Reloading scales and other stuff

[Geezerbiker]

With the return of my K-Hornet from a 2 year exile at a gunsmith shop, I figured I'd celebrate with a new digital scale. Someone here recommended a jewelry scale from Amazon. It wasn't at all expensive so I bought one. My first impression was this thing is tiny. The pan that comes with it is useless for reloading but the one from my 502 RCBS scale fits just fine so I'm good there.

I wasted no time in checking the calibration and it was so close that it would have been silly to mess with it. The 10g calibration weights tested out to 10.003g for both of them and it exactly doubled with both of them.

Next I switched the scale to the grains scale and tested the weights then checked to see out my very old RCBS 502 scale did. It came out to about .15 grains off. So I'll deal with calibrating it later but it's good to know that after all these years and maybe a dozen moves it as good as it is.

First on my agenda was to load some 9mm Luger rounds. I set up my Lyman powder measure and proceeded to set it to drop 5.2gr of W231. With the 502 scale it's hard to see minor fluctuations in the loads dropped by this measure but with the digital scale I could see that with my best handling, the best I could to was to dial it in to a variance of 5.1 to 5.2 grains. I suppose that's close enough but I would have preferred them all to be 5.2 grains. Again I suppose that my loads with this tool have never been closer than that but I didn't know...

I was sure I knew where all my K-Hornet ammo and brass were, I found that I had completely forgotten. I searched all the usual places and found that I have a lot more .223 Rem stuff than I remembered but either I can't remember where I put it or I'm missing a couple hundred Hornet cases. As near as I can tell I'm still missing about 100 new PPU cases and 100 once fired Remington cases. I'm tired of looking and if they're here, I'll find them the next time look for something else.

I found 93 pieces of once fire Winchester brass that I had sized and primed a very long time ago. So I'll load those first. I also have some bulk 45gr Remington hollow points that I probably bought 20 years ago. I figure I'll use those first. By the time I got all set up and got out a fresh can of 4227, I decided I needed a break. Damn I feel old...

Tony

[Colorado Redneck]

Searching for things that were either misplaced, lost, tossed in the trash during a fit of cleaning out useless crap, has become a second hobby. It keeps me out of the bars. I feel old too....mostly because I am.

[Geezerbiker]

A close friend of mine passed a few months back and his old lady gave me a couple boxes of his ammo and reloading stuff. My grandson helped me tidy up my reloading room and while that wasn't a mistake, everything has moved and a lot of small stuff isn't anywhere near where I thought it would be.

On the upside I keep finding stuff I don't remember where or when I got it...

Tony

[Old_School]

Originally Posted by Colorado Redneck

Searching for things that were either misplaced, lost, tossed in the trash during a fit of cleaning out useless crap, has become a second hobby. It keeps me out of the bars. I feel old too....mostly because I am.

Ain't that the truth! And my wife has been accusing me of having early dementia...humpfff!

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[Old_School]

Originally Posted by Geezerbiker

With the return of my K-Hornet from a 2 year exile at a gunsmith shop, I figured I'd celebrate with a new digital scale. Someone here recommended a jewelry scale from Amazon. It wasn't at all expensive so I bought one. My first impression was this thing is tiny. The pan that comes with it is useless for reloading but the one from my 502 RCBS scale fits just fine so I'm good there.



I wasted no time in checking the calibration and it was so close that it would have been silly to mess with it. The 10g calibration weights tested out to 10.003g for both of them and it exactly doubled with both of them.



Next I switched the scale to the grains scale and tested the weights then checked to see out my very old RCBS 502 scale did. It came out to about .15 grains off. So I'll deal with calibrating it later but it's good to know that after all these years and maybe a dozen moves it as good as it is.



First on my agenda was to load some 9mm Luger rounds. I set up my Lyman powder measure and proceeded to set it to drop 5.2gr of W231. With the 502 scale it's hard to see minor fluctuations in the loads dropped by this measure but with the digital scale I could see that with my best handling, the best I could to was to dial it in to a variance of 5.1 to 5.2 grains. I suppose that's close enough but I would have preferred them all to be 5.2 grains. Again I suppose that my loads with this tool have never been closer than that but I didn't know...



I was sure I knew where all my K-Hornet ammo and brass were, I found that I had completely forgotten. I searched all the usual places and found that I have a lot more .223 Rem stuff than I remembered but either I can't remember where I put it or I'm missing a couple hundred Hornet cases. As near as I can tell I'm still missing about 100 new PPU cases and 100 once fired Remington cases. I'm tired of looking and if they're here, I'll find them the next time look for something else.



I found 93 pieces of once fire Winchester brass that I had sized and primed a very long time ago. So I'll load those first. I also have some bulk 45gr Remington hollow points that I probably bought 20 years ago. I figure I'll use those first. By the time I got all set up and got out a fresh can of 4227, I decided I needed a break. Damn I feel old...



Tony

So Tony, what K-Hornet rifle do you have? I've always wanted a K-Hornet, .17 Javelina, or one of the other small, improved, or wildcat rounds.

So far, I've stuck with my nearly 70 year old Sako .222 Rem and been pretty happy. However....

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[Nathan]

Do you have any check weights in the range you might be reloading? A 10g weight weighs approximately 154gr. Probably not close to the 23gr powder charge in 223 Rem.

Also, be careful about trickling into those scales. They tend not to change when powder is added a couple kernels at a time.

[Geezerbiker]

So far I've only been using the digital scale to dial in the powder measure for loads. After I calibrate my 502 scale, I'll use it when I trickle power for rifle loads.

I plan to get more check weights but so far, the loads I used it with have been 5.2gr of W231 for 9mm Lugar and 10gr of IMR4227 for the K-Hornet.

See my posts in Art of the Rifle here for my comments on the rifle. My K-Hornet quest has taken a long time, way too much money and been a real PITA.

Tony

[RC20]

I will disagree on the trickle. I can pretty well take out X number of grains and the scales will change. Or the dispenser adds two or three that are in the end of the tube and it changes a grain.

I have had a couple of cheap ones that did not, but the good ones can.

Having the Lab Radar I can see the variation in charges that are weighted to identical (which means they are off half a grain to a grain off most likely). 50-80 fps variation is not uncommon and that is using an M die to ensure necks are pretty uniform.

Factors beyond powder and powder weight to more than plus or minus a tenth gets you nothing and it may be 2/10.

I was about to order some more 6.5 Lapua though I thought I had another box of 100 when I found the danged thing. not where it was supposed to be or the usual other locations. Sheese.

I just found a second 7.5 Swiss Go Gauge. I forgot I had picked one up after borrwoing another guys and deciding I prefeed the gauges to tyrng to size to new brass.

[Unclenick]

Originally Posted by RC20

I can see the variation in charges that are weighted to identical (which means they are off half a grain to a grain off most likely)

I'm confused. Do you mean you weighed them to be identical charges, but your scale is only accurate to a whole grain? Or did you mean accurate to 0.05 grains to 0.10" grains? I assume the latter. If you are getting 50-80 fps with powder that tight, check two things:

1.) Handle the cartridge so the powder is always in the same position in the case at firing. I once tested some LC M72 '64 match in several Garands and showed velocity consistently was 80 fps slower when the powder was forward in the case than it was with the powder back over the flash hole. Rounds fired with the powder forward over the bullet at firing had primers with completely rounded perimeters. Rounds fired with the powder back over the flash hole had a very noticeable degree of flattening.

2.) Make sure your primers are seated firmly. They should be compressed about 0.003" deeper than where you feel the feet of the anvil just touch the bottom of the primer pocket.

"There is some debate about how deeply primers should be seated. I don’t pretend to have all the answers about this, but I have experimented with seating primers to different depths and seeing what happens on the chronograph and target paper, and so far I’ve obtained my best results seating them hard, pushing them in past the point where the anvil can be felt hitting the bottom of the pocket. Doing this, I can almost always get velocity standard deviations of less than 10 feet per second, even with magnum cartridges and long-bodied standards on the ’06 case, and I haven’t been able to accomplish that seating primers to lesser depths."

Dan Hackett
Precision Shooting Reloading Guide, Precision Shooting Inc., Pub. (R.I.P.), Manchester, CT, 1995, p. 271.

[RC20]

I'm confused. Do you mean you weighed them to be identical charges, but your scale is only accurate to a whole grain? Or did you mean accurate to 0.05 grains to 0.10" grains?

The accuracy is 1/10 of a grain. Within that is some variability as to how soon it ticks over when tricking (it does tick over).

I am assuming its no better than the reading + or minus .05 of a grain, just guessing but no better.

I am not necessarily using optimum powder fills, just what gets me 1/2 MOA or a bit under. 3/8 is a great day.

At best 1/4 inch. Good enough for me, I am not going to be Dale Tubbs at this point in life. Goal is to have enjoy the shooting and getting out.

[hounddawg]

RC20

I am not necessarily using optimum powder fills, just what gets me 1/2 MOA or a bit under. 3/8 is a great day.

At best 1/4 inch. Good enough for me, I am not going to be Dale Tubbs at this point in life. Goal is to have enjoy the shooting and getting out.

same here.

That being said when a load is in development and I am looking for that sweet spot on powder load I do like to get my measurements as precise as possible. Once the load is developed however a difference of .1 gn or even .2 gns should make no difference at all in the loads performance. My RCBS works fine for throwing match loads. I will be getting a Autothrow ver 4 this summer, not because I need it, I just want it for the extra speed in dropping a charge

[RC20]

For trial loads if it is 1/10 under or over, I let it go as its going to show good regardless.

If I hone in then I will stick to the 1/10 on the display knowing its got a possible .05 variation above or below.

[Geezerbiker]

I've only used this GEM20 scale a few times now but I've found so far that a powder that I thought metered really well was had more variation from drop to drop than I thought I was getting. Then the power I expected not to meter well (IMR4227) metered really well and only had a tiny variation from drop to drop...

There's just something about seeing the numbers rather than the pointer lining up that could be a hair high or low...

I'll experiment with trickling powder onto this scale at some point just to see how it does.

Tony

Tony