.001 gram (.015grain) scales?

This sport already either attracts or creates a lot of OCD, AR type poeple. I get it and the fun part about shooting is the technical and details do matter. There is however a point of diminishing returns. Once we start buying into high priced, time consuming products that make absolutly no measurable difference in reuslt then we are allowing ourselves to be abused by the marketing arms of companies. $2000 scales to weigh down to .01 is one of those abuses. If you have one of these scales I have a test for you to try. Take your Lyman or RCBS balance beam, set it up correctly, clean the knife edges and knife pocket and mark you loading table with an outline of the scale to ensure it has not moved between charges being wieghed. Weigh ten charges, ensuring the balance beam is spot on the center mark. For even better accuracy you can attach a pin to the arm. Weigh each of those charges as you do them on your .01 scale and record the weight. I guarantee if you are using your balance beam right you won't have more than .01 above or below the target weight and most will be right on. I ahve done this test with a half dozen balance beams, and even the cheap Lee can hit .02 accuracy. So what this shows you is your expensive electronic scale isn't actually any more accurate than the balance beam, and with the balance beam you don't need to worry about dirty household current, temp, humidity or wind currents affecting the zero near as much. Balance beams don't "DRIFT" much if they aren't moved between charges.

So on top of the fact that they aren't materially more accurate than a balance beam, there is no documented proof that I know of that a .01 eoectronic scale will reduce ES or SD or produce better groups or less vertical at distance.
I agree with this, the upside of a precision digital scale over a beam scale is definitely not more precision (at least for .01 grain resolution scales, you can buy .001 grain resolution digital scales which are more precise). On a beam scale, you can see the scale move an obvious distance with each granule you trickle in, so you can definitely get within one granule with a fairly inexpensive beam scale. You do have to make sure you're looking at it from the same point every time, but otherwise they're very repeatable. In fact, a 0.1 grain resolution digital scale is actually a downgrade from a beam scale in terms of precision. However, what I noticed is that fatigue sets in when reading that needle after loading 50-100 cartridges plus it's not quite as fast to reach a "balanced" state. I wanted a good digital scale for the reduction of fatigue alone, but faster to a result is also nice. And deciding what your accepted margin is a little more difficult. In other words looking at the needle you think 'now is that more or less far from the center mark than that cartridge 15 charges back?' With digital you have a number, for me +/- .02 grains is my margin I allow, much harder to tell whether or not you've met that margin on a beam scale, but I'll concede you can get pretty close.
 
So on top of the fact that they aren't materially more accurate than a balance beam said:
As a matter of fact, I am in the middle of a project to find out why 22 Magnums don't shoot as well as 17 HMR's. So I built a 22 magnum and pulled out all the stops in the quality.

This rifle definitely improved the accuracy, but not enough to compete with the 17 HMR's I have built. so with that I started looking at the factory ammo first and by using the chronograph and the recoil tester the results were very shocking.

I tried all the newer ammo with tipped bullets The same shot in high performance 22 center fire and saw no real improvements. Finding the best (Most accurate) 2 loads, I pullet the bullets on five of each and found that the powder varied by as much as 1,5 grains that shed light on the accuracy problem. (The Factory 17 HMR was less that .5 grains difference). Carefully weighting each 22 mag cartridge and sorting them to as close to the same as possible the accuracy improved from all over the place to less than 1 MOA. still not satisfied I went to SAMMI and found out that they hold the manufactures to 2 % velocity change. The 22 Mag is held to 10% :(

So far the results are that "Any" difference in the powder charge can change the velocity if only by a few ft/sec. We tested some other factory loaded center fire ammo and found the same results. If the powder charge was less than the average, velocity went down slightly If it was more the velocity went up. Even if these changes were only a few ft/sec it did affect the SD's and ES's. The reloaded ammo performed much better on all data, apparently because we measured it carefully.

These differences would probably be seen in a group @ 100 yards but at greater distances they could be the difference in accuracy.

More testing is in the works for the 22 Mag to find the reason it just doesn't shoot as well as other rimfires.

J E CUSTOM
 
This sport already either attracts or creates a lot of OCD, AR type poeple. I get it and the fun part about shooting is the technical and details do matter. There is however a point of diminishing returns. Once we start buying into high priced, time consuming products that make absolutly no measurable difference in reuslt then we are allowing ourselves to be abused by the marketing arms of companies. $2000 scales to weigh down to .01 is one of those abuses. If you have one of these scales I have a test for you to try. Take your Lyman or RCBS balance beam, set it up correctly, clean the knife edges and knife pocket and mark you loading table with an outline of the scale to ensure it has not moved between charges being wieghed. Weigh ten charges, ensuring the balance beam is spot on the center mark. For even better accuracy you can attach a pin to the arm. Weigh each of those charges as you do them on your .01 scale and record the weight. I guarantee if you are using your balance beam right you won't have more than .01 above or below the target weight and most will be right on. I ahve done this test with a half dozen balance beams, and even the cheap Lee can hit .02 accuracy. So what this shows you is your expensive electronic scale isn't actually any more accurate than the balance beam, and with the balance beam you don't need to worry about dirty household current, temp, humidity or wind currents affecting the zero near as much. Balance beams don't "DRIFT" much if they aren't moved between charges.

So on top of the fact that they aren't materially more accurate than a balance beam, there is no documented proof that I know of that a .01 eoectronic scale will reduce ES or SD or produce better groups or less vertical at distance.

LOL 50% of me agrees 100% about the statement of a properly set up beam scale. You better put a video camera on the needle in the Dampening system. As one member has stated, after a couple of rounds parallax will set in. Human nature, plus I have already been down that rabbit hole. Too much time and head scratching. Also, weighing in 0.01gn resolution is a farce. A kernel of RL-26 weighs 0.024gn and a kernel of IMR 8208 XBR weighs 0.025gn. just and example.
As one member has stated, What are you gonna do? Cut a kernel into.. 0.02 in my opinion is the correct resolution to be weighing grains in. If that not close enough. I suggest you take your grain weight and convert it to grams and weigh that way. A lot more resolution. But you will still be cutting kernels and pulling your hair out. I gotta T-shirt for that adventure down that rabbit hole.
The other 50% is LMAO, no poo intended, just having fun with it. Gotta laugh,, right. It reminded me of the conversation with my father in law where I was justifying the cost of buying my Sartorius V3 combo. He said everything you just stated. LOL,, Trust me at 86yrs old. He's very happy with my decision and is see thing my way now on the purchase. He's been reloading since his teens. He taught me his way, the old way of reloading. That's priceless
info into days world. Me, through research, and I mean a lot of research we have evolved in our reloading and shooting in todays time. Sorry I got off topic.
I promise you this. I am OCD, and every other OCD person on this Forum and in the shooting world in general.
Did not buy a high dollar weighing / powder drop system to charge AR15 Simi-auto rifles. I guarantee you their shooting a Bolt rifle. The AR-15 and the AR-10 Simi-Auto's are just a, God sent, extra bonus.
Also, Every person I have chatted with that has paid the price and bought an FX120i V3 combo or Sartorius V3 combo
will tell you that their ED and SD averages has come down and are very consistent. My data over the last three weeks is showing the same trend. CONSISTANT. With the Sartorius BCE223I it allows me to take each case weight and send it straight to Excel, and with the data from my Labradar in excel. It allows me to keep track of each bullet's data.
I going to tell you some thing that will freak you out, Talk about OCD. I working on a way to bar Code each case so during its life cycle I can track all the data on that case. My wife blames my job. They made a data analyst out of me
so spotting trends in the number come easy to me. You take every thing I mention about data collecting and put in in numbers and graph it out. You can see what that bullet is doing in flight. Don't forget about wind, temp and humidity, sun light. If I didn't mention them elements, some one would call me out on it.
Well in the name of fun, I type another semi off topic comment. Do I regret buying new tools for the reloading room.
NO. Do I feel guilty for buying a high dollar scale??? Well the wife wanted to paint the guest bed room. HECK NO.
You make them to comfortable,, they want leave. After reading over this. I think That I'm Still trying to justify spending the money. Will I send it back. Hel7 No. will I go back to using a beam scale??? Only if we have an EMP hit us. LOL,
Good night Dean.
PS. I put more emphasis on case prep, neck tension, concentricity as a major Factor on rounds out to 1000yds. The powder charge can have a some variance but will affect Ed, SD, and Averages. On 1000yds rounds. The powder charges should be spot on and very tight tolerances on case prep, neck tension and concentricity. JMHO.
 
All I can say is with all of this precision in weighing & case prep I would like to actually see it in some 1/4moa or less targets.

You cant talk the talk unless you can walk the walk ;)

Just show us the results, you cant show the results your talking about on an animal 1000yrds away :)
 
I will be glad to share my findings with you.
Keep in mind the Labradar and scale are both new to me and I'm still learning to effectively use both of them. The scale was plug and play, not a problem one. The Labrador, not so much. It required making changes to my 100yd private range and a learning curve using it. About 2 weeks ago I posted a pic of my 1st shoot with the scale.
Scan my post. You will find it. Its a pic of the target with the chrono readings. I think that was a load data comparison between lapua and Hornady brass. I think the lapua brass was weighed on my gempro 250. Check it out. I shot about 4 days ago and I haven't had time to compile the data from that shoot yet, but the groups tightened up on the lapua, and for the Hornady brass, I need to drop the load to a lower nod. It showed signs of high presser at that load. Flatten primers.
I'll be glad to share my findings as I go down this new rabbit hole. I mean path.
 
I will be glad to share my findings with you.
Keep in mind the Labradar and scale are both new to me and I'm still learning to effectively use both of them. The scale was plug and play, not a problem one. The Labrador, not so much. It required making changes to my 100yd private range and a learning curve using it. About 2 weeks ago I posted a pic of my 1st shoot with the scale.
Scan my post. You will find it. Its a pic of the target with the chrono readings. I think that was a load data comparison between lapua and Hornady brass. I think the lapua brass was weighed on my gempro 250. Check it out. I shot about 4 days ago and I haven't had time to compile the data from that shoot yet, but the groups tightened up on the lapua, and for the Hornady brass, I need to drop the load to a lower nod. It showed signs of high presser at that load. Flatten primers.
I'll be glad to share my findings as I go down this new rabbit hole. I mean path.
Sure, happy to see it from anyone including the OP ;)
 
338 lapua shot about 3 weeks ago .
 

Attachments

  • P8170922.JPG
    P8170922.JPG
    181.7 KB · Views: 79
heck I wasn't thinking when I posted the target above .

this is shot the same day .

a couple targets shot with a 7mm mashburn . the 100 yard target is from this past spring .
 

Attachments

  • P8160915.JPG
    P8160915.JPG
    175.3 KB · Views: 84
  • P8160913.JPG
    P8160913.JPG
    274.5 KB · Views: 82
Warning! This thread is more than 4 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.
Top