Re: Trouble with electronic scales
I just had an incident with an electronic scale that now has me gun-shy about electronics. Worst of all I discovered it a few days before driving 180 miles to shoot 1/2 mile with my newest Surgeon Scalpel for one of my annual trips.
I have been using a RCBS Range Pro (Made by PACT).
I have been fireforming brass with Varget, and then loading RL-25.
I noticed that when foreforming my necked down .300 Norma cases to 7mm, that they did not appear to fully form to the chamber (the shoulders were not sharp. I assumed that they would fully form on the second firing. I loaded a ladder 63 to 67 gr by .5 steps. 2 rounds per step.
I set up my chrony to measure velocities of the ladder loads before shooting to find the node.
The weather was a little crazy, cloudy, sunshine, cloudy, light rain, sunny again. I got a few errors on my chrony probably due tot he inconsistent sunlight. My chrony was then reading 2220 fps, +/- up to 50 fps. I cussed that chrony up and down about nor being user friendly etc. I tried everything to get it to read what I thought it should. After about 6 rounds fired I gave up on finding the node and just getting an accurate reading.
The cases were still not forming a sharp shoulder with what I thought was 65 gr. of RL 25.
I got home and checked my electronic scale. When I switched to grams to use the check weights everything checked good and calibrated. When I switched to grains it looked good, tared zero with the pan. However when I measured out 66 grains of RL25 and checked it with my clunky old beam scale, the electronic scale was OVER measuring by about 15-19 grains.
Luckily it was over weighing, and not UNDER weighing which could have blown up my Surgeon Scalpel.
The electronic scale seems to anticipate what I want to measure when not in calibrate mode. It may have something to do with the pan.
Last winter I reloaded over 1000 rounds of all different cartridges. .45-70, .308, .300 RSAUM and it worked fine.
NOW I am looking to spend some serious money for a quality commercial / jewelers electronic scale, or a high-speed beam scale. I looked at the Sartorius, as I would rather spend the money in a accurate and reliable scale then all of the power measuring /trickling voodoo. I don't mind throwing, measuring, trickling, measuring. I just want a scale that won't blow up a $5000 Surgeon, or take out my eye.
The RCBS is past warranty I am sure, and even if I got it fixed I would never trust it again.