I finished the Mk12 Mod01 weapon and began my ammo research.  Found Johnny's Mk262 reloading videos on YouTube which has actually got me back into reloading.

I'm trying to figure out which powder scale to go with to complement the RCBS Chargemaster.

So tell me guys, what is or would be your go to powder scale to go along with the Chargemaster?  For now I'm figuring on the Franklin Armory Platinum scale.

RCBS M500 scale, which I think is the scale dryflash is referencing. It’s the scale I have, and it’s fantastic.

Don’t bother with the cheapie digital ones.

ETA: never mind he is referencing a different one.

I have an RCBS 500 and a Lyman branded one.  Also have a cheap amazon electronic scale.

All 3 read pretty much the same.   The lyman always reads a bit heavy by 1/10th a grain or so.


The electronic one must be watched as it will change the tare weight in between loads.   Tare weight is what the brass cup weighs empty.  I set it to zero but it sometimes will read .03 or something.

Thats the same scale i have always used but it has been moved banged around in moving many times it started sticking randomly after 20+++ years of bad treatment.

I found you can by the ohaus 505 on amazon for 55$ Thats a steal  i couldn’t resist.... and its back to flawless beam scale operation again.

Out of curiosity what do you have against the M500?

@dryflash3

Could you post a close up of that fixture you use for the scale/trickler? I’ve been wanting to do something like this. A huge frustration of mine is that a beam scale can loose zero when accidentally bumping it, changing weights, etc. I always check zero after loading and it’s nearly never perfect :/

Thanks guys for the reply.  I guess that I should have specifically mentioned that I have an excellent beam scale.  Now I'm wanting to have an electronic measure to back up the Chargemaster.

I've taken a look at the Ohaus YJ series along with what Gempro offers like their 250.

There are three price/performance tiers in electronic scales - $150; $300; $600.

At $150 (tier 1), you have to constantly worry about your zero and calibration.  0.1 gr is the nominal resolution,

At $300 less so, than tier 1 but you also get options to output data directly to your PC.  These are faster than tier 1 and usually resolve down to 0.02 gr.

At $600, tier 3, you get stability in zero and calibration and precision and PC output options.  If you can afford it, this is the way to go.  They really are better than anything else, mechanical balances included.

Awesome thanks man. Did you put a divit into where the leveler ball hits the wood? That’s what  I want to try and do.

dryflash3, that is the exact beam scale that I have had for 15 or more years.  No problem with it at all.

You do know the Chargemaster has a built in digital scale? Not sure why you would want another one?  You follow the calibrating procedure every time it will be fine.

If you just want to cross check, you can use your beam scale.

Heck or even if you don't.  It doesn't actually drift.  I recalibrate my ChargeMaster every time, but whenever I bother to check first, it never actually needs recalibration.  You'd think in the last 10 years or so, there'd be some real price compression on these dispenser scales, but there really hasn't been.  I don't think a ChargeMaster should cost what they charge, but that's the deal, and none of the others are any better, or notably as much cheaper as they should be.  My ChargeMaster has served me well.  It did go down on me once, I took it apart, did nothing, put it back together, and now it's running great again.

As to back-up scale, I just run a cheap <$20 Amazon 0.01 grain rated scale (yes, that's not a typo, 0.01 grain, not grams).  I think there's a lot of luck of the draw with those, but in my case, I got a good one, and it's remarkably accuracy and consistent.  I've pretty much retired my 5-0-5.

You're the first person I've ever heard of having any luck with those cheap scales. I had a FA DS-750 digital scale, and it would drift on temperature (as it heated up), it would drift and lose zero if I turned my lights on, it was the biggest piece of crap ever.  Even after calibrating it, I noticed some of my reloads were WAY off velocity wise.  I decided to buy the RCBS Beam Scale, and the charge weight was off by over 10% vs what the beam scale told me. Thankfully, it was undercharging vs. overcharging.

I went back to using a beam scale full time and said forget it to the cheap digitals.  I'm only now jumping back into digital scales (FX-120i) which I believe is trustworthy.  For it's price, it better be.

I have been using an Amazon scale to weigh spices and ingredients in the kitchen for sausage and various things.  While shopping for an electronic reloading scale, I found one with good reviews:  scale.  It seems that several of the reviews are from reloaders.

What I don't like about the beam scale and a trickler is overshoot.  A continuous read electronic scale will allow you to see the load approaching and then hitting your mark with less chance of overshoot and having to remove powder from the pan.

I bought it and tried it out, side by side with my Dillon beam scale and found it to be dead on.  I believe one reviewer said it is almost too accurate.  It is very accurate I have found when reading powder, brass, and bullet weight.

The scale is tiny, but it is as big as it really needs to be.

I have that same exact scale, I got it since Johnnys Reloading Bench recommended it on Youtube but I guess his is the older model that only weighs to say 25.1 gr when the newer ones go much further like the gem-pro for example 25.08 instead of 25.1.  It goes up and down in .02's generally.  While I am fairly new to reloading it has been a great little scale.  I'm not sure if that is the brand name of mine or not because if you look on Amazon and Ebay there are lots of the same scales with different brand names for about the same price.  

That said, it's not perfect but it's a damn fine scale for $15-20 and has always been dead on but does tend to drift on occasion which is usually fairly noticeable.  I think the biggest problems I've had have came from the fact my powder pan is one of those plastic Lyman jobs and it has a little bit of static charge on it.  When I first got it I noticed it varying quite a bit until I took a dryer sheet to it.  I'd really like to get one of those metal pans that come with a RCBS scale to try out I bet that would solve most of the problems I've had.  Most of the time you can go for a very long time without having any drift and when I do it's never been more then .1 of a grain.  I think it's just more noticable because the scale reads to another decimal point then most scales on the market.  I'd take it over one of the name brand digital scales anyday. Also it is very fast at reading when you trickle a charge, instant pretty much.  

I also picked up another scale on Ebay from a guy that sells reloading stuff and he has like 3-4 different models on there in the $30-75 price range depending on what one you get, they are a little bit bigger scales but also read down to the same decimal as these which is much finer then most.  I picked mine up as a blem because the cover on it was cloudy for like $20-25 and it is also very accurate and doesn't ever seem to drift the only problem with it is it's slower to read when trickling and it shuts off after a minute or two of not using it.  If you don't delay much it's a great little scale and perhaps one of his more higher dollar ones doesn't shut off as quick.  

I got some cheap check weights on ebay for like $5-10 to randomly check the scales and they are always the same.  I like having 2 different cheap digitals that read that accurately and always line up with each other.  So you can pick up one of those on Amazon for $20, and then pick up a different scale like the one I'm talking about on ebay for $30 or so and you can check each charge if you want until you gain trust in the system and then just periodically check it.

I just looked up his ebay name and it's jimavionics .  The one I got from him is like the $35 one that is a larger white scale with folding plastic top RELOADING SCALE 750/0.02 gn .  It's honestly a better scale then the one linked above on Amazon but I hate how it shuts off in a minute or two and it doesn't show the charges moving up as quickly when trickling.  It's not bad for trickling, but the other one from Amazon the Homegeek or whatever it was is basically instant on trickling.  So if you want a better scale that is less likely to drift pick up the one from the guy on Ebay for $35, but if you want one that shows it's trickle charges quicker and usually stays on longer pick up the $20 one from Amazon.  Or buy them both for $55 and have a good setup to compare with each other.

That guy on Ebay also has cheap check weight sets, and cheap calipers etc.  One thing I noticed with the couple sets of check weights I've bought is they are rarely ever dead on when you have an accurate scale.  For example a 2 gram check weight is suppose to be 30.86 grains but one of mine is 30.84 and the other 30.88.  Sometimes there is even more variance depending on the weight and most digital scales wouldn't pick it up unless they measure down to .02 grn like these do.  

The ebay guy also has a few other models in the $35-95 range but I don't know that you'd really gain anything over the $35 one.  It looks like most just weigh a higher weight which isn't necessary unless you are sorting bullets.  They all come with an AC cord and batteries, but even plugged in it doesn't stay on more then a minute or two but it's nice not to need batteries.  

I would actually like to get a older beam scale to play with that actually worked.  I have a couple of the Lee ones which I don't like at all.  I think they are probably accurate but it's hard to read and takes much longer to settle then I like.  But I also have a older redding that was new in the box but was full of dust from sitting in a closet for 20-30 years and I really like that scale a lot and would use it some if it was repeatable.  For some reason it doesn't stay balanced.  The same charge may weigh the same a few times in a row but then all of a sudden it's .1 or .2gr off in one way or the other and will keep weighing at that spot meaning it's not stuck.  I've cleaned it up the best I could but not sure what else to do with it.  As far as looks goes I like the way the RCBS 5-05 ones look and the fact they have 3 sliders instead of 2 for the weights but I also like how much easier it is to see when the charge is even with the newer model M500.  I am torn between the 5-05 and M500 if I were to buy one.