Looking for opinions on a new electronic powder dispenser. What is the best bang for

cet said:
Maybe so, but you also have to look at repetition, can you put a calibration weight on the scale 20 times and have the same result? without interferance?
What about stabilization time, does it take 20 seconds to give you the final reading?
And, if the display keeps changing, how do you know that is the final weight?
If you leave a calibration weight on the scale for 1 hour, will the weight change during that time?
Does the tare weight change? do you have to keep re-zeroing the scale?

All of the above comments assume you keep the scale at the same temperature, no vibrations, no static, no air movement, etc.
Under these conditions, the scale should perform without any of the above mentioned problems.
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In my experience, the Chargemaster does behave more or less as you've described here. I guess I could go and do some exhaustive tests..

Early on, I did see a few rare cases where it would fluctuate up and down .1 gr. That seemed to be because what I was weighing was just on the threshold between a rounded-up weight and a rounded-down weight, and minor vibrations or air currents were causing the measured value to fluctuate slightly. Adding a kernel or two of powder would cause it to settle on the higher weight.

Now, I do tare the scale every 10th or so round, and I do re-calibrate it once or twice during a loading session. I reload in a small room and am probably affecting the ambient temperature just by being in it over the course of a few hours.

When I'm loading for precision, I check every charge dropped on a force-restoration scale that's accurate a single kernel of powder. Most of the time, the Chargemaster is < .1 gr away from what it claims on the readout. Often it's bang on.
 
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krprice84 said:
It means that it is 0.1 over or under. If it says that you are 0.1 over then that means that it could be as far as 0.2 over or it could be dead on, as both of those numbers would be within the tolerance. Re read what I wrote.

He said it tells him that he is 0.01 over. It doesn't. It only reads to 0.1, and If it says he is that much over, it could be another tenth over that reading, but you have no idea if it is a tenth over, under, or somewhere in between. You only know that it is in that range.
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Ah, I see. I was confused by the fact that we were talking about a charge that the Chargemaster was already telling them was .1 gr over. In reality, the Chargemaster would warn them that it had thrown the charge too heavy, and they would re-throw it or adjust it manually.

But yes, .01 gr is incorrect, and you are correct that a charge reading + .1 gr could actually be dead on or + .2 gr
 
CET has a very efficient and very accurate set up same as what I have except I have AND 320i $600 tax in shipping in lab scale. I am happy with my scale so far it has run with out issue.
 
I use the hornady one. Out of the thousand reloads ive done with it, about 10 of them were bang on. I use tweezers to fix em anyway. I also have a second e scale i double check each charge with. They are usually very accurate. Just the trickler doesnt like long sticks from the imr 4064. I would use short stick stuff like varget if that crap wasent jacked up for price. Its not any better then any other powders.
 
The auto scales have always sounded to me like they are close enough to be safe. The are fast generally but the old way seems a bit more accurate. There has been thought in the past that volume was more important that weight as fas as making accurate loads. The other thing to look at or ask yourself is where was the scale made? I am glad I am old enough that most everything I own was made in north America or Europe as far as reloading equipment and tools etc.
 
While consistent powder weighing is an important consideration, I'm not sure that the accuracy gained by the use of an expensive lab quality scale does much more than make us feel better about our loads. While these scales have a worst case error of +/-.04 compared to the best case error +/-.1 for the common reloading scale, intuitively they would seem to be a better choice. Yet many handloaders measure their powder by volume rather than by weight, although I'm not one of them, yet their extreme spread is within acceptable limits for MOA accuracy, out as far as you care to shoot. When powder changes from a solid to a gas, not every kernel of powder produces an exact volume of gas, and the expansion rate of that gas takes a measurable amount of time, a percentage of which occurs outside the barrel, where its of no benefit, so I'm sort of getting a measure with a micrometer and cut with an axe feeling here. When I weigh a powder charge, I don't accept what the scale tells me until I get two subsequent equal readings, and sometimes, despite my crude equipment, my extreme velocity spread, when I use every trick I know to produce a uniform shot string, is single digit. If scale accuracy was more important than scale consistency, single digit extreme velocity spread would not be possible with my equipment.
 
Boomer said:
While consistent powder weighing is an important consideration, I'm not sure that the accuracy gained by the use of an expensive lab quality scale does much more than make us feel better about our loads. While these scales have a worst case error of +/-.04 compared to the best case error +/-.1 for the common reloading scale, intuitively they would seem to be a better choice. Yet many handloaders measure their powder by volume rather than by weight, although I'm not one of them, yet their extreme spread is within acceptable limits for MOA accuracy, out as far as you care to shoot. When powder changes from a solid to a gas, not every kernel of powder produces an exact volume of gas, and the expansion rate of that gas takes a measurable amount of time, a percentage of which occurs outside the barrel, where its of no benefit, so I'm sort of getting a measure with a micrometer and cut with an axe feeling here. When I weigh a powder charge, I don't accept what the scale tells me until I get two subsequent equal readings, and sometimes, despite my crude equipment, my extreme velocity spread, when I use every trick I know to produce a uniform shot string, is single digit. If scale accuracy was more important than scale consistency, single digit extreme velocity spread would not be possible with my equipment.
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Think of "accuracy" versus "precision" when shooting groups. it applies to scales as well.

Your scale may be accurate (good repetition/consistency) but NOT precise (does not show correct weight)
In this case, it is almost impossible to duplicate your loads properly.

Your scale may be precise (shows correct weight) but NOT accurate (poor repetition/consistency, have to re-zero)
In this case, the scale will drive you crazy.

A "quality" scale should should have an acceptable, workable compromise of both, accuracy AND precision.
 
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cet said:
Your scale may be accurate (good repetition/consistency) but NOT precise (does not show correct weight)
In this case, it is almost impossible to duplicate your loads properly.
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Can you elaborate a bit on that? Let's say I weigh out a charge of 40 gr on Friday (but in reality it was 41 gr because my scale sucks), then go shoot it and find that it performs very well. I come back to my reloading room the following Friday and do exactly the same thing, incorrectly measuring out 41 gr when I thought I was getting 40 gr.

Am I not measuring out the same amount of powder each time, even though what I thought I was measuring is 'incorrect'?
 
HeavyTread said:
Can you elaborate a bit on that? Let's say I weigh out a charge of 40 gr on Friday (but in reality it was 41 gr because my scale sucks), then go shoot it and find that it performs very well. I come back to my reloading room the following Friday and do exactly the same thing, incorrectly measuring out 41 gr when I thought I was getting 40 gr.

Am I not measuring out the same amount of powder each time, even though what I thought I was measuring is 'incorrect'?
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You are correct. As long as your scale instills the same error (inherent) every time, you will be fine.
If your scale changes the error at random when you calibrate, you have a problem.

You will have a problem duplicating your load on a different scale.
And would be difficult to compare or check weights with another scale.
 
cet said:
Think of "accuracy" versus "precision" when shooting groups. it applies to scales as well.

Your scale may be accurate (good repetition/consistency) but NOT precise (does not show correct weight)
In this case, it is almost impossible to duplicate your loads properly.

Your scale may be precise (shows correct weight) but NOT accurate (poor repetition/consistency, have to re-zero)
In this case, the scale will drive you crazy.

A "quality" scale should should have an acceptable, workable compromise of both, accuracy AND precision.
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Good explanation, but you have the terms reversed. accuracy is the ability to measure the "true" mass and precision is the ability to get repeatable results to the highest number number of significant figures.
 
plmnkoqaz said:
Good explanation, but you have the terms reversed. accuracy is the ability to measure the "true" mass and precision is the ability to get repeatable results to the highest number number of significant figures.
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GeeZZZZ..........Now I'm confused..........thought I had this under control till I read your response.
Give me time to wrap my head around it, I'm old and slowww.
 
cet said:
Think of "accuracy" versus "precision" when shooting groups. it applies to scales as well.

Your scale may be accurate (good repetition/consistency) but NOT precise (does not show correct weight)
In this case, it is almost impossible to duplicate your loads properly.

Your scale may be precise (shows correct weight) but NOT accurate (poor repetition/consistency, have to re-zero)
In this case, the scale will drive you crazy.

A "quality" scale should should have an acceptable, workable compromise of both, accuracy AND precision.
Click to expand...

Someone else mentioned this but I figured I'd elaborate.

Precise means that you can hit the same spot every time (for a scale, that would mean if I put a weight that has not changed down on the scale 100 times, it should read within it's rated repeatability every single time).

Accurate means that you are hitting the spot you aim, on average, correctly (for a scale, this would mean that if I put a weight that is known to be 20 grains on the scale, it should show 20 grains, within the accuracy rating of that scale, every time).

A scale that is not accurate, but that is precise, is not a big deal for a hand loader, so long as he doesn't try to load those same loads on another scale and expect them to be as perfect as they were before. In practice, unless your scale is out significantly in it's accuracy, this shouldn't really matter much even then.

A scale that is not precise, but is accurate (which I find to be a bit of a misnomer, only because if you are accurate, then you are hitting the correct reading regularly, which suggests precision too, though technically doesn't mean precision because you could still be far off in repeatability though your average is accurate) will drive you nuts. You could put the same 20 grain weight on every time, and if your scale really is off, you could see 20.5 grains one time, 19.6 another, etc, and if it centres on 20.0 it could still be considered accurate, though also useless).

However, you should not have a compromise of both. A good scale will have excellent accuracy AND precision. They should all have ratings (any of the decent ones - a cheap dope scale likely won't actually fall within those ratings, but if you spend more than 80-100 bucks on a digital scale, it should have ratings that it adheres to pretty well). If it says it is accurate to 0.01 grains and has a repeatability of 0.01 grains, that means that if you put a weight on it that actually weighs 20 grains, you will get 19.99, 20.00, or 20.01 grains EVERY SINGLE TIME, so long as you have accounted for all outside variables such as wind, temperature drift, vibration, calibration if the scale was moved, etc.

I've got a Sartorious Master series AC211 (older analytical balance) which actually pulls this off even though it has very high resolution. That is an indication of, what I would consider, a GOOD scale. If it can show the digits, it should be able to resolve down to those digits. No point in a cheaper scale that reads down to 0.02 grains but is only accurate to 0.1 grains - might as well put tape over those last digits as they mean nothing on a scale like that.

Ebay is where I'd suggest looking for a good scale that you get for a good deal. The one I got is a great scale, albeit a little bit older, and it has a built-in calibration weight system which places and removes the internal calibration weight with a servo motor. You press calibrate and wait a few seconds, and you can hear it placing the weight, waiting while it calibrates, then removing that weight. Pretty slick system. Testing it afterwards with a high accuracy 100mg and 200 grain weight shows that it is dead on throughout that entire range. don't have a heavier calibration weight to test with, though the internal one is 150 grams and it too is dead on. When you're weighing to 0.1mg though, you've got to make sure you've taken wind, vibration, and even the surface into account. When I walk up to my scale, I can see the reading vary as the floor gives just ever so slightly, which angles the scale differently and produces a different reading. Very cool to see it be that accurate though.
 
Boomer said:
While consistent powder weighing is an important consideration, I'm not sure that the accuracy gained by the use of an expensive lab quality scale does much more than make us feel better about our loads. While these scales have a worst case error of +/-.04 compared to the best case error +/-.1 for the common reloading scale, intuitively they would seem to be a better choice. Yet many handloaders measure their powder by volume rather than by weight, although I'm not one of them, yet their extreme spread is within acceptable limits for MOA accuracy, out as far as you care to shoot. When powder changes from a solid to a gas, not every kernel of powder produces an exact volume of gas, and the expansion rate of that gas takes a measurable amount of time, a percentage of which occurs outside the barrel, where its of no benefit, so I'm sort of getting a measure with a micrometer and cut with an axe feeling here. When I weigh a powder charge, I don't accept what the scale tells me until I get two subsequent equal readings, and sometimes, despite my crude equipment, my extreme velocity spread, when I use every trick I know to produce a uniform shot string, is single digit. If scale accuracy was more important than scale consistency, single digit extreme velocity spread would not be possible with my equipment.
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You're right, when you produce a consistent powder weight that you've proven works in your gun and load, then the actual number isn't important.

What these scales DO offer is the assurance that you really are as consistent as possible. Does it make a material difference in your shooting? Maybe for a long range benchrest guy, but for the rest of us it likely just gives us a sense we are more consistent. I personally like to use my analytical balance (accurate to 0.1mg+/-, which is 0.0015 grains) because that way I can be absolutely sure that, once I've worked up a good load, my charge weight is NOT the problem. Using the other tools I use ensures that the rest of the ammo is very unlikely to be a problem, and that leaves my gun and me. The gun can be taken care of with some time and money, and me can be taken care of with time. But knowing that one variable is eliminated from any source of error is comforting at least, and helpful in many cases.
 
krprice84 said:
You're right, when you produce a consistent powder weight that you've proven works in your gun and load, then the actual number isn't important.

What these scales DO offer is the assurance that you really are as consistent as possible. Does it make a material difference in your shooting? Maybe for a long range benchrest guy, but for the rest of us it likely just gives us a sense we are more consistent. I personally like to use my analytical balance (accurate to 0.1mg+/-, which is 0.0015 grains) because that way I can be absolutely sure that, once I've worked up a good load, my charge weight is NOT the problem. Using the other tools I use ensures that the rest of the ammo is very unlikely to be a problem, and that leaves my gun and me. The gun can be taken care of with some time and money, and me can be taken care of with time. But knowing that one variable is eliminated from any source of error is comforting at least, and helpful in many cases.
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krprice84...................

Thank you, my brain was constipated when I wrote those responses, as usual.

You have explained it in a very elegant way. Wish I could "talk good".

Thanks again, you're a gentleman.
 
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