I own a Lyman 1500 scale. I set it up and turned it on yesterday morning. This evening I ran through the calibration and then zeroed it. I started loading rounds for a ladder test on three different 223's. Thirteen rounds per gun were loaded for a total of 39 rounds. It took me about an hour. As I finished seating the last round I sat the empty pan back over on the scale and saw that the scale was reading 0.9 grains. Who knows what are inside those cases now. At least I did catch it and if I didn't they would have all been under max which is where I stopped at anyway.
So, with my tale of woe finished I am finally asking how long should a scale hold its zero? I mean seriously, 9 tenths drift in an hour? That seems a bit extreme.
Conditions:
No wind or fan or AC blowing on the unit. Solid table that was not part of the loading bench and was not hit, pounded or moved. Pan and scale were kept clean of stray kernels with a soft brush every few rounds. Scale was on its power supply and not running on batteries and had been so in excess of 24 hours. Calibration checks prior to start were dead on. All charges were thrown low and trickled up to (I say this due to the fact that the Lyman instructions specifically state not to trickle up from an empty pan).
So, with my tale of woe finished I am finally asking how long should a scale hold its zero? I mean seriously, 9 tenths drift in an hour? That seems a bit extreme.
Conditions:
No wind or fan or AC blowing on the unit. Solid table that was not part of the loading bench and was not hit, pounded or moved. Pan and scale were kept clean of stray kernels with a soft brush every few rounds. Scale was on its power supply and not running on batteries and had been so in excess of 24 hours. Calibration checks prior to start were dead on. All charges were thrown low and trickled up to (I say this due to the fact that the Lyman instructions specifically state not to trickle up from an empty pan).