I didn't hear angels sing

[William T. Watts]

Raising the front didn't help (made it worse), this particular lot of H4831 is 20 years old and quite coarse, I have less than two pounds of it left. On another note if a short cut powder is available I may try that when powder is available again. I like this powder and used it for 40 or more years, it's perfect for a number of calibers so I'll keep working with it until I find a solution. I need to call it a day and clean my wifes kitchen up or I may not have any supper. It's been an interesting afternoon, didn't get much accomplished but interesting non the less.. William

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by schmellba99

Like pretty much every other type of powder dispenser, I think it works better with ball/spherical powders than anything else.

Personally, I see virtually no difference in performance between any of the powders. The only ever so slight change I see is that stick or large flake powders sometimes take an extra "tick" or two for the last 1/10gr to fall, whereas ball or smaller powders tend to drop easier. It's a very small difference really, you have to load quite a few different powders to even notice, I'd say.

[schmellba99]

With the Chargemaster, there isn't much difference. Stick takes a smidge longer, but that's it.

I was speaking in generalities with pretty much any type of dispenser in that ease and general accuracy of dispensing goes ball, flake, stick for the most part.

[William T. Watts]

I came up with a straw (Mcdonalds) within a straw (Sams club) that narrowed the powder column sufficently to reduce the variance down to a + or - .1 of a grain with 4350, 4831 or 7828 powder. seems to work considerable better than the factory configured dispensing tube. The next time I load 100 or more rounds I'll give it a good work out!! While I don't have any ball powder I would suspect it will meter better than stick powder.. William

[David Bachelder]

Mine is spot on, each and every time. I did have some trouble a while back and I found that I need to be still during the metering. Operating the press or creating vibration causes trouble.

[603Country]

I have the Lyman, and I've found that it's best to input and have it throw 0.2 grains less than I want to wind up with, and then hit the trickle button. Works pretty good. Best metering of the powders I use is on H335 and AA2230, but it works quite well with 4064 and H4831sc. The regular H4831 doesn't meter as well as the sc version, since the chunks are bigger.

I keep check weights on hand and my PACT digital scale is also on hand for recheck of weights.

[AllenJ]

I took pictures of what was happening but they are so blurry there is no use posting them (so much for camera phones!). I did notice what is happening though is that during the trickle phase, the powder seems to jump backwards rather than dropping causing a build up, which after a couple trickles all drops at once. I think the straw trick might help so I'll try it next.

[Rimfire5]

I have noticed that the performance of my Chargemaster 1500 varies a bit depending on where on my bench it is situated. I have learned to always keep it in the spot where it works best. That would be hard on a kitchen table.

I also notice that vibration on the table while it is in its fine metering stage will cause overages perhaps because the vibration seems to shake out grains that were supposed to remain in the tube.

I also calibrate every time I turn it on. It just makes me feel better about how accurate the measure is.

I find that the Chargemaster meters the finer grain powders much better than the stick powders.
For example H335 and N140 meter beautifully. IMR 4350 meters OK but there are occasional clumps that cause occasional 0.2 grain overages.
I guess I'll have to try the McDonalds straw approach with the stick powders.

[Unclenick]

Rimfire,

That's an excellent point. I long ago got one of the inexpensive grade B 9×12 granite surface plates and set it on a couple of layers of carpet scrap and set the electronic dispenser on that. Soaks vibration up just fine. For $9 more, Enco has a sale on 12"×18" plates currently. That would give you a little more working room.

[William T. Watts]

Letting everything warm up and calibrate the chargemaster every time along with using lyman weights to set my balance beam scale as back up to double check has helped. Plus this is something new and I had to get acquainted with the quirks of the chargemaster. I continue to play with the unit and feel far more comfortable now than when I started. The smaller grain powder meters better, it's a little more trouble using the coarser powders but they are doable, just a tad slower. Vibration from the chargemaster isn't an issue, the table is/was oak with a double pedestal and very heavily built. William

[Brian Pfleuger]

NOW the angels are singing!

[Ozzieman]

I don’t have one of the charge masters but I do have an earlier RCBS digital scales. I picked it up from a friends garage sell after he passed away. I know it was in good shape.
I started using it for the first time this winter and I really like it but I started having problems keeping 0, more than 10 minutes it would go off +/- .2 ether direction. I also have a nice set of calibrated scale weights that allow me to check every weight from .1 to several hundred.
I about gave up till I figured out the problem. I like a lot of light and have a desk lamp that I keep over the scale with a florescent bulb in it. Heat from the bulb would make the scale change and the bulb wound produce an electronic interference. Don’t know if it was a coil inside or whatever but if you moved the light up and down from 4 inches away you could see the weight change.
I got more of a spot light and directed it on the scale and trickler from several feet and problem went away.