Electronic powder scale recommendations

I use (and am a fan) of my LNL AP press... and am also mindful of its limitation to charge precisely especially with stick powders.
Not just with progressives, any powder dispenser that meters by volume and not weight is incapable of being precise to a tenth consistently.

If you want loads as accurate as the scale you seem to be seeking, you need to charge light and trickle up manually- no volume metering system will do it.

I'm considering removing the case activated powder drop and just putting a funnel drop for charges dispensed via a Chargemaster or other "weighed" system for times when precision is more critical.

JMO YMMV
 
Chargemasters and any other electronic which uses load cells or strain gages are only accurate to plus or minus .1 grains at best

if you want real accuracy you either have to use a properly set up beam scale or drop several hundred on a lab grade scale
 
Its a layered effect that works on vibration. Almost every solid material has a natural frequency. By layering wood rubber and granite which all have different natural vibration you build a type of isolation. Also just the mass of the granite helps deaden the vibration. By far the use of the press to just seat bullets caused more scale movement than walking or air currents. Now there is no problem.
 
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you got it jugornot. For the vibration sensitive scales you might try putting some of these under your anti vibration pad. They are the best thing I have found for drone cameras to dampen high frequency vibrations

https://www.guitarcenter.com/RTOM/Moongel-Percussion-Dampening-Gels.gc

I think that mass would have a lot to do with it also. Vibrations are just tiny movements that are transmitted through air and material. The more mass something has the more energy will be used to get it to move. That is one of the factors that makes heavier the bullets in any given caliber take more powder it takes to get to the same speed
 
Ed308,

The granite has a lot of inertia. To kill the vibration set it on a piece of carpet scrap or make it a wood base and buy commercial vibration mounts for it.

The Acculab scale I got lacked a Faraday sheild, so I lined the bottom of the bench with foil and grounded it. To keep line noise out of the equation, I connect it through a line filter and an old surplus Sola resonant voltage regulating transformer, but I just had all that in my junk collection. You don't need it, but if you have an old computer UPS with a dead battery, putting that in line with the scale will give you both filtering and surge protection.
 
Yes. It is hard and rigid, so it conducts sound, but it is massive enough that outside vibration doesn't easily give great magnitude to its movement, especially not at lower frequencies. But adding the carpet really takes away the bench's ability to pass vibration or sound to it.

Also, since we really just interested in the mass of the plate, high quality isn't important. You may want an American or German or Swiss or Italian or Japanese made scale for quality, but they all have leveling feet, so the granite doesn't have to be any flatter than a tombstone. Flatness matters if you are going to use it as a base for measurements. In that arena, AA is about twice as flat as A which is about twice as flat as B. B, up to 18" in the longest dimension is flat within two ten thousandths of an inch (0.0002"). The bigger they are, the more the spec opens up, but you can see why there is no need to pay for something flatter than B, which is the lowest grade you can get.

A concrete block is also pretty effective. It lacks the official appearance of a granite plate, though, and the plate has other uses. Before MSC bought out Enco, they were a good source for inexpensive import surface plates. This place seems to have what they did. I note on the largest plates the shipping is more than the cost of the rock.
 
As I said earlier, want a cheap piece of granite just go down to anyplace that cuts kitchen/bathroom granite counter tops. When they cut the holes for the sinks or trim a piece slab to size for the counter top they toss the scraps out back. At least in my town. I bought some for some jewelry boxes I was making, $10 bought me more than I really needed, it was just scrap to them. It won't be to lab grade quality but for what it would be used for it will do
 
Prime has really spoiled me. This was the largest block I could find with free 2 day shipping. It came in a wooden box that added some weight, so I would guess it was 40 pounds or more.
 
Cambridge electronics is having a sale on the FX-120i. $500 upfront with a 30% rebate from A&D Weighing until 31 March

scale - https://ce-products.myshopify.com/pr...-122g-x-0-001g

rebate form https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/11...51572619742801

that brings the final price to $350 dollars for a lab grade scale using magnetic force reduction so it has zero drift and has true accuracy to .02 grains not just .02 gr resolution. I will stick to my beam but for those who want a really good electronic this is the best deal on the net at the moment

combined with a autothrow and autotrickler https://www.autotrickler.com/auto-trickler.html and you have the poor mans version of the Prometheus http://www.prometheustoolcorp.com/

I read on another forum that A&D is not honoring the rebate for scale at the $500 price. Another person received a response from A&D that said that weren't issuing a rebate based on the $500 price paid since it was less than 30% off their list price. If that is the case, no one is getting a rebate since the selling price of the scale is less than a price that is 30% off their list price. Their rebate form doesn't inform a buyer of that information either. I just sent my rebate form in today so we'll see.
 
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considering Cambridge has this on its website I would not sweat anonymous postings on the net

**Thinking about an FX-120I? For a limited time only, bring home an FX-120I for 30% off the purchase price with a new manufacturer’s rebate from A&D Weighing.
How does it work? Order an FX-120I, fill out the included rebate form with a copy of your invoice and remit to A&D using the instructions on the rebate form.

https://ce-products.myshopify.com/products/fx-120i-reloading-scale-122g-x-0-001g?variant=41172916742
 
The person who got the message from A&D has already contacted CE and they are looking into it. Based on the fine print on the rebate form, A&D doesn't have leg to stand on IMO.

Update: Per a thread on the .5 Creedmoor forum, A&D has reconsidered and will be honoring the rebates for the purchased price.
 
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looks like A&D realized what a gigantic screwup they were making and are honoring it now. PR and legal fees would have ran them more than the rebates.

I have been following the drama on another forum where at least ten people had ordered one
 
Just got my tracking number from CE. The auto Trickler is backordered and they sending a FX200i instead of a FX-120i scale. Appears to be the same scale but higher capacity (220 compared to 120) and slightly more expensive. Would you have a concern with the change? Not sure I'll ever need a scale with that capacity.
 
The Auto-throw completes the package. Can load 50 rounds in no time compared to throwing low with Lyman Gen 5 powder dispenser and hand trickling to exact weight. Convert everything over to grams and get a smidgen more accuracy. I use staples to set target weight. Have to cut to get to exact weight.
 
A concrete block is also pretty effective. It lacks the official appearance of a granite plate, though, and the plate has other uses.
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I can think of many additional uses for a concrete block, I have one of my Work Station computers sitting on one (its in a room that has a lot of pumps in it and I want to keep it above any flooding!)
 
if another one of those deals comes around later this year I will probably jump on it. But until then I managed to snag a deal on a Lyman M5 which will get the tuning and a video camera treatment.

The Auto-throw completes the package. Can load 50 rounds in no time compared to throwing low with Lyman Gen 5 powder dispenser and hand trickling to exact weight.
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My Chargemaster sits idle most of the time now. I just use the scale function to dial in my powder throw because I can throw with my regular powder throw within .1 - .2 grains low then manually trickle up to exact weight on my beam faster than than the Chargemaster will dispense. Takes me a little over an hour for 50 rounds including setting up, zeroing and clean up and storage. I am sure the auto throw/ trickler would be a tad faster and not nearly as finicky to set up.
 
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Why not use a scale reading in grams and just make the conversion from grains? I just saw a Tinsay scale that reads 200 g to +/- 0.001 g for $120 on Amazon. That is better than 0.1 grain precision. What's wrong with that?
 
Why not use a scale reading in grams and just make the conversion from grains? I just saw a Tinsay scale that reads 200 g to +/- 0.001 g for $120 on Amazon. That is better than 0.1 grain precision. What's wrong with that?
Click to expand...

don't confuse resolution with precision an have you ever see a load recipe of 37.115 grains of Varget ?
 
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