Electronic powder scale recommendations
- Thread starter RileyMartin
- Start date
rpenmanparker
New member
As a research chemist my experience with electronic scales/balances goes back to 1966 shortly after they were first introduced.
Are you saying that recipes specifying powder to 0.001 grain is a real thing or not? I was talking about 0.001 g which is between 0.01 and 0.02 gr. Isn't that the limit at which you commonly work?
Don Fischer
New member
Blow's my mind how much some of you are willing to spend on a scale! Up to $600! Will the thing do anything other than weight things? You know kind of like cell phones today! 
Don Fischer
New member
Blow's my mind how much some of you are willing to spend on a scale! Up to $600! Will the thing do anything other than weight things? You know kind of like cell phones today! I think it was another site, some guy wanted to tell everyone about the budget long range rifle he got built. Budget is the key word here, $3000! That's budget?
I think it was another site, some guy wanted to tell everyone about the budget long range rifle he got built. Budget is the key word here, $3000! That's budget?I had a Gempro. Mine was slow reacting and would not read a single kernal drop. It drifted continually while weighing. It is not bad for the price but you do get what you pay for. Those with tendencies toward OCD find it unacceptable. Scales have software that try to control drift. The Gempro software will not see very slow tricking. It treats very slow increases in weight as drift. The FX-120i scale has software also. But you can disable the drift correction. Something not possible on the Gempro. How does it react with the drift software disabled? It will read every kernal of powder as it is dropped, but about every 5 weighings it will drift about .02 grains. That will throw it out of auto until you rezero. So I mostly leave the software running. But it is a much better scale than the Gempro. And it runs the Autotrickler and autothrow.
You don't have to pay that much to get accurate charges. That being said someday when I have some money to burn one of those babys sitting on my bench with the auto trickler. For the moment though it is just as easy for me to throw and trickle up on a modified beam and get good results. These loads were thrown on a 50 year old M5 bought off Ebay for 60 dollars. I cleaned it , did the needle mod and use my cellphone camera to eliminate paralex. If it is zeroed and I drop a kernel of Varget onto the pan the needle will move off zero. You can't get much better than that
Code:
Name:44.6
Number of Shots 5
Extreme Spread 29
Average 2752
Standard Deviation 9
Shot 1 2737
2 2754
3 2754
4 2766
5 2749
Name: 44.5
Number of Shots 5
Extreme Spread 11
Average 2748
Standard Deviation 3
Shot 1 2749
2 2749
3 2754
4 2749
5 2743
Name:44.4
Number of Shots 5
Extreme Spread 17
Average 2743
Standard Deviation 6
Shot 1 2743
2 2749
3 2743
4 2749
5 2732
Name:44.4 to 44.6 Combined
Shot 1 2737
2 2754
3 2754
4 2766
5 2749
6 2749
7 2749
8 2754
9 2749
10 2743
11 2743
12 2749
13 2743
14 2749
15 2732
Number of Shots 15
Extreme Spread 45
Average 2,748
Standard Deviation 8Don't get hung up on accuracy, it is really not needed unless you are pushing the high end of the charge range. Plus or minus 1/10 grain accuracy is fine. What is required for reloading ammo for long range shooting are precise measurements. The ability to weigh out the exact same amount of powder time after time.
https://labwrite.ncsu.edu/Experimental Design/accuracyprecision.htm
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Colorado Redneck
New member
"Powder charges, as long as they were fairly consistent and bracketed within a couple of grains, were not important. He threw all of his charges with a Belding & Mull powder measure, and for one experiment he shot groups using three different powder measure settings (51, 52 & 53) … all three groups were identical."
From the Houston Warehouse Experiment
http://precisionrifleblog.com/2013/...-warehouse-lessons-in-extreme-rifle-accuracy/
Is creating charges within plus or minus a few kernals of powder that critical? I readily admit to being a Fudd that feels impressed with himself with 1 inch groups at 300 yards, and thinks smacking prairie rats at 400 is truley satisfying. Just curious.
From the Houston Warehouse Experiment
http://precisionrifleblog.com/2013/...-warehouse-lessons-in-extreme-rifle-accuracy/
Is creating charges within plus or minus a few kernals of powder that critical? I readily admit to being a Fudd that feels impressed with himself with 1 inch groups at 300 yards, and thinks smacking prairie rats at 400 is truley satisfying. Just curious.
For 100 yard benchresters a powder charge variation of plus or minus .1 gn and the extreme spreads of velocity does not matter a whit, for 1000 yard benchresters or F class shooters it matters a great deal. Here are the bullet drops in inches from the above chrono results calculated with the extreme spread of each test group using a 140 grain bullet with a .510 G1 BC. Notice the drops using the high and low velocities from the .3 grain spread. As you can see at 1000 yards there can be a 1 MOA difference in the plus or minus .1 grain charge but at 100 and 200 there is little difference. Even at 300 there was only a .3 inch drop difference between the high and low velocity. Now the electronics most of us use have a accuracy of plus or minus .1, even the Gempros. Out to 300 yards or so they are fine. However unless you are using a modded beam or a electronic using magnetic force tech scale do not expect to be competitive at 800 or 1000 yards. The X ring at 1000 is 5 inches, the ten ring is 10 inches
Code:
44.6 2766 2737 ES of 29
Drop at 100 0 0 0
Drop at 200 3.7 3.8 0.1
Drop at 300 13.4 13.7 0.3
Drop at 600 87.9 89.6 1.7
Drop at 800 189 192.7 3.7
drop at 1000 349.2 356.1 6.9
44.5 2754 2743 ES of 11
Drop at 100 0 0 0
Drop at 200 3.7 3.8 0.1
Drop at 300 13.5 13.7 0.2
Drop at 600 88.8 89.6 0.8
Drop at 800 190.9 192.7 1.8
drop at 1000 352.7 356.1 3.4
44.4 2749 2732 ES of 17
Drop at 100 0 0 0
Drop at 200 3.8 3.8 0
Drop at 300 13.5 13.8 0.3
Drop at 600 89.1 90.4 1.3
Drop at 800 191.7 194.5 2.8
drop at 1000 354.2 359.4 5.2
44.4 to 44.6 2766 2732 FPS ES of 34
Drop at 100 0 0 0
Drop at 200 3.7 3.8 0.1
Drop at 300 13.4 13.8 0.4
Drop at 600 87.9 90.4 2.5
Drop at 800 189 194.5 5.5
drop at 1000 349.2 359.4 10.2
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rpenmanparker
New member
So if long distance shooting is so critical (obviously), exactly what scale do you need? 0.001 gr resolution? Weighing on something like that is very tricky. Air currents, vibration, etc. all make a difference. The doors to the scale have to be closed between each adjustment of quantity to get a valid reading. You wouldn't be able to go very fast.
As I explained in a earlier post, accuracy and resolution is not critical, precision of weighed charges is. Measuring to the tenth of a grain is all that is needed. A scale can have resolution of .015gn but if the precision is + or - .1 gn then one charge can be 34.115 and the next 34.015 and the third 34.215, You can get a 20 dollar Chinese scale that has resolution to .015 gns but the load cell technology will be no better than .1 gns and will use software compensation to eliminate drift. My beam scale only has a resolution of .1 gns but with the mods I can see a change of .02 which is about the weight of a single kernal of Varget
I know it gets confusing but just remember the difference between accuracy and precision. Bottom line is if you are shooting pistols or less than 500 yards with a rifle get a 20 dollar Chinese electronic scale or a low end auto trickler. They will give you all the precision you need. If you are shooting at 1000 yards get a lab grade scale or accurize a beam scale and trickle to the kernel of powder
BTW once I am in the rhythm I can load 50 rounds on my beam setup in about an hour start to finish. I would not want to do 500 rounds on it. The high end autotricklers such as the one in the link might be a bit faster but for my purpose the beam is the best choice until I can get some other equipment upgraded. Daddy needs a Vortex Golden Eagle more than he needs to replace the beam scale
https://www.autotrickler.com/auto-trickler.html
I know it gets confusing but just remember the difference between accuracy and precision. Bottom line is if you are shooting pistols or less than 500 yards with a rifle get a 20 dollar Chinese electronic scale or a low end auto trickler. They will give you all the precision you need. If you are shooting at 1000 yards get a lab grade scale or accurize a beam scale and trickle to the kernel of powder
BTW once I am in the rhythm I can load 50 rounds on my beam setup in about an hour start to finish. I would not want to do 500 rounds on it. The high end autotricklers such as the one in the link might be a bit faster but for my purpose the beam is the best choice until I can get some other equipment upgraded. Daddy needs a Vortex Golden Eagle more than he needs to replace the beam scale
https://www.autotrickler.com/auto-trickler.html
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It's never as simple as it looks. 0.01543236 grains (0.001 grams) seems to be about as high a resolution as you need, as that will show just one physical grain of a rifle powder. However, it isn't always necessary. Much as I love playing with ballistics programs and calculating drops, what they don't take into account is muzzle rise. The program tells you what will happen if you have a perfectly rigid barrel throughout the firing event.
Most real rifles, however, have the bore above the line to the shooter's shoulder so the muzzle tends to rise a bit as the bullet heads down the tube. This is exaggerated by a flexure point formed most of the way to the muzzle that causes the muzzle to tip upward. Whatever phase of the tipping swing the muzzle is in when the bullet exits will determine its exact angle of departure from the shooting position. Typically an accuracy load will be timed such that when the velocity of the bullet is lower and the barrel time longer, the muzzle has used that extra time to swing to a very slightly higher angle of departure and therefore launches the slower bullet on a slighter higher trajectory arc that tends to compensate for greater drop by the time the bullet arrives at the target.
Theoretically, that compensation will be exact at just one range, but it tends to bring all the errors closer. The problem is that how much of that muzzle deflection you get depends on the barrel's length and thickness and height above the stock line into the shooter's shoulder, the bullet weight and the pressure levels in the bore, which cause some barrel distortion and tend to stiffen it behind the bullet like air or water pressure stiffen a hose. So it's a complex interaction and you just have to determine what works for you by testing loads in your rifle. If you can find a good sweet spot over which exact load doesn't matter much at your maximum range, and then load as consistently as you can, that gives you an error buffer that will help with temperature and condition changes.
Most real rifles, however, have the bore above the line to the shooter's shoulder so the muzzle tends to rise a bit as the bullet heads down the tube. This is exaggerated by a flexure point formed most of the way to the muzzle that causes the muzzle to tip upward. Whatever phase of the tipping swing the muzzle is in when the bullet exits will determine its exact angle of departure from the shooting position. Typically an accuracy load will be timed such that when the velocity of the bullet is lower and the barrel time longer, the muzzle has used that extra time to swing to a very slightly higher angle of departure and therefore launches the slower bullet on a slighter higher trajectory arc that tends to compensate for greater drop by the time the bullet arrives at the target.
Theoretically, that compensation will be exact at just one range, but it tends to bring all the errors closer. The problem is that how much of that muzzle deflection you get depends on the barrel's length and thickness and height above the stock line into the shooter's shoulder, the bullet weight and the pressure levels in the bore, which cause some barrel distortion and tend to stiffen it behind the bullet like air or water pressure stiffen a hose. So it's a complex interaction and you just have to determine what works for you by testing loads in your rifle. If you can find a good sweet spot over which exact load doesn't matter much at your maximum range, and then load as consistently as you can, that gives you an error buffer that will help with temperature and condition changes.
Colorado Redneck
New member
Thanks for the examples and explanation, hounddog. Now I understand.
Some great stuff.
I will add though that scale features and usability are a significant factor.
Ergo, that is why I like the Lyman. Cost a fair amount more than the $20 scale, but it has nice controls and when the dispenser went South if filled in for re-loading.
Some were very amendable to a side trickler and some were not.
Where the buttons were locate4d and how they worked was a factor.
I do have a cheap Hornady I keep in the gun box as occasionally I want to weigh something at the range.
I will add though that scale features and usability are a significant factor.
Ergo, that is why I like the Lyman. Cost a fair amount more than the $20 scale, but it has nice controls and when the dispenser went South if filled in for re-loading.
Some were very amendable to a side trickler and some were not.
Where the buttons were locate4d and how they worked was a factor.
I do have a cheap Hornady I keep in the gun box as occasionally I want to weigh something at the range.
Some good points RC. I still have my Chargemaster and use it's scale on occasion. I may sell it but if I do I will buy a semi nice electronic like the Lyman or RCBS for weighing bullets and setting the powder throw
you're certainly welcome. Never been prairie dog hunting but I envision a little oblong and narrow X ring. I wager that windage calls will make or break more shots than whether the charge is accurate to .015 gns
you're certainly welcome. Never been prairie dog hunting but I envision a little oblong and narrow X ring. I wager that windage calls will make or break more shots than whether the charge is accurate to .015 gns
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Unpacked my A&D FX-200i scale last night. The build quality on the scale is impressive. Better than any scale I own. Got my slab granite too. But the Auto Trickler and a Area419 base were backordered and won't get here until next week. I think I going to like this setup compared to what I was using. After I sell a couple of scales, the pain won't hurt as much either.