Dial Calipers

[ScottRiqui]

I think some of your earlier posts came across as claiming that the Chinese tools were crap *because* they were made in China.

Do people really think that $15 caliper they are buying is made from good quality steel and consistently hardened when its being produced by a 15 year old in china? The term "chinese crap" actualy did come from somewhere.

The country of origin or the age of the person doing the manufacturing really have nothing to do with it. A $15 caliper made in the U.S. would likely suck just as hard.

[dacaur]

I think some of your earlier posts came across as claiming that the Chinese tools were crap *because* they were made in China.

Huh? I belive I said " I'm not saying everything from china is complete crap, there are probably lots of high quality products that come out of china".

The country of origin or the age of the person doing the manufacturing really have nothing to do with it. A $15 caliper made in the U.S. would likely suck just as hard.

You are right, the country of origin doesnt automatically mean that something is quality or that its crap, but the fact remains that I dont see much low quality stuff coming out of japan, switzerland, germany, the UK, brazil, etc... Stuff from those places cost more, but you do get what you pay for.

I bet a $15 caliper made in the USA would suck, but then, I dont see any.... Think there MIGHT be a reason for that?

As for stuff from china being crap... Answer this. If you were about to be sent off into the amazon jungle for a year, and you had your pick of two piles of equipment, one containing ONLY stuff made in china, and the other containing ONLY things made in any of the countries I mentioned above, and you knew there was no hope of any type of a resupply or repair, which pile would you take? Nuff said.

[jcwit]

Oh, do you mean the computer that I am lucky to go a 2-3 years without some part of it burning out or self destructing? No, actualy, I dont....

My HP has been doing just fine for twice as long as that, and is usually on 8 to 12 hours a day.

One lucky little critter, ain't I.

I bet a $15 caliper made in the USA would suck, but then, I dont see any.... Think there MIGHT be a reason for that?

Yup, its called either Unions or pensions.

Lets go elsewhere, Nikon camera's come out of china, they cr@p also? Careful how thats answered.

BTW, no one manufactures a camera here in the U.S.A for the consumers market.

Check out your cell phone, TV, any kitchen appliances, the list goes on and on. So in your mind we are living in a world of cr@p.

Maybe so, but we're living pretty well.

BTW I own and also use a set of Starrett Dials, Mitutoyo Digital, and a couple of sets of H/F that go to the range with me in the range boxes. The H/F ones are the newest, at 10 years old, they all measure the same.

[dacaur]

Actually, only nikons low end cameras are made in china. The better ones are made elsewhere..... ... again, I never said everything that comes out of china is crap... I only said that a lot of it is.

I guess I should reword it and say a lot of the crap stuff out there comes from china.... ??

But then, we are drifting off topic. What are you trying to prove? You are going to have a hard time convincing anyone that everything that is made in china is top notch.... That just isnt true. Most of it IS "good enough", even if much of that is due to being blatant ripoffs of things developed elsewhere.... If you have no money in R&D, of course you can charge ludicrously low prices.....

[Clark]

Unclenick


I was beginning to wonder with some of the posts if some of us haven't been talking past each other. Perhaps the terminology should be reviewed, just to be sure.

That could not happen on a gun forum at the 4 page stage.
Everyone reads every word and 100% comprehension and retention.

Just kidding, I don't even read, understand, or remember MY OWN posts.



Accuracy is absolute
Precision is relative
Resolution is how many digits
Repeatably is a range of measurements that reveals the precision.

As I said earlier, the difference between most cheap dial calipers and most expensive ones is .0020" repeatably vs .0002" repeatably [over a dozen measurements of the same object].
It is so bad with most cheap ones [after a little use], that Accuracy and Resolution do not matter.

If you don't believe me, try to replicate the test I posted.
the dial caliper test I posted

[jcwit]

I think the main thing regarding this discussion is that for the 98% of the reloaders out their a dial/digital caliber that "0" out at the jaws will work. Price being of no consequence, country being of no consequence, in face most of the 98% have no idea what is ment by the phrase "feel".

Now of course there are a few to who this does not apply. But even those more than likely would be able to use inexpensive units with complete satisfaction regardless of cost or country of manufacture, if they'd actually admit it.

Lets be honest here, we're not launching the first pod to Mars.

Even the custom barrel manufactures do not mention or guarantee the close tolerances that have been bantered about here.

[Unclenick]

Yes. But I'll stand by my statement that the two-legged element in the measuring system is a big consideration. A new reloader with no past fine measuring experience can screw up even a good caliper's reading.

The country of origin thing is always in flux. When I was a kid, "Made In Japan" was synonymous with cheap junk. Then Japan made some money, became more affluent and its costs got too high to continue to compete on price. And that was done without a strong labor union movement or obscene salaries or pensions, including that even their top CEO salaries are not measured in millions like ours are. It's the overall affluence of the country that's the main thing dictating average costs because something has to pay for that average affluence level.

In China, affluence is increasing rapidly. Chinese automobile sales increased 5-fold over the last decade, hitting 16.5 million last year. GM is making lots of money there as the Chinese have the same quality perception about American cars that Americans do about Japanese cars, so the Chinese prefer to buy American when they can afford to. At the other end of the balance, some U.S. firms have started moving production back here as Chinese labor shortages and high shipping costs and long distance quality control problems have made the more efficient modern U.S. production more competitive. So it's all changing, and China's growing pains will have them gradually competing more and more on quality and less on cost, too.

Bottom line, the Chinese tools you buy today and those you buy five years from now may well be different in quality. Different price, too. There's a certain degree of getting what you pay for, but also, as production techniques evolve you tend to get more for less, so that if what you need to measure is fixed, you are able to do it with less and less expensive instruments over time.

I'll stand by my example of the accuracy desired for cast bullet and slug diameters. With those, you can easily measure the group size difference a single thousandth makes. If you don't control at least that tightly, meaning your precision in comparisons between bullets and slugs isn't at least ½ thousandth, you don't yet know how well your gun can shoot. For the average hand loader that level of precision is most easily achieved using an OD thimble micrometer.

[pgdion]

Again, if the manufacturer designs and specs garbage, they get garbage.

We have a very difficult time getting what we spec. We're now on our 6th iteration of a cable hoping this one is finally right. None of the batches of yet been consistent or matched our specs & drawings. There is talking of manufacturing the cable in the US because of the concerns over quality (wish we would), but the bean counters insist the cost would be too high. Nothing wrong with our specs, everything wrong with the quality from China.

And don't get me started with all the problems with computers these days.

[Clark]

As mechanical measuring devices made in China more more quickly from my "still works" collection to my "junk yard" collection.

I have some Midway dial calipers I got for $20 back ~1999.
They had 0.0002" precision for 10 years and then moved to the junk yard.
Every other pair of calipers from China I has seen since were not as good.

[Sport45]

Good calipers and micrometers are worth repairing. The cheap ones not so much.

The last Brown and Sharpe caliper I sent in cost $50 to repair, including a new crystal. I thought it was worth it. Obviously, you wouldn't send the HF or store brand calipers for this type of service.

Precision Calibration & Repair does this sort of work in the Houston area.

[Caliber]

I've been using starrett dial caliper for about 10+ years recently bought a cheap digital one from midway usa and it's on par with the 4x priced starrett and the digital caliper is alot faster/easier to use :-x

[dacaur]

Im not at all surprised that a brand new cheap digital is on par with a 10 year old starrett... Let us know how they compare in another 10 , thats the real test...