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Beam scale zero

No worries
I have a M-5 as well. Beyond the fine posts above my rainy day tip is to Inspect your v grooves , ensure the main poise set washer doesn’t have any burrs and sets cleanly in each groove.
I have checked the grooves where the washer sets in the settings that were off and can't see anything. Must be the position of the grooves vary enough to get the tenth variations. A check at 10gr, 13gr 290.6 spot on. High one tenth at 28.0 and 35. Zeroing the scale to a certified weight seems the way to go. But to tell you the truth my Redding 2 ive had since the 80's is dead on the entire beam and is my go to anyway. Would not take anything for it..
 
Great Discussion. The M5 Scales are very good scales. I will always keep 1 of the M5's (and check weights), if i ever should have a doubt about the AND-FX120 auto V3 it will be there.
 
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If a scale repeats, and comes to zero reliably, no matter how the load is applied, if you stick with one scale for all of your charge weighing, minor lack of linearality, or accuracy is not a problem, but I would note it somewhere in my load notes, what scale, and what the issues are. One of the ways that I commonly test a scale, particularly a digital one, but also for balance beam, is to weigh the same thing repeatedly. If a scale passes this test, I can work with it. As long as a setting gives me the same thing every time, I am good to go. One think that I have noticed is that long range benchrest criteria for charge weights seems to have been picked up by people who seem to have much larger issues, or are shooting sports where that degree of resolution is not important.
 
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If a scale repeats, and comes to zero reliably, no matter how the load is applied, if you stick with one scale for all of your charge weighing, minor lack of linearality, or accuracy is not a problem, but I would note it somewhere in my load notes, what scale, and what the issues are. One of the ways that I commonly test a scale, particularly a digital one, but also for balance beam, is to weigh the same thing repeatedly. If a scale passes this test, I can work with it. As long as a setting gives me the same thing every time, I am good to go. One think that I have noticed is that long range benchrest criteria for charge weights seems to have been picked up by people who seem to have much larger issues, or are shooting sports where that degree of resolution is not important.

exactly! but some of us just like to tinker, whether it helps us or not!
 
exactly! but some of us just like to tinker, whether it helps us or not!
OK, i've got it pretty much sorted out. I ended up adding 2 tenths weight to the large poise. Now instead of having a spread of 1 tenth spread, I've split the difference and now only have half a tenth error max. Put a certified weight on it now and wont be more than a half tenth off and only have to turn the base screw a turn or so to zero to that weight. I'm done with this one and going on to something else.
 
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OK, i've got it pretty much sorted out. I ended up adding 2 tenths weight to the large poise. Now instead of having a spread of 1 tenth spread, I've split the difference and now only have half a tenth error max. Put a certified weight on it now and wont be more than a half tenth off and only have to turn the base screw a turn or so to zero to that weight. I'm done with this one and going on to something else.
What brought you to decide to add weight to the large poise?
 
What brought you to decide to add weight to the large poise?
I have not done away with the error, I just adjusted it to the middle . With the scale set at zero, the certified weights showed zero to one tenth heavy. I split the difference., It took 2 tenths added to the large poise to get the one tenth high reading to half a tenth high. Just kept messing with it.
 
I have not done away with the error, I just adjusted it to the middle . With the scale set at zero, the certified weights showed zero to one tenth heavy. I split the difference., It took 2 tenths added to the large poise to get the one tenth high reading to half a tenth high. Just kept messing with it.

Just unscrew the pan lid and remove a mini shot you will find in there. or take a large shot and shave off a slice with a utility blade.
 
Back to tinkering on a spare…here is proof of how nice (and simple) an M5 can be: After regular tweaking, I touched up the knives with a super fine diamond hone and it would register a varget kernel barely, and then I polished with 2.5 micron diamond lapping paste and relieved that cracking pressure. Dont need to get any better than this!

 
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Back to tinkering on a spare…here is proof of how nice (and simple) an M5 can be: After regular tweaking, I touched up the knives with a super fine diamond hone and it would register a varget kernel barely, and then I polished with 2.5 micron diamond lapping paste and relived that cracking pressure. Dont need to get any better than this!

I remember reading a post on here, quite recently, where some chap was saying no beam scales are accurate or repeatable enough to resolve to 10th grain. I really doesn't matter how many decimal places a scale
will resolve to unless you are going to cut kernels.
 
Back to tinkering on a spare…here is proof of how nice (and simple) an M5 can be: After regular tweaking, I touched up the knives with a super fine diamond hone and it would register a varget kernel barely, and then I polished with 2.5 micron diamond lapping paste and relived that cracking pressure. Dont need to get any better than this!

Nicely Done.
 
Just unscrew the pan lid and remove a mini shot you will find in there. or take a large shot and shave off a slice with a utility blade.
Back in the day when I was working on my first scale I came up with something that has continued to work well. If I need to reduce the weight in the pan holder, I remove one piece of shot and use small sharp scissors to pare off small pieces from the corner of an expired credit card, putting them in the powder pan until the leveled scale reads perfect zero, then I transfer the pieces into the tuning weight chamber.
 
Back in the day when I was working on my first scale I came up with something that has continued to work well. If I need to reduce the weight in the pan holder, I remove one piece of shot and use small sharp scissors to pare off small pieces from the corner of an expired credit card, putting them in the powder pan until the leveled scale reads perfect zero, then I transfer the pieces into the tuning weight chamber.

I use my wife's active credit card for trim pieces to balance the pan reservoir. Much more precise than an expired one.
 

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