Beam scale or digital?

[AK7AN]

Just wondering what the consensus is on consistency and accuracy in the scale department. Do you prefer beam scale? What model and why? Or do you prefer digital? Auto charging or manual? What model and why?

After being frustrated with the 2 that I have (1 Lee safety beam scale, and a Frankford Arsenal DS750 digital) thought I would ask advice as I think I am in the market for a new model.
With my digital it seems that I am not getting as consistent a charge as I would think. Shows up in my ES of my reloads. Same with my beam scale.
Thanks and take care.
Ed

 

[Rol_P]

Do you have check weights to use with your scales? That would tell you a lot? I personally like my RCBS Chardemaster

 

[AK7AN]

The only check weight that I have is the 50g calibration weight that came with the digital scale. I have used a variety of bullets (using the same ones over and over ) to check consistency. I have read a lot of reviews on all kinds and the RCBS Chargemaster has the best by far. Sometimes its hard to sort out the trolls on the negative reviews, and other times they are obvious.
Thanks
Ed

 

[mjcmichigan]

I love my RCBS 1000 balance scale. Way fast, way consistent.

I'll use a volume powder dropper (RCBS).

Always make sure it drops a little light, then finish on the balance.

I do have a franklin, they work good once warmed up. I will use a plastic spoon... which I noticed can cause interference with the electric scale.... so I keep it clear.


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[Cleveland48]

I have a Lyman 1500 digital and a Lyman 1000 beam scale. I have thought about getting the chargmaster though to simplify some of my loading. I like using my beam scale for rifle loading. My digital seems slow to register when I trickle powder in, then once it finally readjust I have overcharged.


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[TackDriver284]

I use a Chargemaster set a tenth of a grain less than desired weight, then top it off by the kernel on my FX-120 AD scale to my desired weight.

 

[jimbires]

after using my FX120i scale, I would not want to use anything else . I use a lee spoon to get the bulk of my powder then I trickle up .

I took some ammo apart that I had loaded using my RCBS 10 - 10 scale . I pulled the bullet and poured the powder on my FX120 scale . I was surprised how close these weighed out . a balance scale can and will weigh accurately but it is a lot slower , and hard on my eyes .

 

[wbyfan1]

I have an RCBS 505 and a Chargemaster. I ran a test using my check weights and the Chargemaster was spot on just about every time. The 505 was always .2-.3 off. It collects dust in a closet now. I love my Chargemaster and would buy another in a heartbeat.

 

[AK7AN]

Last evening I did a little testing between my 2 scales. The Frankford Arsenal DS750 has a few quirks, but I think it is accurate as a digital scale can be, and I found some things that I can do while using it that seemed to keep it spot on. I setup my Lee Powder measure so I could throw close to a 50gr charge of Norma MRP, a fairly common size extruded powder. I calibrated the FA scale and checked the balance scale at zero. I threw multiple charges an put them on the FA scale and trickled them right up to 50gr. Which if the unit is displaying 50 it should be between 49.6 and 50.5???? I am not sure about this. but logic would dictate that a digital device would have to operate in such a manner. After weighing each charge on the digital I would transfer them to the beam scale and it would reflect the fluctuation that I stated earlier.. some a little less and some a little more. I then tried doing the same test, but starting with the beam scale and trickling up to 50 gr... takes forever to get it exact. Transferred the charge to the digital scale and it would show spot on 50gr. So I concluded that the ES that I have been seeing in my reloads probably can be contributed to the digital scale having a +/- .5gr and still display 50gr, or what ever load weight you are working towards. I am sure that a .9 to 1.0 spread on charge weight would definitely make a difference in pressures and velocity. I also discovered that in between weighing charges with the digital scale, that if I would check it with a 110 gr bullet that it seemed to keep it awake and accurate.
I loaded up 12 loads for my wife to shoot in her Ruger # 1 257 Bob just using the digital scale. We will see if the trend continues. This evening I am going to load some loads for my 1891 Mauser in 7.65 using the balance scale, letting it settle to exactly level each time and see it the ES tightens up. After doing this test I think one would need to get a digital scale capable of 1/100 gr accuracy like the on recommend by the previous post.. Might be the direction I am going.. One last thought. I was always under the impression that a consistent smokeless powder charge was more about volume and not weight, and I never would weigh each charge, just used my Lee powder thrower and weighed every 10th one to verify consistency. It seems to be at least as consistent if not better than weighing each with a digital scale with a +/- .5 gr spread.. Thoughts... opinions??? Please do.
Thanks and take care
Ed

 

[jimbires]

I'll throw in my 2 cents on this .

I'll say + or - a tenth being acceptable would be depending on what cartridge you're loading for . varying powder charges means a lot more on a very small case than it does on high capacity cases . think 45acp at about 4.0 grains , or my 338 lapua at over 100 grains . I would suggest you think in terms of percentage when dealing with powder weight spread . with reloading I try to control everything I can , powder is the easiest thing I can think of to put spot on , so why not . by weighing my powder to the kernel it gives me one less thing to think about if I'm trying to figure out a problem . my desired Lapua powder charge weight is 102.50 gr . my ammo is loaded at 102.48 - 102.52 gr this is as close as I can load since one kernel of powder weighs .06 gr . another thing to consider would be your shooting distance . if you shoot from point blank to 200 yards your reloading process doesn't mean as much as the habits of a 1000 yard BR shooter . a little extra powder causes vertical in the group at longer distances . another thing I think of is when developing a load . if I am working my powder charges down to .2 gr or .3 gr and I have a weighing system that is + or - a tenth , how accurate is my load development . could this cause a guy to chase his tail because it shot great yesterday , but today not so good . I see nothing but adding positive results by getting your powder charge as perfect as can be . I read guys say that precision powder weight gets lost due to varying case capacity . my thoughts are you need to control one of these . either you sort cases by capacity , or you weigh powder as precise as you can . if you don't do one or the other you could end up with heavy powder charges in small cases , and light charges in big cases . tolerances can and will add up . Murphy's Law is always standing by to point out your short cuts .

 

[papajoe222]

I never questioned my Lee beam until I started. Loading for handgun cartridges. Anything below 10gr and the consistency seems to fluctuate. Luckily, my powder drop is spot on.
I re-zero every time and then check it with weights. I have very little faith in the average digital scale and the quality ones are out of my price range.

 

[DrMike]

Welcome aboard, papajoe222. You are correct in urging caution for smaller charge weights. Jim gave a fine explanation of the problem associated with smaller charges. Again, welcome aboard.

 

[mjcmichigan]

I try to pick powders with some bulk to avoid measuring 3g

But even then, we are talking 5-7 for handgun loads


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[bdbrown66]

FWIW, the FA D750 is rated to .1gr accuracy, not .5gr as mentioned above. I have been using one for about a year, and have no reason to question its accuracy. Previous to that, I was using an RCBS 505 balance beam. The D750 is quicker to get a reading on, with no noticeable effect on accuracy of my loads.

There is a review of this unit on ChuckHawks, and it was as accurate as much more expensive scales from the usual suspects.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/frankford_DS750_scale.htm

 

[jimbires]

I thought you might be interested in reading this thread .

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/ ... ce-186785/

 

[AK7AN]

Jim,
Thanks for the link. Interesting reading for sure..
I plan on shooting my test loads on Sunday, and will post what I have discovered.. if anything :lol:
Take care
Ed

 

[RiverRider]

I thought you might be interested in reading this thread .

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/ ... ce-186785/

Good points made in that thread, but the best one IMO is the one about controlling all the other variables. Play around with QuicklOAD a bit and you will see that case volume variations can easily negate the effort to weigh down to the kernel.

Here's a post a made on another forum illustrating the point. Of course, I was skewered by the unthinking and unknowing who completely missed the point, or was simply in a surly mood...but, whatever!

All the recent discussion of the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the RCBS Chargemaster reminded me of an experiment I've always wanted to conduct, and the time was right this afternoon so I did it. It has been my position that trying to achieve super-accurate powder charges is a waste of time unless your brass is carefully sorted by case capacity. Having some recently fired Nosler brass in .30-06 on hand and QuickLOAD on my PC, the time was right to find out.

This brass has been fired once. It is well formed to the chamber of my rifle. Being Nosler brass, it is of probably better-than-average quality and consistency so I figured it would make for a pretty objective piece of the experiment. I randomly selected ten fired cases and found the heaviest and lightest of the group, assuming as most of us probably would that the capacities would at least roughly correspond to the weights of the cases. I ended up with a case weiging 179.2 grains, and one weighing 176.8 grains. The water capacities checked out to be 72.4 grains and 72.8 grains, respectively. That is a difference of only 0.4 grains of water capacity.

I set up QuickLOAD to check the .30-06 loaded with a Hornady 168-grain A-Max powered by a very sane charge of 58.0 grains of H4350. I then ran this load with the case capacity set to 72.4 grains of H2O, and the resulting velocity showed to be 2765 fps. With case capacity set to 72.8 grains, velocity calculated to be 2758 fps. So, I found a variation of 22 fps / grain of H2O case capacity.

With only the powder charge varied and case capacity held constant, it appeared that velocity would vary by about 49 fps / grain, or 4.9 fps / 0.1 grain of H4350. I think this is very close to what has previously been presented. In theory, a one-tenth grain of scale error would cause about a 5 fps variation in velocity and an error of 0.01 grain of powder would induce a variation of about 1/2 fps.

BUT, here's what I've been saying all along: dump those super-accurate charges in cases with the kind of capacity spread I found within 10 high-quality random cases, and you're still going to see a velocity spread of about 7 fps, which is greater than a 0.1-grain charge difference in two identical cases. Bear in mind that I most likely could have found even greater case capacity disparity in a single group of 50 cases had I wanted to go to the effort and the spread would have been greater. Maybe one of you statistics guys could come up with a probable variation figure.

So, draw your own conclusions as to what is worth doing and what is NOT worth doing. I encourage anyone who has the tools and inclination to run an analysis like this on some different cartidge with capacity figures for brass of higher or lower quality. More data is [almost] always better.

 

[truck driver]

I have an old RCBS / Ohaus 10-10 that I have used for almost 40 years and have several other beam scales that came to me by way of buying box lots of reloading equipment.
This scale has never let me down even loading for pistol cartridges that take as little as 1.5grs of powder like the 32 S&W which I used for Bullseye target shooting at Camp Perry.
I needed a electronic scale to get H20 caps and picked up a cheap Ballistics products scale for under $50 and it is right in line with the 10-10 except the 10-10 will get me closer to .1gr so I don't use it to weigh my powder charges.