Digital grams food scale for reloading?

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Duke878

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Can you use a digitial grams food scale for relating and just do the conversion over to grains?

I'm thinking it would be a cheaper and more available alternative to the reloading scales. Thanks for the info!
 
Do you really want to cheap out on something that is literally capable of causing you're gun to blow up?
 
Personally I wouldn't feel safe using such a scale ... simply due to accuracy. I gram is equal to approx 15.5 grains, so your load could be out a bit ... a bit to much for my liking ... especially if your loading smaller calibers.
 
I do all my powder weighing in grams, and you need resolution to 0.01g. I've never seen a food scale that had that kind of precision.

Mind you, Ebay and associated internet dealers are full of digital scales that are accurate to 0.01g, advertised as spice scales, lab scales, jeweller's scales, and everything else except what they are probably mostly used for (drugs). You could get one of those, if you trusted low cost digital scales, which I emphatically do not.
 
Duke878 said:
Can you use a digitial grams food scale for relating and just do the conversion over to grains?

I'm thinking it would be a cheaper and more available alternative to the reloading scales. Thanks for the info!
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At the risk of being labeled a #### head, there are NO cheap short cuts when it comes to reloading, but it is a very good thing that you have asked about it before going ahead and giving it a try. FS
 
Yaa....electronic scales are *not* something to cheap out on. The cheap ones lose their calibration and have large drift in them meaning you're charges can vary easily up to a grain over a loading session. Even on my Gempro 250(had it before I got into reloading...good to 0.001g ~$250) I can get 0.2gr of drift if I don't let it stabilize before I start reloading.

Also a good tip for people...electronic scales need to warm up for about 30min-1hr to take stable readings. Not a huge issue with reloading if you zero you're scale every 5-10 min but it's good to know if you use a high precision scale. Also your power source stability will affect the scales readings(both consistency of your household power and EM fields near the power cord).
 
If you can't afford a proper reloading scale, possibly you should stick to factory ammo. The balance beam scales are not that expensive and will be 10 times more accurate than a food scale. Of all the places one can be inventive and attempt to save money at reloading, your scale or means of accurately measuring powder is not one of them.
 
my digital scale was $195 and i still calibrate every 10 mins because i dont trust anything. but your question was to trust a food scale i would say definatly not. for 1 they are not held to any kind of accuracy standards. for 2 they do not give you precise enough increments to properly measure your powder. for 3 there are scales built for this task and there is no reason to flirt with danger because of a few bucks so buy the proper equipment for the job
 
For about the same price as a lee safety scale, you can buy a digital jewellers scale that will be way more accurate than a food scale. I got one from ebay for 29.99 (free shipping) that measures to .01 grains.
 
c-fbmi said:
If you can't afford a proper reloading scale, possibly you should stick to factory ammo. The balance beam scales are not that expensive and will be 10 times more accurate than a food scale. Of all the places one can be inventive and attempt to save money at reloading, your scale or means of accurately measuring powder is not one of them.
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:agree: Good advise.
 
explorin2 said:
1 gram is equal to approx 15.5 grains, so your load could be out a bit ...
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way way WAY too loose tolerances there.
Think about it, if you want a load of 45 grains, then you'd load 3 grams of powder, but in reality you could have anywhere from 38.7 to 52.7 on that scale. With such a wide spread you could go from under charged to over max from one round to another without even knowing it.


My scale goes to a tenth of a grain, so my max error factor is +/- 0.05 grains. That is the only acceptable margin of error IMHO.

Have fun, play safe.
 
joedude said:
My scale goes to a tenth of a grain, so my max error factor is +/- 0.05 grains. That is the only acceptable margin of error IMHO.
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Doubtful. Your readability is 0.1 grains, so if you think you are throwing 10.0 grains the displayed value could be anything from 9.95 to 10.05 grains, but most reloading scales are only accurate to +/-0.1 grains (and some are +/- 0.2 grains), so the actual value could be anywhere from 9.85-10.15 grains. Anybody who thinks the $100 scales routinely used by reloaders are super precise machines is misleading himself.
 
BattleRife said:
Doubtful. Your readability is 0.1 grains, so if you think you are throwing 10.0 grains the displayed value could be anything from 9.95 to 10.05 grains, but most reloading scales are only accurate to +/-0.1 grains (and some are +/- 0.2 grains), so the actual value could be anywhere from 9.85-10.15 grains. Anybody who thinks the $100 scales routinely used by reloaders are super precise machines is misleading himself.
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:agree:
Because I learned how to reload some 45 yrs ago. I still weigh every charge using a Lyman DPS.

It's only time and I have plenty of it.
 
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