scales make and model

[Fester]

Yeah, each to their own, and I shot lots of different disciplines at different ranges, as I like variety.
I got on with everyone for 7-8 years.

Then it became obvious that shooters were their own worst enemies.
When the SFFP and SSAA were feuding, I rest my case; we were doomed.

The Fudd mentality always comes from the same types, and it's not the general shooters.
We have all seen them: a small club committee who gladly let their own club die off to about 20 members, but are happy as long as they see their days out, and look out if anyone tries to help with change.
They will be attacked and expelled.

I seen the old F-Class club blokes arguing amongst themselves over template issues that were not helping their cause or fight in the least. A few were decent blokes and tried to get their small club expanding again, but the others would scare newbs away.

The few times that I was attacked by Fudds, for no reason, were the same types, shooters who only shot their one discipline and hated everyone else, general shooters, hunters. They will never help the shooting cause and don't care until the govt comes for their Omark and single-shot .22, well after we have all lost our guns.

After seeing a Fudd try to attack me, after Bondi, just made me give up on them.
I think he just went off because of my bad little banned gun, but I have no Omark or 50s Lithgow .22.
Shooting with them is about as appealing as what you said about Albo going for it with his little peanut at your eyes.
I just near dry reached again.

SSAA are run like a draconian org from the 70s, and will suffer this time as shooting dies off to a farm type thing.
They should have reformed their own org over the last 10 years, as so much of their funds would likely just be sucked up in their inefficiencies.

Shooters won't unite, but with info so easy to get now and people waking up.
I just hope the other outdoor rec groups step up and fight before it's too late.

[Jorlcrin]

[Re-hashing this discussion, because for the first time in over a year, I've been loading up some ammo for a friend..]

I use electronic scales; have done for over 15 years now.
Before that, I was using a beam scale to check the consistency of my Dillon RL-550B press, that has individual mechanical powder dispensers on each tool-head.
[Surprisingly consistently accurate, too.]
When I migrated to a Forster Co-Axial press, I wanted to try an electronic dispenser for powder.

First electronic dispenser was a Lyman unit(~2010 or so), and was a POS from day 1.
Had continual problems with getting it to dispense consistently, and best advice I got was the Lyman was designed for dispensing ball powders, and didnt like the ADI style of cylindrical/stick powders.
Most of my powder usage at the time was AR2208(Varget), so Mr Lyman didnt like working for me much.
There was an upgrade that was supposed to address this, but I never found the upgrade helped, either.
Found that not only was the dispensing inconsistent, but the zero kept 'wandering'.
Thinking it was due to dust, spent a lot of time cleaning the whole thing out, but never got it to be reliable.
Ended up mothballing that unit, and eventually threw it out.

Went back to my RCBS beam scales and manual thrower(Lyman) for a while, and then bought the RCBS Chargemaster 1500.
It's a vast improvement over the Lyman electronic, but still threw the odd squirrelly charge when dispensing AR2208.
A partial solution was to insert a short section of drinking straw into the dispensing tube, to help the stick powders dispense evenly.
Apparently, the McDonalds straw of the day was considered the best sizing fit, and seems to have been right, as it was slightly thicker than your average drinking straw..
The straw does seem to improve dispensing of the stick powders a bit.
A few years later, and when I was loading a number of calibers at the same time, I also bought an RCBS Chargemaster Lite, and it's turned out to be a cracker of a machine.
The dispensing tube is a bit bigger than the other one, and looks to have ribs inside it, which helps even out the flow of the stick powders.

So, things that I've noticed about my powder dispensing and scales experiences:-
1). Breezes are a killer for consistency on electronic scales, and mechanical ones as well(though more obvious when affecting the mechanical scales).
2). Whenever I've dispensed ball or disc powders through either of my RCBS electronic units, they have always been very accurate and consistent.
3). I have a LOT of magnets around the edges of my reloading bench area for holding various tools handy, but I keep them all a good foot or more away from the powder dispensers when loading - I've seen the scales react when a magnet gets held near the unit..
4). Crappy power can affect electronic scales; worth having a UPS cleaning the power before it goes into the scales.
5). I dont rely or trust one set of scales completely, and often re-zero them, as well as re-calibrate them regularly.
6). I regularly cross-check the scale results between the 4 different electronic scales I currently have.

But one thing I notice, is that since I started using the RCBS units, it's never been the scales themselves that have been the issue(for me).
It's usually been the electronic powder dispensing side that seems to be the issue.
Either it goes through a phase of over-dispensing by 0.1 or 0.1 grains, or under by similar.
The over-dispensing can be attributed to the stick powder not coming out evenly, but the under-dispensing has got to be the brains itself.
Both of these are easy to resolve; a tiny teaspoon to pick up half a dozen grains from the pan, will bring it back to correct weight.
Any that are under is just a case of hitting the 'Trickle' button until it reaches correct weight.
Neither of these take up much time.
I'd be lucky to see one charge in 10 being 'out', but easily corrected.

Note that I'm only loading for hunting, so I'd be approaching this different if I was chasing higher consistency than paddock work.
Mate who was shooting F-Class bought himself a Prometheus powder dispenser, and it was interesting to see that power quality was a factor on it's accuracy as well.
[Mind you; it was dispensing powder by individual grains, so it was working A LOT harder at getting consistency right..]

But I'm not seeing the electronic scales themselves as having any serious problems.
And I can easily forgive the load variations, for the convenience of the dispenser working on the next charge, as soon as I drop the emptied pan back onto the unit.

Again; I'm loading for paddock work, but I'll take the convenience of electronic scales and dispensers any day.
My 2 cents.

[scoot]

Anyone have a supertrickler or autotrickler v4 with A&D scales???? No matter how much prep work or care I take can't get lower sd or random velocity spikes out of the equation. All I can put it down to is the hornady auto charge pro not throwing consistent enough. Most scales only read to 0.1gr plus or minus 0.1gr. Technically that leaves a .3gr window if everything is working A1.

[Fester]

I agree that RCBS really got it right with the Chargemaster lite, apart from some failures at first, and irreparable.
I was lucky, and NIOA replaced my Grey Import that hasn't failed in maybe 8 years.

When Maccas went to cardboard straws, I tried one of them for the .1 overthrows.
They work a little better, but slower final trickling.

I have a system of 2 pans, weight-matched, to speed the whole system up.
The machine fills a pan, beeps, I wait to see the readout, and one hand removes the full pan while the other puts the spare pan on so the machine is working while I fill the case.
Waiting time is about what it takes to single-seat pills as the next pan fills.

For those .1 overcharges, I just tip about 4 granules into the second pan and re-weigh.
Tip them into the next pan as it charges.

My very solid bench means seating pills and stuff has no effect on the machine working.
Wind is about all that can adversely affect it.

I scored an old RCBS beam scale with the Vernier-type fine adjustment to check accuracy.
It never leaves the cupboard, and I didn't need to check, as the machine is spot on.

[straightshooter]

Yet another opportunity to highlight the credulity of shooters.
I personally know two shooters who have forked out 2 grand plus on a V4 trickler and A&D scales only to find that all that care and expense in reality makes four fifths of five eights of F***all difference.
Why so?
Take a typical 308 load with 47 grains of 2208 and 155 grain projectile producing 2900 fps.
What happens if the load is increased to 47.1 grains?
Do the simple arithmetic.
47.1 / 47 = 1.002127659
That in simple terms represents a 0.2% increase in realisable energy from the powder by adding 0.1 grain.
So multiply 1.002127659 x 2900 = 2906.17 fps
That's not what I would call a spectacular difference.
So over a random group of 12 shots, with powder ranging between 46.9 to 47.1 grains and not subject to any other influences the S.D. would be less than 4.

There is a more complex calculation which will deliver a lower variation but there is nothing to be gained in pursuing it here.

[scoot]

While you're example rings true a smaller case/load, charges near max, different powders, nodes, etc will yeild velocity variations greater than the example. Surely in a game of consistency having a thrower that's more accurate is better. I get the waste of money argument but shooting and reloading is hardly the game to play if you're frugal. Why not eliminate 1 more variable.