How Good Is Your Scale

bamban

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 13, 2009
Messages
2,557
Location
Williamson County, TX
Back in the day when I had access to our cal lab, I took a check weight for them to weigh for me. Including the ink it weighed 308.76 grains rounded to 2 decimal points. I have forgotten all about this guy till ran into the box it was in when I decided I could no longer tolerate the messy bench, and cleaned it.

So, just for laughs snd giggles I thought I would verify the scales I use.


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Over the years the powder charges I weigh from any of these instruments did not cost me the 9s I shot.
 
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I have the FX scale as you do and sometimes I think it is too accurate or maybe the correct word would be sensitive. I pass my hand over the scale and that slight wind movement will cause the reading to bounce all over the place. Takes longer to get the correct readout when loading the pan. Yeah, come to think of it it's very accurate but frustrating to get to that point.
 
I have the FX scale as you do and sometimes I think it is too accurate or maybe the correct word would be sensitive. I pass my hand over the scale and that slight wind movement will cause the reading to bounce all over the place. Takes longer to get the correct readout when loading the pan. Yeah, come to think of it it's very accurate but frustrating to get to that point.

As you can see in the bench are a couple of 50 cal can labeled range reloading. I do a lot of loading in our club AC/heated stat house which is right behind the 200 yard line. Most of the times I just grab the CM1500. With all its mods, it does not do too badly. The FX120i goes nuts as people go in and out of the stat house.

The Denver Instruments is sandwiched between 2 Dillon 650s. Its sole purpose is to use it set powder charges on the progressives.
 
I have the FX scale as you do and sometimes I think it is too accurate or maybe the correct word would be sensitive. I pass my hand over the scale and that slight wind movement will cause the reading to bounce all over the place. Takes longer to get the correct readout when loading the pan. Yeah, come to think of it it's very accurate but frustrating to get to that point.
My FX sits on an oversized mouse pad and I have to shut off one A/C register when reloading. I throw on my RCBS Chargemaster and finish on the FX. No shields. No problems. But no traffic either. RCBS on a mouse pad too.
 
Thanks for sharing this.
I'm sure you know all about scale sampling/filtering personalities, and I am curious about something.
If you wiggle the pan/weight on the CM1500, does is it tend to, or try to, resettle at 308.8?
 
Thank You.
This falls inline with my ability to watch final trickle, and disturbance recovery, and functionally detect a 1/2 decimal beyond display (like within, or below, or over 0.05 from setting).

My CM1500 is modified with analog motor speed control, and I can tune to powder to see my result within individual kernel. This by response, and not actual display to individual kernel. In a sense, operating a cheaper scale to maximum potential.
I had validated this in the past with an Acculab 123
 
I think the scales on the auto charge units are better than most of the stand alone reloading scales.I have a Hornady Auto Charge scale that I've used for the last seven years.Prior to getting the Hornady,I had RCBS 750,RCBS 1500 and Pact equivalent of the 1500.All the stand alone scales had a lot of drift.I think the auto charge scales are designed to reduce the drift because they have the final trickle feature that must be more sensitive and precise to quickly come to the final weight.I usually don't use the auto feature because I don't usually load a large number of rounds at one time,but I do use the scale itself a lot.By hand loading the scale,I have really noticed just how much better it is than my stand alone scales I've used in the past.As for drift to the nearest 0.1,you have to understand the amount of kernels of powder it takes to make .1 of a grain.Extruded powders are the worst because many times the kernels are not the same size.So say I'm using a short cut extruded powder,it usually takes two kernels to make .1 of a grain.So think of it this way,each kernel weighs .05 grains.That one kernel may put you on the low side of .1 of a grain or it may put you on the high side of .1 of a grain or it may put you so close to the next grain the scale just cannot decide which to settle on because most scales are accurate to plus or minus one tenth of a grain.This is where the more expensive lab scales are going to show you how close you are to the nearest tenth of a grain you are because they are reading to the nearest hundredth or thousandth.I really like the ball powders a lot because the kernels are so much smaller,it takes a lot of the tiny kernels to make one tenth of a grain compared to the extruded powders and the scale settles quicker just by adding or removing a few more kernels.
 
I see your phone next to the scales on the bench. I've seen discussions about cell phones contributing to electronic scales drifting, have you seen that before?

In an abundance of caution, I leave my phone away from my scale.
 
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