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Hi all,

As a New reloader I currently have the RCBS M1000 balance beam scales, they are good but I have no way to sense check the loads, can anyone recommend a decent digital scale that won’t break the bank that is reliable?

Thanks in advance.


Sent from my boing using "An application"

The RCBS Rangemaster has proved reliable. A lot of the cheaper ones will let you down.

A simple set of RCBS or Lyman grain checkweights will tell you if you can trust your scale. Your M1000 scale will still be working long after any digital scale you buy is in the bin.

http://www.gungle.uk/reloading-equipmen ... ghts_i1965

You have an excellent set of scales there and good beam scales are way more accurate and reliable than all but laboratory quality electronic models. Even with the latter, there are major use and environment issues as all electronic models are so sensitive to vibration, ambient temperature changes, electrical supply variations, electronic interference (DECT and mobile phones, fluorescent lighting, stray magnetic fields - you name it, it'll make electronic scales unreliable!).

If you want to check your results, invest in a set of check weights. Lyman and RCBS make them, Lyman is cheaper, well less expensive. IMO they are a must-have for any handloader who is loading up to maximum pressures.

To make beam scales more reliable in use, viewing the scale pointer from the same position is essential. A modern high-tech way of achieving this used to be supplied by forum member 1066 (Allan Edwards who makes the Target Master trickler) - a tiny webcam camera that clips onto a bracket on the scale body and is level with the beam end in its horizontal position. Connect to a tablet, laptop, smartphone etc and get a parallax-free picture. As well as removing all parallax, the magnification makes beam scale use much easier.

Alternatively, the Target Master Trickler itself makes for very consistent charge weights. Ally it with the check-weights selected to give your desired charge weight and you can produce charge after charge as consistently and reliably as check-weighing and adjusting them using a £400 or £500 set of laboratory electronic scales.

1066 wrote:A simple set of RCBS or Lyman grain checkweights will tell you if you can trust your scale. Your M1000 scale will still be working long after any digital scale you buy is in the bin.

http://www.gungle.uk/reloading-equipmen ... ghts_i1965

This-----^

A word of warning about cheap electronic scales...

They use load cells which are excellent for weighing discrete quantities, very accurate and repeatable.

However as they work by effectively measuring the deflection of a piece of aluminium they have their limits.

One such limit is that they have circuitry built into the called "anti-drift" which acts a bit like a PID controller in principle and tries to "average out" scale drift due to temperature, interference, etc, etc.

The problem with this is that the circuit is designed to look for these little shifts and ignore them, so if you are trickling powder into the pan slowly and carefully the circuitry can filter your additions out until some sort of threshold is hit.

You can test this for yourself by trickling powder into a pan on one of these scales kernel by kernel and the re-weighing after re-zeroing the scale.

They are handy for weighing cases and such like but I wouldn't use them for load development.

What Flashheart said...............
I tried a good quality electronic balance, but found that slow trickling resulted in wide discrepancies. If you just plonk a weight on repeatedly, it looks fine.
I now use a mechanical ex-lab analytical balance, bought refurbed and calibrated a couple of years ago for £105. I recently bought this to monitor it's performance.:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/17Pcs-211-1g- ... 2749.l2649

These are fine for calibrating any balance. Consistency and freedom from drift is far more important than out and out accuracy when weighing rifle powder.
By that I mean each time you weigh for example 45 grains, the weight should be identical. It doesn't matter if its 44.8 or 45.2, as long as it's ALWAYS 44.8 or 45.2.

Pete

As previously posted, get a set of check weights and mount your scale at eye level to minimise parallax deviation.

ukrifleman.

Thanks for all the detailed replies guys, I wasn’t aware digital scales had so many potential pitfalls, I’ll stick with the balance scales and get some check weights.

Thanks again.


Sent from my boing using "An application"

you don't even necessarily need a check weight, any lump of non ferrous, low oxidising material - plastic would be ideal. set your balance up as you would normally, and weigh it. do it a few times to make sure it's on the money. and record that figure. now whenever you want to check them, add that on, and it should show the recorded figure, if it doesn't, the scale is wrong and needs resetting

Laurie wrote:You have an excellent set of scales there and good beam scales are way more accurate and reliable than all but laboratory quality electronic models. Even with the latter, there are major use and environment issues as all electronic models are so sensitive to vibration, ambient temperature changes, electrical supply variations, electronic interference (DECT and mobile phones, fluorescent lighting, stray magnetic fields - you name it, it'll make electronic scales unreliable!).

If you want to check your results, invest in a set of check weights. Lyman and RCBS make them, Lyman is cheaper, well less expensive. IMO they are a must-have for any handloader who is loading up to maximum pressures.

To make beam scales more reliable in use, viewing the scale pointer from the same position is essential. A modern high-tech way of achieving this used to be supplied by forum member 1066 (Allan Edwards who makes the Target Master trickler) - a tiny webcam camera that clips onto a bracket on the scale body and is level with the beam end in its horizontal position. Connect to a tablet, laptop, smartphone etc and get a parallax-free picture. As well as removing all parallax, the magnification makes beam scale use much easier.

Alternatively, the Target Master Trickler itself makes for very consistent charge weights. Ally it with the check-weights selected to give your desired charge weight and you can produce charge after charge as consistently and reliably as check-weighing and adjusting them using a £400 or £500 set of laboratory electronic scales.

What he said clapclap