juststarting wrote:I've been reloading for a about a year now, little over. Started with a 308 case for a trickler, small plastic party spoon for a scoop and cheap RCBS balance beam scales - works fine, but mind numbingly slow.
I had a chance to use few other tricklers and honestly opted to stay with 308 case that I've grown quite fond off, best trickler ever! I have upgraded to some random Lee scoop that came with a set of dies (I know roughly by volume how much I need to scoop on to the scales before trickling) and I purchased a $30 digital jewellery scales that turned out to be crazy accurate, but there are few gotchas with them too. I usually throw on digital scales, then on beam scales to verify and while magnetic dampeners on the beam scales come down, I throw the next charge on the digital scales. The process works, it's a reasonably faster and a bit more sane when loading 50-100 rounds of the same charge. It's a lot slower when I am working up a load half or one grain per batch.
Essentially I am pedantic and have no plans to move to - check every 5th or whatever... I would like to continue with the same validation routine, every charge, but at faster pace.
1.
I was wondering, what do you guys use for this? Do you use beam scales only, powder thrower + scales, something automated (e.g. Hornady Lock N Load Auto Charge), etc?
2.
What's your overall process?
Cheers
Similar to what you do. I started reloading when I was seventeen, before the internet, working on the premise that even a single granule over would blow my .222 up
I throw every charge onto a $300 Gempro250 scale using Lee dippers. I have a trickler but most often I just trickle from the dipper, just don't sneeze.
One trick though, I throw the first charge on the scale then zero the scale.
That way I'm trickling my charges "down" to 00.00gns instead of up to a specific number.
Before this I've caught myself accidentally throwing 38.4gns instead of 37.4gns for example - easily done, especially during load development when you're loading different charges.
Although this is my technique and I'm not looking to change it, I've thrown enough powder from dippers to know that they're perfectly adequate for throwing charges straight into the brass. If you've worked up your loads using a "ladder" system to find the sweet spot where minor charge variations have no affect on your elevation, you can use the dippers and have ammunition just as good as weighing every charge to 0.00gns. If you're pushing maximum pressures though I'd recommend weighing every charge.