Originally Posted by PiperOne
Key off drains with anything but an expensive clamp meter is a waste of time...and even then accuracy will be suspect. Anything under 5 amps, even a cheap multi in line will be more accurate than a clamp. Clamps are too sensitive to how you hold them etc to be reliably repeatable in low amp draw measurements.
Most inexpensive to mid priced traditional DMMs have fairly high burden voltage in mA range, making them rather inaccurate, but at least they'd be consistent. You can use the A or 10A range to overcome this, alas, you will have less resolution that way.
From what I've seen with my Uni-T clamp meter, it does OK measuring mA current, as long as you remember to zero it out first.