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In the market for a reloading scale and want real opinions from people who reload, and this board is full of people who seem to understand the mix between quality and quantity that I seek. Can basically afford whatever I want, within say a $500 limit. However, I'm not looking to throw away extra $ on something only marginally better. Here's the options I'm weighing...

 

RCBS 1010 - 1/10 grain accurate and when the power goes out the scale doesn't. However, it's a beam scale so weighing objects to classify them (such as bullets) might be more cumbersome than with a digital. About $130 so the price is no issue. Long history of quality here with the ohaus scales.

 

RCBS chargemaster combo - accurate and able to program out loads to within 1/10 grain. Nice but how much nicer than the 10/10 if my time isn't really an issue. $260 or so on sale, not a bad deal all around?

 

Denver Instruments MXX - insanely accurate (1/50th of a grain), and able to weigh object such as bullets easily. Might be frustrating to load charges to single grains though, and probably unnecessary. $275 is about the price of the chargemaster without the advantage of automatic powder throwing.

 

RCBS 502 or 505 (or maybe an ebay'd Lyman/ohaus M5) - probably good enough, and at around $60 do I really need any better?

 

Right now I'm using a lab scale that weighs out to 1/10 grain and a cheapo frankford arsenal digital scale for bullets. Both have drawbacks causing me to hunt around, but for now I'm getting by. I've heard too much bad about the lee scale, though I've used them and they're OK (just want a step up from there)

 

Thanks for your comments/opinions.

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I've asked this on a forum before, the answer was the Dillon. I got it, it works. It has a little wind cover that doubles to ground static charges in itself (as it is plastic and could get some surface charge going). If you wave your hand next to it it notices the change. Most scales say accurate to 1/10th but most aren't apparently. It has a battery backup, AA's. When on battery power, it has like a timed automatic shutdown, I don't recall the amount of time.

 

What I've read is that if you want a digital, go with the ones with four feet connecting the platform to the scale. If it's less than that, objects on different parts of the scale read slightly differently and you can't be sure of all your measurements, even if the thing says exact to 1/10th.

 

On a side note, Hornady 00 buck is consistent to within two grams. I've only gotten two numbers, after weighing 20 or so.

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I basically use a mechanical RCBS 505 (or the Dillon equivalent (dTerminator?)) for all my weighing chores myself.

 

Never felt the need to segregate brass and bullets into different lots so far. :cryss:

 

Whatever you do, stay far away from the Lee Safety (POS) Scale. :angry2:

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I have a Dillon and unlike most Dillion products, their scale sucks. It has a constantly shifting zero. After about every 10 or so cycles, I have to re-zero the thing, over and over.

 

Tony

I'll post about mine if it starts to do that.

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Having been unable to make a decision and out of business (reloadingwise) for over a week, I just bought a Hornady model M beam scale. $40 wasn't a bad price for it. It seems good to about .2 grains overall, and a little better if you give the pan a tap once it settles down to verify it resettles to the same reading. Surely not my dream scale, but then again it doesn't shut itself off when I remove the pan and need to be recalibrated every 2 minutes like my cheap frankford arsenal scale does.

 

I'll give it a mini review once I'm more comfortable that it performs OK.

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I also have a couple dillon dterminator scales. Not a whole lot to say about it. It does it's job.

 

 

One of the scales is old and started reading the check weight off. When I talked to dillon about it, to their credit, they wanted me to send it back in and they'd fix it. I love their customer service.

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Dillon d-Terminator is a great product. Nice thing about a digital compared to triple-beam scale is the ability to set a tare weight (empty hull and primer) then check every 5th or 10th charged case when using a powder measure as opposed to measuring every powder charge individually before dropping into the hull. You can do this with a triple beam scale also but it just takes longer, and some beam scales aren't calibrated up to the total weight of the hull and powder charge combo. If there is ever a problem with any Dillon product you can be certain they will make it right, and in a timely fashion. I also have used Lee beam scales (accurate but slow) and an ancient Redding ( slightly less accurate but more elegant and capable of weighing heavier charges)

Edited by sigmoidfletcher
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In the market for a reloading scale and want real opinions from people who reload, and this board is full of people who seem to understand the mix between quality and quantity that I seek. Can basically afford whatever I want, within say a $500 limit. However, I'm not looking to throw away extra $ on something only marginally better. Here's the options I'm weighing...

 

RCBS 1010 - 1/10 grain accurate and when the power goes out the scale doesn't. However, it's a beam scale so weighing objects to classify them (such as bullets) might be more cumbersome than with a digital. About $130 so the price is no issue. Long history of quality here with the ohaus scales.

 

RCBS chargemaster combo - accurate and able to program out loads to within 1/10 grain. Nice but how much nicer than the 10/10 if my time isn't really an issue. $260 or so on sale, not a bad deal all around?

 

Denver Instruments MXX - insanely accurate (1/50th of a grain), and able to weigh object such as bullets easily. Might be frustrating to load charges to single grains though, and probably unnecessary. $275 is about the price of the chargemaster without the advantage of automatic powder throwing.

 

RCBS 502 or 505 (or maybe an ebay'd Lyman/ohaus M5) - probably good enough, and at around $60 do I really need any better?

 

Right now I'm using a lab scale that weighs out to 1/10 grain and a cheapo frankford arsenal digital scale for bullets. Both have drawbacks causing me to hunt around, but for now I'm getting by. I've heard too much bad about the lee scale, though I've used them and they're OK (just want a step up from there)

 

Thanks for your comments/opinions.

ONE word Dillon

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I looked at the Dillon scale but didn't think the extra cost was worth it as they obviously didn't manufacture it themselves. I hate paying more for one name over another when the world has only a limited number of scale manufacturers and none of them are reloading companies.

 

So far the Hornady scale is really very decent for weighing charges. I tested it out against a mettler lab scale at work and while the total weight was one tenth of a grain higher when measured on the Hornady scale, 20 charges weighed to what the Hornady called within .1 grain were also within .1 grain on the lab scale. The mettler scale can weigh the difference in a business card before and after putting a half inch pencil mark on it.

 

For me it's more intuitive to watch the beam move up, and I can get a better sense of my "approach" with the physical movement instead of a digital readout which is almost always in arrears. It must be halfway decent because I shot five 3/8 in 3 shot groups at 100 yards last weekend, and also a 10 shot group at 7/8 of an inch. My worst non flyer 3 shot group was 3/4 of an inch. Before you go getting too excited, that was with my Savage 10fp.

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I've found my RCBS 5*0*5 scale to do everything I need.

 

Plus RCBS's warranty is 2nd to none. I've bought several used RCBS reloading items on eBay that were either missing something or damaged due to poor packaging, like the loss of an entire press handle from a RCBS JR3 press that ripped a hole through the box during shipping and disappeared. RCBS always sent the parts, no questions asked, at no charge.

 

That policy has made RCBS my first choice for most of my reloading needs.

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