good caliper?

Buy a stainless steel 6" dial caliper. RCBS are about $40.00 U.S., Princess Auto are $29.00 CDN., those are the regular, non-sale, prices.
They are both the same, Chinese made, except the RCBS costs more for the name. They are reasonably accurate if not abused, and re-loading isn't precision machine work anyway, so if they are off by a thou. or two, it's not the end of the world.
Canadian Tire also sell a 6" electronic caliper, convertible from imperial to metric measurements, for $39.99 regular price, on sale fairly regularly.
Downside is your battery will power out when you need to use it, upside is batteries are cheap at any Dollar Store, so keep a couple of spares.
Check them fairly frequently using a known size something, say a 0.309" or 0.458" bullet for example, or whatever else you have handy, and this will also let you get a feel for how they work, avoiding any flex from pushing too hard.

I prefer the older dial type personally, but either kind will more than do for reloading, and it doesn't matter if it's for pistol or rifle use. Whichever you get, when not in use store it in the fitted case it came in to avoid dirt and/or accidental damage.
 
I have a Master Craft digital caliper (apprx $40) and a Mac Tools digital caliper (apprx $200).
I would recommended either as they are both as accurate as the other, that said I've never regretted spending the extra dollars on the Mac one.
 
I have both a cheaper digital caliper from Budget Shooter Supply ($17) and a $150 one by Mitutoyo. They both measure the same when checking COAL on the same finished round.

The only difference from a measuring aspect is that the Mitutoyo holds zero 100% of the time while the cheaper one sometimes is off slightly once in awhile, and has to be re-zeroed (no biggie, press of a button to fix).

You can tell the quality of the Mitutoyo though. Hands down.
 
Tigerbalm said:
I have both a cheaper digital caliper from Budget Shooter Supply ($17) and a $150 one by Mitutoyo. They both measure the same when checking COAL on the same finished round.

The only difference from a measuring aspect is that the Mitutoyo holds zero 100% of the time while the cheaper one sometimes is off slightly once in awhile, and has to be re-zeroed (no biggie, press of a button to fix).

You can tell the quality of the Mitutoyo though. Hands down.
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I was looking at the one from BSS as I have ordered from him before, great guy, so thanks for the heads up that its a good caliper.
 
I have two of the Master Craft ones. One is absolute junk and is usually off by at least .002" and sometimes as much as .005". The other is quite good and works well. The joys of crappy quality control.
Always check your calipers periodically against something known (like a bullet) and make sure they are reading correctly; preferably several bullets of close but slightly different diameters (like a .308", .310", and .312").

I have a couple pairs from Lee Valley with no name on them that are excellent and cost $40-60. I do prefer Starret or Mitutoyo though. It's not just the name; they are also exceedingly high quality.
 
I have both dial and Mitutoyo digital calipers, both work accurately, but there are much cheaper calipers out there that are accurate as well.
 
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