I have a young nephew who is starting to reload so I passed along my RCBS 505 scale to him and set out to replace it.

What an experience - I'm starting to find out that quality has really taken a hit. Those of you using scales built years ago - keep them! The Redding #2 and RCBS 10-10 I recently ordered both needed to be returned for calibration - I chose to keep the RCBS 10-10 and take my chances that warranty will fix it.

Looking back I would have been better off buying an older scale sold by RCBS, Ohaus or Redding and just have it calibrated. Still have a Herters M4 beam scale that is well made but not sure who calibrates them but thinking maybe Redding.

The Dillon is a great copy of or made by Ohaus, good price too.

Buy a set of check weights and calibrate it your self

I'm interested to know more about this calibrating process for beam scales.

I just went through this with a 502 rcbs scale, on the phone the lady told me in the bottom of the hanging piece you put the pan on is hollow and it should rattle, as their is lead shot in it. She told me to take out or add to it as needed to get it to balance out. This was a used scale to me and I wasn't sure if it was the original piece, so i did as she told me to do and found I needed one piece of 7 1/2 lead shot. Looks like they use the same piece on most all of their scales, and to calibrate them they use the shot in the bottom of them. I did check it against my digital scale using check weights and it checked out fine.

quote:

Originally posted by mad_jack02:
I just went through this with a 502 rcbs scale, on the phone the lady told me in the bottom of the hanging piece you put the pan on is hollow and it should rattle, as their is lead shot in it. She told me to take out or add to it as needed to get it to balance out. This was a used scale to me and I wasn't sure if it was the original piece, so i did as she told me to do and found I needed one piece of 7 1/2 lead shot. Looks like they use the same piece on most all of their scales, and to calibrate them they use the shot in the bottom of them. I did check it against my digital scale using check weights and it checked out fine.

I recently had the same problem with a garage sale RCBS 5-10 and a call to the tech line got me instructions on calibrating along with a small packet of assorted size lead beads to use. In my case a single bead was removed and the scale was set to go, none were needed to be added.

I have run into this on several scales where the original pans have been lost and replaced. The new pans did not weigh the same so the lead shot in the hanger had to be adjusted. I have had to mash a shot flat and cut it in two to get it exact on one occasion. Before you "calibrate" it be sure to clean the beam of any dust and grit.

Did RCBS mention anything about turning the brass horizontal screw that 1/10 grain wheel turns on for the 1010 scale?

Also be sure that the scale is on a solid level surface. In fact some of the beam scales have an adjustable "foot" to level or calibrate their scale.
Another thing, and good habit to have, is you should confirm accuracy with a set of check weights when ever you have a large change of desired weight setting on your scale(eg. from weight of 5.0 gr to a 45.0 gr). A habit I developed taking chemistry lab classes.

muck

I'd just buy a mid-level priced digital and be done with it. I have an RCBS Rangemaster 750 and love it. I trickle my charges up with the nice, heavy Redding trickler. The scale is less than a hundred bucks over the internet and the trickler is about twenty. My scale stays powered-on forever, as opposed to some scales that turn off too quickly.

How do you calibrate?, So far it sounds like
you are only zeroing the scale.
Good luck!

You calibrate a beam scale by changing the mass of the powder tray stand.
Start off by zeroing the scale using check weights
Check the full range of the scale and note any differences. Then you open up the tray that the powder tray sits on and you add or remove the lead masses inside to attain as near zero across the board as you can. The variance you get across the range of your scale is now the new tolerance of the scale.
Keep in mind you need to also clean your scale once in a while too as dust can throw off the readings too.

This is also why a beam scale is more accurate then a digital scale. As a digital scale measures the force of gravity a beam scale measures mass

quote:

Originally posted by kcstott:


This is also why a beam scale is more accurate then a digital scale. As a digital scale measures the force of gravity a beam scale measures mass

You`re one of the very few people I`ve seen post that has a handle on this. Strain gages for measuring pressure get demonized and the same gages are worshipped for weighting powder charges accurately.....go figure.

BTW, IMO they do an acceptable job in both instances, they just are not as great or terrible as made out to be.

Ol` joe
I got A's in school in science class particularly chemistry. I guess I remember a lot of it.
Since you have followed the Strain gauge debate You know My opinion. Currently I work for a Crane service company and we have a little gizmo called a control pro. It is an active monitoring device that among other things it measures the load the cranes hoist is lifting and will prevent an over load if set up properly. It uses a strain gauge mounted on a assembly of the hoist that has a given amount of flex as the hoist is loaded. as the load increases the assembly flex more and creates more strain.
It was experimenting with this gizmo and figuring out on my own the nature of a strain gauge on a rifle that I came to the conclusion that something was missing from the chamber pressure measuring set up.
On the control pro you go through a calibration menu and it will ask for 10% of max load 50%, 75%, 100%, and 125%. It then asks a few more questions in the set up and it is then calibrated to a known mass.
The problem that I found with the chamber pressure measurements is that there is nearly no easy way to place a known load on the chamber. Hence the fudge factor way all debate about.

Until I find a way to place a consistent known load on the chamber with out a fudge factor I won't use a strain gauge setup on a firearm
then of course there is the measuring of the chamber issue. and the formula used to calculate the pressure. it all adds up to a given amount of uncertainty and keeping this uncertainty to a minimum is key.

Oh and the Digital scales need to be re calibrated every time they are moved from one location to another due to a .5% avg variance in the earths gravitational force. That's no joke look it up.

quote:

As a digital scale measures the force of gravity a beam scale measures mass

The beam scale is actually using gravity to compare the two masses on each side of the scale beam. It is not directly measuring mass.

Being of sound mind and body, (depending on who you ask) entering into the dark realm of reloading made some interesting if not serious discoveries. Firstly, scale beams suck! They were Ok in the days of yor 'cause it all ya had.

I ended up buying two lots of 'stuff' thinking I could save some money. Both had beam scales, a 505 and 510 and to my surprise in setting these up there ain't no leveling unit built into the scale - D'oh! I knew that. I don't think I would trust it if one were. For what you pay for one of these now is an insult compared to digital scales on the market.

Sorry guys...........

quote:

I ended up buying two lots of 'stuff' thinking I could save some money. Both had beam scales, a 505 and 510 and to my surprise in setting these up there ain't no leveling unit built into the scale - D'oh!

Hmm,I`ve a 5-10, a 10-10, plus my dad has an old 505 and all have "leveling legs" on them to allow small unlevel surface adjustments.. I`m suprised yours don`t. IMO all my beam scales are more accurate then my Pact and were a lot cheaper in price.
I will admit digitals are great for finding an unknown weight such as weighting brass or bullets.

When we weight powder charges a beam is just as fast and possibly more precise. I could care less if a powder charge that I want to weight 54.5grs actually is 54.9 or 51.5gr. I just want to know it is a tad light, heavy or on the nose when I throw a charge in my pan. If the weight is heavy I dump it and toss another, or trickle to adjust if light, the same as I`ll do useing a digital..A digital however won`t move with a small additional 0.1-0.2 grain or so trickle, it needs more then a beam does to register a small change. I see movement on my beams with a additional single granual of some extruded powders, my Pact is lost at this level.

quote:

Originally posted by kcstott:
On the control pro you go through a calibration menu and it will ask for 10% of max load 50%, 75%, 100%, and 125%. It then asks a few more questions in the set up and it is then calibrated to a known mass. ...

That is the ONLY way to know when the Set-Up is accurate - Calibration against a Known Standard!. And of course, it can change slightly with time, so must be re-calibrated on a periodic basis.

Amazing that the PT Barnums of the world have transitioned into HSGS electronics so effortlessly. But, since the Rag Writers don't know enough to challenge them, then there are segments of the population which will never understand. Simply a lack of proper education. Pitiful!

And to top it off, some are so blindly stupid(thinking of larry here) as to not be able to believe the people who actually Design Strain Gauges for use, work with them on a regular basis, and Certify Strain Gauge Suppliers.

Some of the electronic Scales use a form of Strain Gauge. But, Calibration Weights are included.
-----

I've never seen a Mechanical Scale without an Adjustable Leg which is as most know, how you Calibrate them. I'd suspect "2ugly2shoot" just overlooked that feature, or misunderstood the actual use.

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:

quote:

As a digital scale measures the force of gravity a beam scale measures mass

The beam scale is actually using gravity to compare the two masses on each side of the scale beam. It is not directly measuring mass.

That is how you measure mass. Mass is independent of gravity so comparing a mass to another mass regardless of what gravity does, the scale will read the same. On the moon on earth on mars the scale will read the same. because the Masses have not changed even though there weight has.
And electronic scale relies on a spring or a strain gage and both are fully dependent on gravity and affected by gravity

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:

quote:

Originally posted by kcstott:
On the control pro you go through a calibration menu and it will ask for 10% of max load 50%, 75%, 100%, and 125%. It then asks a few more questions in the set up and it is then calibrated to a known mass. ...

That is the ONLY way to know when the Set-Up is accurate - Calibration against a Known Standard!. And of course, it can change slightly with time, so must be re-calibrated on a periodic basis.

And that's what we do
Annually we check them to a known weight for reference and then every four years we recalibrate the whole thing