:shock: Yeah I did just that. I no sooner bragged on my RCBS Chargemaster, then the damned thing went toes up on me. Oh well, I got 15 years of good service from it. I'd said if it ever died I'd go out and buy another.
Went to Sportsman's Warehouse and they only had a Chargemaster Lite. It actually cost more than my original machine and frankly, IT SUCKS! It's supposed to be accurate to + or - 0.1 grain. That I can accept. I had planned to load the rounds up with Re17 for my 7x57 so the new tool was what I used. I had set for a charge and hit the "GO" button. It did it's thing and then I check weighed it on a scale I knew was accurate. FWIW, I did the same thing with the original Chargemaster until I was sure it threw accurate charges. One of the charges was 44.0 gr. which according to Speer is the max load while Quickload said otherwise by quite a bit. The load was 44.0 gr. and what dropped was usually 0.1 gr. light when check weighed. No biggie as the original usually did that or was spot on. So far so good right? Wrong. Here's what I got. 44.1, 43.9, 44.5, 44.0, and 42.8. :shock: I loaded 12 levels for testing from Speer's start load to slightly into the "dangerous do not use category". I had to fight those type variations for every one of the 12 different loads. The rifle I'll use is a custom Mauser that is very tightly chambered and shows pressure problems much faster than my M70 FWT or Ruger #1, also in 7x57.
My carefully considered opinion is it's as useless as mammary glands on a boar hog.
So I can do two things. Wrap it back up and take to the store where they'll probably put it back on the shelf for some unsuspecting customer or contact RCBS to see what they'll do. Either way I'm left without a tool. Frankly I want a Chargemaster and not the lite one. I'll probably give RCBS a call and work from there.
Paul B.
Went to Sportsman's Warehouse and they only had a Chargemaster Lite. It actually cost more than my original machine and frankly, IT SUCKS! It's supposed to be accurate to + or - 0.1 grain. That I can accept. I had planned to load the rounds up with Re17 for my 7x57 so the new tool was what I used. I had set for a charge and hit the "GO" button. It did it's thing and then I check weighed it on a scale I knew was accurate. FWIW, I did the same thing with the original Chargemaster until I was sure it threw accurate charges. One of the charges was 44.0 gr. which according to Speer is the max load while Quickload said otherwise by quite a bit. The load was 44.0 gr. and what dropped was usually 0.1 gr. light when check weighed. No biggie as the original usually did that or was spot on. So far so good right? Wrong. Here's what I got. 44.1, 43.9, 44.5, 44.0, and 42.8. :shock: I loaded 12 levels for testing from Speer's start load to slightly into the "dangerous do not use category". I had to fight those type variations for every one of the 12 different loads. The rifle I'll use is a custom Mauser that is very tightly chambered and shows pressure problems much faster than my M70 FWT or Ruger #1, also in 7x57.
My carefully considered opinion is it's as useless as mammary glands on a boar hog.
So I can do two things. Wrap it back up and take to the store where they'll probably put it back on the shelf for some unsuspecting customer or contact RCBS to see what they'll do. Either way I'm left without a tool. Frankly I want a Chargemaster and not the lite one. I'll probably give RCBS a call and work from there.
Paul B.