powder scales - Best Buy

[n8ess]

I'm looking to purchase some scales, should I go balance beam or are the digital any good??? I have heard some negative reports on the digitals saying they can be effected by other equipment and start throwing inaccurate loads.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Cheers

 

Neil

[ds1]

I have had RCBS digitals - I got tired of the warm-up time and temperature sensitivity. If left on and in a stable temperature they can be better and quicker for case and head sorting.

 

I now prefer RCBS 10-10 manual scales for weighing powder, I have a set of 505 scales as a back-up but do not like them as much as 10-10 scales.

 

I think what works though for other people can and will be different - depends on your reloading "process" and how you want to go about things. Dumping a charge of powder from a manual powder thrower and trickling up on a manual scale is quicker for me than pressing a button on my old RCBS electric scales, but you could be doing something else whilst the electronic units are doing their thing.

 

david.

[n8ess]

I think I will go with the balance beam scales, I was looking at RCBS 10-10 and the Redding number 2.

 

Thanks for the advice

 

Cheers

 

Neil

[Chris-NZ]

I've heard too many bad reports about cheap digital scales with wandering zeros, etc.

 

Talking to one of my patients who deals with professional scales, it's apparent that a decent load cell that has the necessary precision/stability for reloading will never be cheap. These guys expect pricing at least 4X what most of the basic reloading scales sell for, and true industrial ones are 10X the price.

 

Chris-NZ

[gareth]

I used to have an RCBS digital scale but couldn't get on with it personally. I thought it would speed up my reloading but by the time it had warmed up and settled itself down, it had the opposite effect. Also, I never felt I could trust it to give an accurate reading, call me old fashioned but I like to see that balance beam at work. I'm looking at getting a decent (Harrell etc) powder thrower to save scooping powder and then using a trickler to acheive my prefered charge.

[eldon]

I have some cheap digital scales and a set of RCBS 502, I think.

Never had true faith in the digital set up. Good for comparing cases heads etc but I never use them for powder as they can wander.

The balance beam is simplicity in itself and once zero'ed is good to go.

Thats my preference but may not suit all.

 

General trend with electrical devices especially with accuracy in mind is cheap is never any good.