Calipers

Diss, in case you never handled a caliper,you close the thing and verify that it is closed. The dial candy be turned, set it at zero.then measure a number of known objects, you can read the dial and verify the nominal accuracy.

Drill bits, bullets, etc,if most things come up within .000" +/- you can call it good.


That is the simple answer. You can spend money on calibration causes, but you don't have to have them.

This is not good enough for a scale. Weighing a .250 grain pistol bullet, you can't be absolutely certain that the weight is accurate. If your scale is bunged, when you weigh very small charges, a grain of bullseye is significant.
 
Over the years (as a machinist/mechanic) I have had 4 calipers; 2 digital and two dial.My first was a dial, Mititoyo, it got stolen. My second and third were digital. Both digitals died. One would eat batteries (the one I got from the Snap-On man) and when I didn't use it for a month the battery corroded and ruined the electronics. The other digital would also use a lot of batteries, but I learned from the first one and removed the battery on Fri afternoon and replace it as I needed the tool. It soon would time out in the middle of being used and sometimes switch between metric and SAE. It got to where it was difficult to use. My last one, purchased 16 or so years ago is a SS dial from Lyman (dunno who makes it) and I have successfully used it for reloading and shop projects. It remains quite accurate and sometimes during a load work up I'll measure every cartridge (yesterday I was watching very carefully the OAL on some 9mm with a new to me bullet and used the calipers to measure 100 cartridges. I can go to my shop now and pick up the calipers and they will be accurate to .0005", no batteries, no crazy electronics...

Get a dial caliper, learn to use it correctly and you'll prolly never need to buy one again...
 
g. willikers wrote:
For really accurate measurements, machinist tools like a micrometer and such are what is needed.
But for reloading, it's not necessary, unless you're making stuff from scratch from the raw materials.
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As part of processing "new to me" brass, I routinely check the diameter of the case near the head and discard any that are significantly oversized. I find it easier to use a micrometer for this since it is essentially a go/no-go determination.
 
Sitting here thinking about this and the though of my first caliper's came to mind. They were made of plastic and were green. RCBS made them. They measured in inch's and MM. I never did learn to read the inch scale so mostly used the mm side of it. As far as I know they worked pretty well. Wish I still had those thing's!
 
I have a couple of the Harbor Freight ones, plus a reasonably inexpensive dial caliper I got from a hardware store ($25, about 25 years ago). All have worked fine.

The reality is, for handloading for most people, the increased accuracy of a higher dollar caliper really doesn't get you anything. For most people, variation in case length or even seating depth of even a couple hundredths isn't going to make a difference worth bothering with.
 
Any Vernier calipres will do. Digitals are easier to read. Dial calipres are ok though. Been using the cheap plastic RCBS dial verniers for eons with no fuss. Druther have digital as a geezer though.
 
Sitting here thinking about this and the though of my first caliper's came to mind. They were made of plastic and were green. RCBS made them. They measured in inch's and MM. I never did learn to read the inch scale so mostly used the mm side of it. As far as I know they worked pretty well. Wish I still had those thing's!
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I had one as well. They had a lot of slop in them.

Actually good enough for case length and bullet COAL, sure nothing precision about them.

Not a clue where they got to, I suspect I threw them out at some point, the rest of my early gear is all there. Maybe went into a tool box and got wrecked.

Have to go though the old stuff drawer. Don't remember seeing them in forever.

Bit hiatus reloading wise for 25 years.
 
The plastic ones are great for extremely casual measuring. I write about premium cigars and keep one in my storage locker, as I have to check measurements. It measures in 1/64, as it was never intended for metal, it is for lumber.
 
The funny thing about digital is that they aren't more accurate, the still read visually but have a chip that converts the markets to display data.

It's just easier to read and understand.

When digital bathroom scales first came out, it was amusing. They were dial scales that had bar data on the dial and an led scanner at read and displayed the information on another led panel.

You could read it by digital lights or by marks on the dial, they both used identical base units. The factories that put out hundreds of different SKUs of finished products used single digit numbers of component parts.
 
An aside; Yesterday I had a major OOPS! As I got my calipers out of the tool box drawer, my finger bumped the side of the drawer and the calipers fell 18" to the bench top. @&!!!. The dial read .060" with the jaws closed. I was able to disassemble the calipers and get it back to working order (?) but it's off by about .001" when measuring my 45 cal FMJ bullets, so I'm again in the market for dial calipers! Checking Amazon, Craftsman, Northern Tol and Global Industrial for a decent caliper that I can afford...
 
They don't like being dropped. Bummer.
Most calipers have a thumbscrew that allows you to rotate the dial . You can reset the zero under the needle.
 
Someone measured battery current demand by different digital calipers. IIRC, the Mututoyo drew about a tenth the current that some inexpensive Chinese ones did. Hence the battery drain difference. The thing isn't the fact it was made in China, but rather to whose specification and process standards. There is some first tier stuff that comes out of China. It just isn't as cheap as the cheapest stuff.

I've had mixed results from Harbor Freight. I bought a little 4" digital there for travel that works fine and that I could afford to lose. I bought a set of their calipers that includes metric, inch, and fractional inch options in the readout. They were fine and I gave them away to a fellow who needed them more, as he was having trouble mentally switching between decimal and fractions. Then I bought an identical looking set to replace them and that second set was terrible. Clearly came out of an entirely different plant. All the edges were sharp enough to get cuts from. The felt gritty on sliding and there turned out to be grinding dust inside when I disassembled them to clean and de-horn the edges. The jaw flexed too easily to be trusted and I finally just gave up on them. In the second instance, someone in HF purchasing went with the lowest bid and got what they paid for.

The main advantage to digital calipers, in addition to conversions, is you can zero them and get a size difference reading without risking making an arithmetic mistake. The main drawback is you can't read below the native resolution, where a good dial caliper will let you interpolate between graduations, often getting close to micrometer precision, if you know how to handle the jaws correctly. It takes practice.

Rather than gauge blocks, something of more use to most shooters is a precision pin gauge set. The ground diameters of even the cheap stuff is within about 0.2 thousandths. Close enough to check against outside a tool room.

You do want to be able to see tenths of a thousandth if you can when you are slugging a bore or a chamber or trying to detect case head expansion. Otherwise, most reloading measurements just don't require it. However, a micrometer will always be more reliable than a caliper for these high resolution values.
 
As an Aerospace manufacturing engineer I've had many calipers.
Don't like electronic thingies much, use an electronic scale only to verify my balance beam. I use dial calipers at work those from Brown & Sharpe or Starret are the best. Mititoyo makes a decent one and I use the electronic one at my reloading bench primarily because it can switch from English to metric.
Only hassle is you have to have batteries handy. I calibrate it with gage blocks to make sure it is accurate. :rolleyes:
My solution to Unclenicks concerns is to have micrometers available as well.
A disc mike is great for checking crimp diameters.
 
A disc mic, in addition to being quite pricey, would not be my 1st choice for measuring crimp dias as the top spindle moves in a circular rotation, thereby trying to walk off of the dia being measured. Non digital calipers are my 1st choice. An optical comparator, if one has access to one, would be best.
 
A disc mike is great for checking crimp diameters.
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As a machinist/mechanic for many years, I don't believe this is true. "Disk mikes" have a real disk on the anvil and spindle. https://www.mscdirect.com/browse/tn...MIvNzQv7yi1QIVgrfACh3u7A50EAQYAyABEgKP-fD_BwE Measuring a narrow area, like a crimp isn't possible. Perhaps he meant a Blade Micrometer, designed for measuring narrow areas...https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/06233670

Ball micrometers have a ball shape on the end of a differently designed anvil for measuring tube wall thickness https://www.amazon.com/RCBS-87324-Vernier-Ball-Micrometer/dp/B001QVRJAQ
 
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So I ordered a 6" Mitutoyo 500-196-30 digital caliper from MSI Viking for $89 (free shipping) around the same time this thread started. My original calipers, which I had purchased on Brian Eno's website when I first started reloading came apart at the end. Two screws at the end came loose and the plate they screwed into is no where to be found. I think I paid around $40 for the caliper. They served me well for many years, but lately I've needed to install a fresh battery every time I used it. The caliper was spot on per my Mitutoyo gauge. But I can really tell the difference in the quality between to two calipers. The Mitutoyo has much more of quality feel to it compared to my original caliper. About my only complaint is the display doesn't automatically shut down after use. No regrets with this caliper. And MSI Viking shipped the following day after I ordered.
 
I have been looking at amazon as I do have prime and have been looking at Cabelas.
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These are what I use, and they are consistent and accurate; just remember to check for zero before using. Also work nicely with my Hornady comparator.
 
I order a lot of stuff on Amazon. But Amazon was more expensive for the 6" Mitutoyo 500-196-30 at $114 compared to $89 via MSI Viking. Plus you won't have to work about a knock off with MSI Viking. Both are free shipping.
 
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