Reloading scale opinions

I have owned about 10 different scales over the years.

Those include rcbs 5-0-2, 5-0-5, 10-10, Lee safety scale, redding and Lyman scales.

I use the 10-10 the most as its bang on accurate and has the most range of weight settings.

Ive also used a gem pro digital scale that my buddy owns. It's OK but I find I trust gravity more then curcuit boards and electronics.
 
Came across this thread while preparing to start my own. I was going to call my thread Do you trust your scales? Lee vs MTM DS-750 vs RCBS M500 but I'll add my stuff to this thread instead.

I have three scales and I'm wondering what to think when they don't all agree with each other or with what I "know" a weight should be.

I have

  • the Lee scale (my first scale when I just started reloading)
  • an MTM DS-750 (a digital scale picked up when my eyeballs fell out after reading the Lee scale for a few hours), and
  • an RCBS M500 (because I wanted an easier to read beam scale).

I also have some OHAUS Sto-A-Weigh calibration weights. Just playing around I will pick a random assortment of weights and try them on each of the scales. I'm limited of course by the smaller capactity of the Lee scale.

I am finding that the scales do not always agree with one another. And all of the scales are all multiple tenths of a grain away from what the weights should be when I do the gram-to-grain conversion mathematically.

I think my technique is OK and the scales seem to be stable. They are on a solid platform at eye level with no air vents or other interfering items. I have not modified or tuned the scale in any way.

Here's what I've observed with the three of them:

  • The Lee is a pain to zero but holds its zero once set. The vernier poise is a brilliant design in theory but it takes practice and really good light to read it.
  • The MTM is consistent and always returns the same values for its calibration weight and my various powder pans. My only worry with it is that it's a cheap digital scale.
  • The RCBS is very easy to zero but sometimes will not return to zero after weighing something. After zeroing it will return to zero after moving the beam by hand. But after weighing something it often will not return to zero. And rezeroing sometimes requires a LOT of turns of the adjustment wheel, making me think that the initial zero was not at all correct.
  • The Lee and MTM almost always agree with one another when weighing unknown weights. When they disagree they tend to be off by one tenth of a grain, with the MTM typically reading +0.1 grain higher than the Lee. I'm willing to accept that's due to me misreading the Lee scale or due to the digital scale rounding up when the Lee scale seems to indicate a measurement between tenths of a grain.
  • The RCBS often disagrees with the Lee and MTM scales when weighing unknown weights. And that disagreement can be by multiple tenths of a grain. The disagreement is enough that I would worry about it if I was weighing powder loads.
  • All of the scales are off when I convert the weight of the calibration weights from grams to grains. All of the scales are off by +0.2 to +0.5 grains, even when rounding the math is considered. I don't think this is due to contamination of the OHAUS weights but I guess it could be.

Considering that the Lee and MTM scales tend to agree with each other, I trust them the most. The Lee scale has limitations and hassles, but I don't think it's as defective or dangerous a product as many people seem to say. If it were truly dangerous it would not still be on the market. Americans love them some legal action, so if the Lee scale was really that bad it and Lee would have been sued into oblivion by now. I honestly think there is an element of elitism in the disparagement of the Lee scale.

The RCBS is new to me -- just a week or so -- and I have to say that I don't particularly trust it yet. I like its ease of zeroing and the ease of setting and reading each poise, but just testing it out with calibration weights has not left me with a lot of confidence.

Any suggestions for what I should be looking for or what I might be missing with the RCBS?
 
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