Best Balance Beam scale?

When I started reloading a friend loaned me his equipment to get the hang of it. His RCBS scale was not adjusted properly and in order to get it balanced to the zero mark I had to remove a couple of the lead shot from the pan support. When I told him about this he said he never knew it had to be adjusted!

Has anyone else had to remove/add shot?
 
I had to remove one shot from mine at one time to zero it. I'm sure it was due to my bench being warped. On my current bench which is almost perfectly level I could put it back in. If I could find it lol.
 
Varmit said:
When I started reloading a friend loaned me his equipment to get the hang of it. His RCBS scale was not adjusted properly and in order to get it balanced to the zero mark I had to remove a couple of the lead shot from the pan support. When I told him about this he said he never knew it had to be adjusted!

Has anyone else had to remove/add shot?
Click to expand...

I've never had to... Like h4831 said, you just adjust the foot to zero the scale before using. I reload in my shop, whch can get dusty, so my scale is stored in a cupboard and gets zeroed / adjusted every time I use it.

In terms of calibrating, isn't setting the zero at zero calibrating the scale? I guess it depends on what you trust as well, maybe the weight is off by .3 grains? :) I think consistency is the key. I only use my own scale for loading, so if my scale's 40 grains of powder equals a good load for me and I can consistently measure "my" 40 grains, then I'm happy. Until I drop my scale!

To the op, I recently bought an electronic scale to try, and found it is not nearly as accurate as my old rcbs 505. It's great for sorting cases and getting powder charges close, but I always finish with the balance beam. What convinced me was watching the two units as you add granules of powder. The beam moves every time, registering any change in weight, the scale sometimes needed two or three granules to register a change. That sealed it for me.
 
I've got number of different scales. My favorite is an older Ohaus which is pretty much the same as the RCBS 10-10, I like it far more than my RCBS 5-0-5. You can mess thrm up though. Most people know about keeping the agate bearings and knife edges clean, but you can also hrow a scale off by not having the knife edges centred on the agate brearings. On my Ohaus, which is a really well built scale, if you have the balance beam pushed too far forward or back on the bearings, the edges can contact the metal frame ( difficult to describe, sorry ). In this case I can ake my Ohaus read light by about 0.3 grains or so. I always keep an eye on the centering of the knife edges and double check as I go because you can move the beam if you are careless when removing the pan.

I don't like the "reloader grade" electronic scales, although i have Lyman DPS 1200. If you follow the recommended warmup time it will still drift. Leaving it on 24 hours a day makes it far less likely to drift. Even so, it's still sufficient for most short range shooting which is what about 99% of all shooters are doing anyway.

Chris.
 
Varmit said:
When I started reloading a friend loaned me his equipment to get the hang of it. His RCBS scale was not adjusted properly and in order to get it balanced to the zero mark I had to remove a couple of the lead shot from the pan support. When I told him about this he said he never knew it had to be adjusted!

Has anyone else had to remove/add shot?
Click to expand...

I've never messed with the counterweight, but my old 10-10 needed a shim under the foot. You might want to try leveling your bench or the shelf that your scale sits on. I urge you to invest in a check weight set, and use it to zero to your charge weight rather than to zero. When you zero at zero, the farther you move down the beam, the less accurate the zero is. Most folks weigh powder charges under 100 grs, so the difference is probably only a tenth or so, and charge to charge uniformity is more important anyway. I never believe the scale's first weight anyway, if it repeats two or three times with each powder charge, then I believe it.
 
mark222 said:
I've never had to... Like h4831 said, you just adjust the foot to zero the scale before using. I reload in my shop, whch can get dusty, so my scale is stored in a cupboard and gets zeroed / adjusted every time I use it.

In terms of calibrating, isn't setting the zero at zero calibrating the scale? I guess it depends on what you trust as well, maybe the weight is off by .3 grains? :) I think consistency is the key. I only use my own scale for loading, so if my scale's 40 grains of powder equals a good load for me and I can consistently measure "my" 40 grains, then I'm happy. Until I drop my scale!

In my case there wasn't enough adjustment on the wheel, so I needed to take out some shot to enable it to adjust properly. When I got my own RCBS beam scale it worked fine on the same bench.
Click to expand...
 
Varmit said:
mark222 said:
I've never had to... Like h4831 said, you just adjust the foot to zero the scale before using. I reload in my shop, whch can get dusty, so my scale is stored in a cupboard and gets zeroed / adjusted every time I use it.

In terms of calibrating, isn't setting the zero at zero calibrating the scale? I guess it depends on what you trust as well, maybe the weight is off by .3 grains? :) I think consistency is the key. I only use my own scale for loading, so if my scale's 40 grains of powder equals a good load for me and I can consistently measure "my" 40 grains, then I'm happy. Until I drop my scale!

In my case there wasn't enough adjustment on the wheel, so I needed to take out some shot to enable it to adjust properly. When I got my own RCBS beam scale it worked fine on the same bench.
Click to expand...

It is, but precision handloading is about controlling tolerances, and simply zeroing the scale to the charge weight is an easy one to manage. If you use scale check weights to zero your scale, they can also be used to check your scale's repeatability.
Click to expand...
 
Boomer said:
Varmit said:
It is, but precision handloading is about controlling tolerances, and simply zeroing the scale to the charge weight is an easy one to manage. If you use scale check weights to zero your scale, they can also be used to check your scale's repeatability.
Click to expand...

Thank you for that. Finally. Simple process to ensure that everything is on track when reloading. A friend of mine is a pharmacist from the days before digital scales (not that this changes their value) and a set of standards were mandatory and used in his pharmacy every day.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Varmit said:
Has anyone else had to remove/add shot?
Click to expand...

Yeah I had this problem with my RCBS 5-0-5. Working on a known level surface there was not enough adjustment to make it balance and I had to take out all the lead in the pan. Now it balances about 1/3 of the way up the dial and I have two pieces of lead shot I am scared to throw out in case I move somewhere with lighter air.
 
An interesting thing I have noticed using a beam scale (rcbs 10-10) is that if I throw and then trickle a charge of, say, 50 grains, by using the big weight set to 40 and the adjustable set to 10, and then change the big weight to 50 and the adjustable to 0, I get a difference of half a grain or so. Doesn't bother me too much, I just do it the same way every time. Consistency is the key.
 
gunlaker said:
I've got number of different scales. My favorite is an older Ohaus which is pretty much the same as the RCBS 10-10, I like it far more than my RCBS 5-0-5. You can mess thrm up though. Most people know about keeping the agate bearings and knife edges clean, but you can also hrow a scale off by not having the knife edges centred on the agate brearings. On my Ohaus, which is a really well built scale, if you have the balance beam pushed too far forward or back on the bearings, the edges can contact the metal frame ( difficult to describe, sorry ). In this case I can ake my Ohaus read light by about 0.3 grains or so. I always keep an eye on the centering of the knife edges and double check as I go because you can move the beam if you are careless when removing the pan.

I don't like the "reloader grade" electronic scales, although i have Lyman DPS 1200. If you follow the recommended warmup time it will still drift. Leaving it on 24 hours a day makes it far less likely to drift. Even so, it's still sufficient for most short range shooting which is what about 99% of all shooters are doing anyway.

Chris.
Click to expand...

MY 5-0-5 was hitting the edges on mine too, but I took the dremel to mine and trimmed it down some and made it more into a point so when it does rub theres ALOT less surface area. It works alot better now.
 
Gun5tuff said:
The 10-10 and the 5-0-5 are not SCALES, they are BALANCES. Electronic and spring devices that measure weight are called SCALES. Balances are uneffected by temperature and gravity/elevation because they work equally on both sides of the fulcrum. Not so with scales. Electronic scales have to be switched on for a while to stabilize the magnetic resistance to the applied weight. Then they need to be calibrated. After some time the calibration needs to be redone because it's warming up or the voltage changed. Their advantage is speed.
What I do is set my electronic scale to dispense 0.1grain less powder, dump what was dispenses into my 10-10 balance pan and trickle up to zero the balance. This is both fast and accurate.
Click to expand...

Better get ahold of RCBS, Lyman and the rest cause they all got it wrong then :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom