Digital scales

[hitchphil]

I have used both & they have their pros & cons.

Balance scales need more time, their sensitivity is analogue & if you nudge them reset them.
Digital are fast & accurate but leave the batteries in or drop them............. They dont weigh in grains but grams then convert it so that can into an error factor by rounding up or down the 0.00x value. £100 digital scales do this as much as £12

I have tested my £12 ebay digital scales with lab defined weights weighed on a 0.0001g accuracy NAMAS calibrated sartorious lab scale & on a good non vibrating surface (glass table works well) they are perfectly fine to 0.005g, & propellant weight to +/-0.1-0.3gn is more than adequate. my proof is my 308 TR rounds have achieved a +/- 1/4moa accuracy on elevation with rounds loaded to XX.3 to XX.7gn at distances from 300 to 900yds.

......... they work by piezo vibration now (the frequency is affected by the mass loaded) & their sensitivity is much finer than a balance. some times you need to count to 5 before trickling further.

if your worried about repeat-ability put a known weight on 30 times & measure the frequency of the spread of values given. Mine was less than 0.005g i.e. 0.1gn.

Plenty of credible competition shots chuck powder in from a thrower or to a 0.5gn tolerance & get excellent results. There are probably other factors that have more influence on fired round accuracy than the 0.05g/0.1gn accuracy of a scale.

[BamBam]

Here's the scale I use, Frankfort Arsenal.

It does measure in grains and as they say is for the budget minded, still a great little scale. Don't leave it out when non-shooters come to visit, they'll think you use it for a different kind of powder.

[jimmyhall]

I had looked at the Lyman gen 6 as I thought it looked pretty good and gets some fairly good reviews. However I have read it is fairly slow to release the powder so takes a fair while to make a single load?

Frankfort scales look interesting, I guess it depends how accurate and consistent your looking for, most of my shooting it is more likely to be my error than a point of a grain over in the case, it is more for me that it remains safe and it dosn't produce unsafe loads while still keeping good accuracy. Obviously the more accurate it is the better but for me it is not the B all, half an inch out is still a kill shot.

[phaedra1106]

If you're loading for hunting then an adjustable powder dispenser that throws a consistent charge weight and a set of "reasonable" digital scales to check will do (as long as you're not using maximum loads where any over charge could be very dangerous).

The Lee Perfect Powder Measure is cheap but very accurate, better than some of those costing 4 or 5 times as much.

[TattooedGun]

Here's the scale I use, Frankfort Arsenal.

It does measure in grains and as they say is for the budget minded, still a great little scale. Don't leave it out when non-shooters come to visit, they'll think you use it for a different kind of powder.

This is the one I have but it tends to drift by a grain or thereabouts after 100 throws or so. It could be the temperature change as I tend to throw powder on the windowsil (Solid base) but the window is rarely closed. Still, I got decent accuracy when starting out with it. I feel much mroe comfortable with the beam scale now though...

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/713372 ... n-capacity

[phaedra1106]

I have 2 that are identical to the Frankford arsenal one, got them off eBay for under £10 each, both measure in gr and measure OK when checked with check weights, good enough for a quick check.

[Countryman]

I have used the Frankford one to batch bullets. It's very suspect able to temperature, air movement and fluorescent lights.

I have two of the identical looking ones from eBay and they are not quite as good.

I now have a neat stack of 5 cheap electronic scales on my shelf. Make me an offer!

I recently acquired a set of MTM ones I haven't tried yet so cannot comment upon.

I stopped using all others when the RCBS showed up as part of my Chargemaster combo.

[rox]

They dont weigh in grains but grams then convert it so that can into an error factor by rounding up or down the 0.00x value. £100 digital scales do this as much as £12

When I first read this theory in another forum I put it down to someone speculating without really understanding how instruments, micro-controllers etc work. Do you know which balances have such fundamentally poor software?

When I compare results from my 3dp balances on my 4dp balance, the switch point is exactly half way between increments regardless of units, as you'd expect, so definitely no 'double scaling with rounding error and resolution loss', but then they are high quality pieces of kit and presumably aren't programmed by muppets.

It's obviously true that the increment of a 1mg balance when used in grain units is usually fractionally larger than when it's used in mg units, but that's not because it 'works' in grams then scales (a second time) to grains, introducing 'rounding error'. That would be stupid.

Some pedantic folk do work in grams because of the finer resolution, but then some even use 4dp balances - what a pain that must be.

One of my next experiments will be to examine the effect of charge variations of +/-0.00, -/+0.02, +/-0.04, +/-0.06 etc, at different points on the charge/velocity curve, so I can determine what charge variation I can reliably accept without loss of performance, or rather how quickly I can dispense charges without performance degradation. But as other replies have illustrated, there's a lot more to high quality balances than resolution/readability or precision.

..

[Dannywayoflife]

I use gempro250's and have since sold my rcbs505's. The gempro's are very good and my ES and SD have come down significantly since moving to them

[Lee B]

Must confess to using Frankford Arsenal (cost €35) digital scales too :( just to keep a rough eye on what the Lee Powder Disk measure is dropping into the cases really.
I would say that the attention to detail I've seen on this forum, especially with reloading is amazing, by contrast I only really use scales for determining the minimum charge with a new powder, make 10, shift to the next largest hole on the powder disk make another 10 etc, take them to the range to try then settle on the load which with the least powder, cycles the gun properly and gives consistent groups, go home and make a few hundred. I think I can hear the hoots of derision already :(