparently came from the kitchen: made of aluminum, the funnel wears a black, non-stick surface coating. No longer ho-hum, the narrow end of the MatchMaster Funnel is threaded to accept caliber-specific aluminum adapters for charging cartridge cases. I expected the adapters with smaller inside diameters to constrict powder flow to slow it a bit, but I experienced no outright powder kernel hang-ups, even with extruded powders poured into 223 Remington cases. Testing it at my bench, flake and extruded powders flow through the funnel and adapter as quickly as ball powders. It was as though RCBS had engineered a venturi into each adapter (I checked – they didn’t).

Pouring leftover powder from a powder measure back into the powder canister seemed like a realistic test of both the funnel’s non-stick and speed characteristics. While ball powders seldom give us trouble, flake powders can sometimes be reluctant, and extruded powders can be downright argumentative about flowing without hang-up. It was a non-issue with all powders, as, with no adapter attached, the MatchMaster’s narrow end opening is about twice as wide as that on ordinary powder funnels, so powders flow through the MatchMaster much faster.

RCBS’s MatchMaster so improves the funnel that the company has applied for a patent. I recall reading years ago that some bright fellow realized no one had ever patented the wheel, and so he applied for a patent, either as a stunt or as a hopeful get-rich scheme. While that didn’t work out in his favor, RCBS will likely have better luck in its patent application for its MatchMaster funnel improvements.

The MatchMaster Powder Funnel Kit includes the funnel and six adapters (for the most common calibers) in a plastic storage box for $99.99. Seven more adapters are available at $18.99 each, and the funnel alone is $39.99. While admittedly a bit pricey compared to ordinary plastic funnels, the MatchMaster is definitely not ordinary, and what about price satisfaction? You can drive your dilapidated Datsun to the grocery store, or you can take the Porsche.

RCBS has also improved upon its basic Uniflow Powder Measure. Like the RCBS Uniflow, the UPM-3 Competition Powder Measure’s rotor housing unit is a hefty chunk of cast steel with surfaces machined where they need to be and the rest left rough with a thick powder coat finish. The UPM-3 is outwardly very similar to RCBS’s Uniflow Powder Measure but differs significantly in utilizing only one rotor (now dubbed a Metering Cylinder). In contrast, the Uniflow has separate rotors for pistol and rifle powders. The UPM-3’s single-rotor design is behind another significant improvement: a Micrometer Adjustment Screw Assembly that allows precise micrometer adjustment of powder charges. 

The older Uniflow features a metering screw bearing 10 major index marks with four minor marks between each, providing 40 different recordable accurate settings, which is nice. The UPM-3’s metering screw features finer threads and is marked similarly to our micrometers, with 100 minor graduation marks between each major graduation. The major graduations run out to “13,” providing 1,300 possible precisely marked powder charges that can be recorded and returned to later.

A second precision-loading feature that warrants “Competition” in the UPM-3’s name is the powder baffle in the hopper. The purpose of the baffle is to maintain constant pressure on the powder column in the hopper just above the metering cylinder. Without the baffle, the full weight of the powder in the hopper pressing downward can compact more powder into the metering cylinder cavity, compared to when there is much less powder in the hopper. This can cause individual thrown powder charges to vary slightly as the amount of powder in the hopper decreases. The baffle holds the weight of the powder above it, preventing it from adding to the weight of the powder below the baffle, which remains constant.

Also different, the UPM-3’s powder hopper holds about twice the volume of powder as the Uniflow, making the baffle an even better idea, and features a quarter-turn thread to attach or detach the hopper from the metering cylinder housing. A single, knurled-head set screw locks the UPM-3’s Micrometer Screw Assembly to the metering cylinder housing; removing screw and micrometer allows attachment of a drain tube for emptying the hopper. Screw threads on the metering cylinder housing mount are the same as the on the Uniflow, so the same bench-mounted powder measure stand and stand plate (the latter for mounting to the reloading press) can be used for the UPM-3. And, like the Uniflow, the UPM-3’s handle can me mounted for right- or left-hand use, and to throw charges on the upstroke or the downstroke.

As a matter of note, the UPM-3’s metering cylinder with Micrometer Screw Assembly dropped right into my Uniflow powder measure. Still, just the Micrometer Screw Assembly alone cannot, as its set screw arrangement is incompatible with the Uniflow’s rotor. For now, RCBS is not offering the Metering Cylinder with Micrometer Screw Assembly as an upgrade for the uncounted thousands of Uniflow powder measures out there, but who knows what the future may bring – besides another ice age?