Best digital scale for trickling

[Reeferman]

No it's not. (read my post above, #74 - we crossed as we posted)

I do suspect that this is a result of using ball powder, but I'm not going to change my powder simply because the measure won't work right with it.

Man that really sucks. Hoping to here good things. I use a lot of ball powder so guess the Hornady will be on hold for me until I hear better things.

 

[Bfh_auto]

When you take that back, pick up the lock-n-load volumetric I mentioned in an earlier post or whatever brand suits you. If you wrote it down with degreaserand reassemble it, it will get you within 1/10 with that powder. When you find the OCW, 1/10 won't break your group.
Hope the new year treats you better than the end of this one has.

 

[Varminterror]

Meanwhile the LR precision guys swear by low SDs and ES and you don't normally get there with thrown charges.

There's a very big difference between benchrest and precision rifle games, so naturally, there's a very big difference between how they're loaded. Not all guys load the same, of course, but the fact a guy really needs to shoot sub 1/4moa in 600/1000 (let alone 100/200 games) benchrest is a really big shift from what has to happen in precision rifle matches. A 3/4MOA rifle can win most precision rifle matches, whereas it wouldn't even smell the top ranks of most Benchrest matches. Precision rifle guys might procrastinate enough to load the night before a match, but nobody is loading at the match like what is done for BR matches. Knowing where your rifle prints at one or two ranges is fine in benchrest, and the rifle doesn't have to ever be asked to do anything else. Don't get me wrong, I've found it MUCH easier to load for PR matches than I ever did for BR, but only because the expectation/demand is so much lower. It's really easy to find a 1/2-3/4 MOA load in these rifles which has single digit SD's, maybe even single digit ES's, and roll on. Finding a load which shot in the 1's has never been something I could say was easy.

@D.B. Cooper - Lots of guys will jump on the "you're doing it wrong" bandwagon any time anyone has a complaint about the Hornady AutoCharge failing, and the trickle approach tuning IS a very common user error, but unfortunately, what you're experiencing is VERY common for the Hornady unit. Doesn't matter what powder, doesn't matter what product. It's an electronics issue. I went through three of the Hornady units, none lasted more than 18mos. My first one died out of the 1yr warranty, but I thought it a fluke and bought another. That one went down during the warranty, and Hornady sent me a third. That one also went down within 18mos. I used it for some low volume stuff for about a year after that, maybe threw another 1,000rnds in batches of no more than 100 at a time, then the digital drive completely gave up. Not just the failure of the controller, but the drive completely quit. The scale circuit still worked, but none of the dispense functions worked at all - within 2.5yrs, two independent electronics failures within one unit, and 3 controller failures within 3 units with less than 18months of service life. When I joined the Kansas Precision Rifle Club, I met 3 other guys who had experienced the same issues with their Hornady's. I LOVE hornady products, shoot thousands of their bullets each year, load with their equipment, but their Autocharge powder dispenser is NOT worthy of the rest of their product lines. Alternatively, one of my Chargemasters has over a decade on it without a hiccup... I'm about a year into a Lyman Gen 5 which I bought used, 3yrs old, and it has been flawless as well...

It's just not worth taking a risk on the Hornady unit.

 

[Blue68f100]

I've made every adjustment I can. I've slowed down everything, and I've set the trickle to start wayyyyyy before the target load weight. Absoluely nothing is working. This POS just keeps on pouring powder. Every charge is an over charge, and there is no way to stop it.

My neighbor had one that did that, within 1 mo of purchase. He called Hornady and sent it in. They sent him a new one. His new one so far has worked fine.

Mr RCBS 1500 has worked flawlessly since day one. There is a parameter listing out for the 1500's. I've used it to slow it down earlier than the original program. The RCBS units retain these settings even after you turn it off. The Hornady does not. The straw trick works good to preventing over shoots. I bought some brass tubing and made a stray insert. The main thing I did was to restrict the intake. This in turn will keep the powder from packing the tube, making it feed less powder.

 

[Nature Boy]

This is what I want but I can’t spend the money for it

 

[Walkalong]

That is sweet, but for the cost I'll be doing it the old fashioned way.

 

[Reeferman]

Did you get your money back?

 

[D.B. Cooper]

Did you get your money back?

Yeah. No problems. I also returned the Lyman Micro Touch 1500 that I bought at the beginning of this discussion. It lasted a week before dying with the same failure mode as the one I bought a year ago: wandering display and won't calibrate.

All together that's $300 back in my bank and I'm now down to my Redding beam scale only.

 

[Reeferman]

Sounds good too bad they didn’t work out for you. Though I own a lot of Hornady stuff I put a hold on the auto measure for now. The one scale that was no good for me was their LNL beam scale. After going through a couple of them they sent me the electronic bench scale and it has worked great for several years now.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

So nothing is working out. I just can't believe all the problems I'm having.

Now I can't even get a consistent measurement from my beam scale/lee auto drum combo. Every charge I throw is +/- a half grain or more. I'm constantly making adjustments to the powder measure, and I'm constantly zeroing the scale and checking it with check weights.

I just can't get this to work no matter what I do. It's a constantly moving target.

I can't imagine using equipment any simpler than what I have, and it's still not right.

I am really starting to feel as though I should quit reloading altogether, which means quit shooting more than once or twice per year.

 

[Nature Boy]

Do you have any fluorescent lights near your scale?

Set your cell phone next to it?

There are other things that will throw off a scale that I can’t remember. It can’t be all bad luck.

 

[Bfh_auto]

Try cleaning the scale's pivot point. If there is any dirt or dust, it will make the reading fluctuate.
I wouldn't worry about the auto drum not throwing right. Set it just under your charge and use a dipper to drop the rest. The volumetric is just for getting you close.

 

[jmorris]

So nothing is working out. I just can't believe all the problems I'm having.

Now I can't even get a consistent measurement from my beam scale/lee auto drum combo. Every charge I throw is +/- a half grain or more. I'm constantly making adjustments to the powder measure, and I'm constantly zeroing the scale and checking it with check weights.

I just can't get this to work no matter what I do. It's a constantly moving target.

I can't imagine using equipment any simpler than what I have, and it's still not right.

Don’t get frustrated, for me, that’s time to pack it up and go get a drink. Call it “reflection”. If you can’t get a consistent measurement from your scale/balance that is the place to start, forget about the rest until you get that problem solved.

Air drafts would be the most common cause of a beam being off. If you can’t put the same object on the device and get repeatable measurements, it’s just not to be trusted.

Once you know your measuring device is repeatable then you can focus on your method of throwing charges. If you can’t measure them with repeatability, your wasting time and energy trying to get where you want to go, you could even be there and not know it.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

Try cleaning the scale's pivot point. If there is any dirt or dust, it will make the reading fluctuate.
I wouldn't worry about the auto drum not throwing right. Set it just under your charge and use a dipper to drop the rest. The volumetric is just for getting you close.

That's sort of what I did to get through the last 25 rounds. I set it WAYYYY under and trickled A LOT of powder.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

Don’t get frustrated, for me, that’s time to pack it up and go get a drink. Call it “reflection”. If you can’t get a consistent measurement from your scale/balance that is the place to start, forget about the rest until you get that problem solved.

Air drafts would be the most common cause of a beam being off. If you can’t put the same object on the device and get repeatable measurements, it’s just not to be trusted.

Once you know your measuring device is repeatable then you can focus on your method of throwing charges. If you can’t measure them with repeatability, your wasting time and energy trying to get where you want to go, you could even be there and not know it.

I shut down the heating system in the garage, so there is no air flow at all in there. I have a set of check weights. I'll do that later tonight.

 

[Riccochet]

Cheap scale that responds well to a powder trickler:

First post! But wanted to comment on this. I have the Waoaw scale and it lives up to what the videos show. I'm religious about checking it with check weights and against a beam scale. So far it's been extremely accurate for tenth of a grain measurements with no noticeable zero drift. Like the video I've tried to make it mess up and it just hasn't, yet. I've only had it for a couple months, so the skepticism is still there. And how cheap this thing feels I'm just not confident it's going to last. But for $20 so far it beats all the cheap pocket scales and even some of the $100+ scales I've tried.