RCBS 1500 Question

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Shadowstalker

Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2011
Messages
7
Location
Oregon
After searching this forum and others I'm pretty close to buying a 1500 Combo; but after talking to a guy out at the range that has one I wanted to find out if other guys have had the same experience that he has.
He told me that it is not very well suited for loads under 25g (which is most of my reloading) because it spins up to 25g so quickly. My load is 24.5g of 748, and he was saying from his experience as it starts "thinking" about 24.5g, it will have already spit out 25+g. He did talk about possibly "tricking" the machine by setting up so that it is slightly out of level front to back, so that it goes to the trickle mode sooner. Anybody else experience this?
The calibers I load the most are:
.223 (2000+/yr)
.40 S&W (2000+/yr)
7mm Rem Mag (150+/yr)
.338 Win Mag (250+/yr)
My reason to purchase one is for the accuracy and saving the time of manually tricking in every charge
 
I have a RCBS 1500 and use it to load 9 pistol and rifle calibers from .380 to 30 06 and it's very accurate. My loads are always within 1/10 of a grain. I've used many scales before including beams and other digitals and the 1500 is absolutely the best.
 
I had a concern about the number of overchages that i got with the 1500 combo. I called rcbs and they stated it was due to using powder that is a stick powder (verget). he stated to tilt the machine by putting a primer box under the front of it. This occurs because tricklers do not meter stick powders very well and too much is trickled out. I tried it and it made me nervous so I no longer do that. I suspect that you may have the same problem. I have not has any problem with power pistol no matter how light the load is. I suspect that it is to be expected and all I do is thow the powder back in the hopper and throw it again. ;)
 
I thought the whole point of these auto-dispensing devices was to simplify and speed up the charging process. Yet there are lots of threads here and elsewhere that make it obvious these contraptions have a ways to go before they live up to their hype.

Hornady came out with one lately. Have you guys got any accounts on how their auto-dispenser behaves in the real world?
 
twofifty said:
I thought the whole point of these auto-dispensing devices was to simplify and speed up the charging process. Yet there are lots of threads here and elsewhere that make it obvious these contraptions have a ways to go before they live up to their hype.
Click to expand...

Ummm .... I have two and I won't be without one ... that's why I have two. I don't think they're hype at all. They work very well and definitely speed up the loading of rifle cartridges, assuming you dispense powder by weight.

Shadowstalker, I use the 1500 for rifle cartridges only, including .223 Remington, and don't have any problems accurately dispensing 25.0gr of Varget. I load ALL pistol cartridges using a Redding 10X or Redding BR-30 which are considerably faster and easily accurate enough. I may try loading .223 Remington on my progressive with the BR-30 at some point.
 
I've never had a problem with mine. With loads as low as 3.4gr up to 30gr, I even use it to weigh some gold to determine its worth.

I have also found my Chargemaster does not need to "warm-up" as some electronic scales do. I have tested it with Lyman check weights and found it to be dead on whether its been on for a few seconds or a few hours.

Turn it on, pour the powder in, enter the amount you want, and hit the "Disp" button. As soon as you replace the powder pan it starts to dispense the next load.

I had a concern about the number of overchages that i got with the 1500 combo
Click to expand...

The only over charges I have gotten was when first starting out it will sometimes throw over for a couple loads (generally lite charge's like 3.5gr of some pistol powder), after the dispenser adjusts to the powder it is on every time.

Use a McDonald’s Straw to Reduce Over-Throws
Jaco Brink provided another useful tip to avoid “over-throws” (excess charge weight): “The RCBS employee advised me to take a McDonnell’s straw (because it is thicker than a normal straw), cut off about a half inch piece and put it into the tube where the powder exits. This caused the last part of an extruded powder to cluster less, and reduced the amount of overthrows dramatically.”
Click to expand...

I am betting this will be the fix for stick powders.
 
Last edited:
After reading a couple of these threads I decided to time the dispenses and see exactly how long it takes. I have the Lyman 1200 DPS 3, not an RCBS, but they claim that it is the fastest. What I found was that different powders dispense at different rates. I suspect that the RCBS will have similar results. I'd be interested in knowing them if anyone has ever timed them, but here's how mine turned out.

Unique - 6 gr = 12 seconds
Varget - 6 gr = 8 seconds

Unique - 25 gr = 20 seconds
Varget - 25 gr = 12 seconds

Unique - 50 gr = 30 seconds
Varget - 50 gr = 18 seconds

I load the Unique @ 6 gr and the Varget @ 25, the rest was just to see how they compared to each other. If I had more powder on hand I would have tried it too, but those are what I was loading at the time.

I thought the whole point of these auto-dispensing devices was to simplify and speed up the charging process.
Click to expand...

I agree with 1858's post, I love my machine (even though it isn't the one in question) for rifles and "working up" a load, but don't necessarily find it the fastest for handguns. I think that it does "simplify" the process to some extent, but as far as making the process faster, I think that depends on what you're doing.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top