Digital Scale and Accuracy

[wapiti13]

I also use the PACT scale and high speed powder dispenser. Work great and speeds up the process with better loads than using a powder measurer. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Meister]

The new RCBS chargemaster combo is the best thing since canned beer! It halved my charge time, and gives dead on readings. It has a over and under notification, and spits out 43.5 grains of varget in less than 20 seconds. As long as you recalibrate every use it will give you great results. Another home run from RCBS!

 

[Max Heat]

I recently bought one of the cheapos, and here are the pros/cons (from MY perspective, anyways):

PROS: 1/100th of a grain accuracy (that's the main reason I went with that particular one); clear plastic lid/cover to prevent air currents from affecting the readings; runs on batteries (4xAAA) or external AC/DC power (using an adapter [AC] or a USB power cable [DC]); highly portable (but not exactly pocket-sized); also weighs in mg (1/1000 of a gram); a brass calibration weight IS included; price wuz rite.

CONS: VERY sensitive to vibrations (like when somebody walks by) AND air currents (the clear hinged cover touches the pan when closed, so not really usable for blocking the air currents); runs down batteries pretty fast, despite having an LCD (as opposed to LED) display; but my biggest beef - it takes way too long to fully re-stabilize (at least 20 seconds, I would say), every time a small amount of weight (like a few granules of powder) is added. If not given enough time, the readings WILL be off. I think this might be the issue that most are having with digitals, in terms of accuracy/repeatability.

For the individual who is a real nit-picker when it comes to accuracy (like me), but also has oodles and oodles of patience (unlike me), it just might be the ideal scale.

 

[boomtube]

"Are there any scales that would work better? "

Yeah; any beam scale. All electronic scales have some degree of time lag for recognising small changes. Some are worse than others but it's inherent in the system and what you get depends more on luck than brand or purchase price.

I was a precision electonix instument tech for most of my working life, there are no digital powder scales on my loading bench and there never will be.

 

[Trickymissfit]

Are there any scales that would work better?

My first electronic scale was an RCBS 750 (a Pact), and it was one the the very first generation scales the average guy could buy. Worked just fine with a fifteen minute warm up. It was stolen from me. Bought the samething again, but this time from Pact. This one was a couple generations later in software alone, and is much better yet. Later in a trade I come into a nearly new Pact with the inferred port. Have used it a couple times and seems even smoother in operation. Then I bought a new Pact BBK for use at the range. All are quick enough for anything I do, but the BBK seems a little more sensitive in the hot mid day sun at the range. I did manage to super scramble the software in the second one, and called Pact about it. They coached me thru a complete reboot on the phone, and then called me back in a couple days to see if all was still going well. I still don't know what I did to cause the problem (it would not completely reboot the software in the scale on start up). For all I do the RCBS 750 worked just fine for me, but like I said I moved on. The dealer I bought the RCBS off of was high on the Lymans at the time, and returned 75% of them for repair. I know a couple guys that use the Dillons, and seem to be a pretty good scale. Another pair of guys I know bought the blue one Midway sold a few years back, and one had trouble and the other probably is still using his. They all can fail in the right condition, and the same will go with just about anything. I'm going to build a box for the BBK that has tinted Plexiglass walls and top.
gary

 

[Trickymissfit]

The new RCBS chargemaster combo is the best thing since canned beer! It halved my charge time, and gives dead on readings. It has a over and under notification, and spits out 43.5 grains of varget in less than 20 seconds. As long as you recalibrate every use it will give you great results. Another home run from RCBS!

I'm getting ready to experiment with Varget and Benchmark in the next week or so. (unless I go turkey hunting). Have you weighed your charges on an indipendent scale after throwing them? If so what were your variations? I threw some in my Lyman 55 yesterday, and saw +/-.15 grains, or a .3 grain window. A change in the drop tube will help a little bit, and never tried to be consistent with the handle and knocker. That's better than I could throw 2015BR. Figured out to .01% error. (I was setup to throw 30.0 grains of Varget) If I can hold that same margin of error with 35.5 grains of Varget, it would be even better. Plus well within my limits.
gary

 

[Topgun 30-06]

"I was a precision electonix instument tech for most of my working life, there are no digital powder scales on my loading bench and there never will be."


Smart fellow! Neither do I!

 

[MTBULLET]

I have 3 1200 lymans, use them on different benches with different presses.
Have loaded 20 rd. test strings with newest one and RCBS beam scale. Lyman is faster (after you figure out how to use it) and produces 300 wm loads with smaller AD and ES. But they have "quirks" I trimmed the drop tubes on lathe to hit more in center of pan, and ALWAYS use the "button" in the drop tube, and i set the charge weight 2/10's lite and trickle up, works like a charm.

 

[Trickymissfit]

"I was a precision electonix instument tech for most of my working life, there are no digital powder scales on my loading bench and there never will be."


Smart fellow! Neither do I!

I was tasked with making precision balance weights for gas turbine engines for many years, and we started out using Ohaus 304 scales that were well maintained. Then moved into the precision electronic scales to tighten the window we worked in. Never went back to the mechanical devices again. If you ever been in a building when a gas turbine engine let go you'd understand why we were constantly trying to tighten the balance window. The explsion can be felt three hundred yards away while the rotating mass is contained underground. In that field they are very serious about calibrating balancers, because people die when they explode. The checks are triple redundent, and the masters and calibration are checked almost daily. Can't get there with analog stuff anymore.
gary

 

[Topgun 30-06]

Trickymissfit---That quote you put up was part of my post and stated by boomtube. I, myself, was a W&M Investigator with the State of Michigan for over 30 years before retiring in 2002. The reason I agreed with him and have to disagree with you is that you are not talking about a digital scale in your particular job that is/was a cheap $100-$300 instrument like they are making for powder weighing systems. I would venture to say that the digital equipment used for what you mentioned was in the many thousands of dollars and would be like comparing apples to oranges for what we are talking about in this thread. Trying to trickle a final charge weight and stay within +/- 0.1 grains on the scales we are discussing is not simple because of the way they are made and they are not in a laboratory setting. They may be fine to dispense an initial lesser charge while you're placing the previous charge and seating a bullet in a case, but I would still trickle up to the final weight each time with a good beam scale. That's the reason I just use an OHaus beam scale for the entire procedure because I didn't get into reloading for speed and mass production, but rather to take my time and relax while putting out what I want in a reload and being extra confident it's where it should be. A good beam scale properly maintained will last several generations of reloaders and I doubt there are many digital scales being sold at prices reloaders are paying that will do that just because of the mere electronics involved for those low prices.

 

[Trickymissfit]

Trickymissfit---That quote you put up was part of my post and stated by boomtube. I, myself, was a W&M Investigator with the State of Michigan for over 30 years before retiring in 2002. The reason I agreed with him and have to disagree with you is that you are not talking about a digital scale in your particular job that is/was a cheap $100-$300 instrument like they are making for powder weighing systems. I would venture to say that the digital equipment used for what you mentioned was in the many thousands of dollars and would be like comparing apples to oranges for what we are talking about in this thread. Trying to trickle a final charge weight and stay within +/- 0.1 grains on the scales we are discussing is not simple because of the way they are made and they are not in a laboratory setting. They may be fine to dispense an initial lesser charge while you're placing the previous charge and seating a bullet in a case, but I would still trickle up to the final weight each time with a good beam scale. That's the reason I just use an OHaus beam scale for the entire procedure because I didn't get into reloading for speed and mass production, but rather to take my time and relax while putting out what I want in a reload and being extra confident it's where it should be. A good beam scale properly maintained will last several generations of reloaders and I doubt there are many digital scales being sold at prices reloaders are paying that will do that just because of the mere electronics involved for those low prices.

Ah but your wrong! We bought several Pact scales to use out on the work floor. First order was for a half dozen of them as I recall. This saved a lot of leg work, and the readings on the pact ran very well with the masters in the labs.

Lastly; I trickle all the time down to 1/10th of a grain, and thought everybody else was doing the samething. I mean it's not rocket science
gary

 

[Topgun 30-06]

You just made my point when you stated that you had Lab scales (many thousands of dollars) for your primary standard! That sort of equates to what boomtube and I are referring to when we talk about using a good beam scale. Also, if you trickle your last amount to get the final charge weight, it seems a little ridiculous to go with a digital unless you really want to speed things up doing the initial weight. As I mentioned, I'm not in that big of a hurry to spend the extra money for an electronic instrument that may fail five minutes after I purchase it. I don't know how many times I read posts about the powder measuring part of reloading and it seems as if a tremendous amount of guys still checkweigh to some extent with a decent beam scale.

 

[Trickymissfit]

You just made my point when you stated that you had Lab scales (many thousands of dollars) for your primary standard! That sort of equates to what boomtube and I are referring to when we talk about using a good beam scale. Also, if you trickle your last amount to get the final charge weight, it seems a little ridiculous to go with a digital unless you really want to speed things up doing the initial weight. As I mentioned, I'm not in that big of a hurry to spend the extra money for an electronic instrument that may fail five minutes after I purchase it. I don't know how many times I read posts about the powder measuring part of reloading and it seems as if a tremendous amount of guys still checkweigh to some extent with a decent beam scale.

not really. We bought the Pacts after I checked the first one I had to see how accurate it was. My boss was a shooter, but didn't use a digital scale. I just wanted to know if it was measuring right, and nothing more. It was extremely close to what the master scale was in the shop, and pretty much the same as the scale in the lab. The guys out on the floor were constantly fighting the 304's (remember it's not exactly clean out there). Plus some of them didn't exactly practice the correct methods. We setup an in house class on how to do this the right way, and I had several plexiglass boxes built. That helped a lot. But then the boss simply said he was buying new scales as he always had a couple in the repair shop being cleaned or worse. He bought six of them, and the guys never had a problem again (once they figured out the proper way to go about doing it). We turned them to about 1/4 of a gram overweight, and the ground them to the specified number +/- .5 grains. Often these would come back for a further tweek, as some pieces of balancing equipment was starting to show some wear in the bearing packs. The trick is to order in the brass stock out of one lot# from the same place (I always speced a certified lot). They were threaded on one end, so I built several little fixtures to hold them on a magnetic chuck on a grinder. After you've ground them a little bit you pretty much know how much stock comes off per thousandth ground off them. After they were done and checked with what we called our master, they then went to the lab and were rechecked on their scale. I might add here that I found a lot of error in the check weights they sell you to calibrate your scales. I had a set of Fed. certified calibration weights to compair them with.
You will notice in my methodology that we were somewhat redundent in our inspections. This is the correct way to do it. You check everything critical off of three measuring devices and you calibrate off of three devices. If one is differing then something's wrong.
gary

 

[Topgun 30-06]

In your response you are now using the words "extremely close" and "pretty much the same". Also you end with: "You check everything critical off of three measuring devices and you calibrate off of three devices. If one is differing then something's wrong."

That's all well and good, but with that statement you're saying you were still using the expensive primary Lab scales for your final okay before things went out the door aren't you? If not, why have the Lab and it's precision equipment if that cheaper stuff on the floor was so great? IMHO the answer is that the shop equipment wasn't good enough for a final okay to ship and that's basically what I'm trying to say in regards to the use of cheap digitals in powder weighing when you equate them with a good beam scale during final trickling of the powder to get to your target weight. My guess is that a lot of these cheap digitals people are buying aren't nearly as good as a beam scale. I know my buddy bought a Cabelas digital and the first time we went to use it we found it would not hold zero and it's repeatability was horrible. It went back and he bought a Dillon beam scale.