Best digital scale for $500

[fdshuster]

Received the GemPro250 and have been working with it for 2 weeks now. Not all good news.

It takes me between 12 and 15 minutes to weigh 20 charges using my RCBS 505 beam scale. With the GemPro it's taking 24 to 30 minutes, double the time required.

I've taken identical loads with powder charges weighed with the 505 and the GemPro, ran them over the new Magnetospeed (excellent chronograph) and the SD and ES numbers are basically the same, or slightly greater with the GemPro charges, so no advantage there. 5 shot groups at 100 yards with 22 & 6ppc's of proven accuracy show no difference.

And finally, the plastic pan and "tweezers" they include are worthless junk that belong in the trash can.

It does do an excellent job of sorting bullets by weight, what I suspect it was originally designed for. Weight sorted a box of 85, 107SMK's that varied from 106.5 to 107.8 (all out of the same box of 100), in about 10 minutes, super fast compared to the time required using the 505.

Since I seldom weigh bullets though, not enough reason to keep it.

 

[shooter63]

i had problems getting ahold of the pan also sometimes spilling powder into it no doubt its an excellent weighing scale for money just not very user friendly for stiff big hands sent mine back now use 1500 with no problems regards shooter63

 

[jlow]

Sorry you the GemPro is not working out for you.

As with any instrument, how well it works for you depends on its quality and your skills handling it. My guess is that you have a lot more experience with the beam scale. In the end, there is no implied promise that the GemPro is any faster, at least in my hands.

As for SD and ES numbers, it’s a bit hard to know what to make of it. Are you weighing to the same degree of precision and accuracy? For example, if the 505 is allowing you to weight to 0.1 gr accuracy, you should see better numbers with the GemPro which goes to 0.04gr – assuming everything is the same. If you are already going to 0.04gr accuracy with the beam scale, I would not expect any better numbers.

The tweezers are of course worthless but I have my own quality ones anyway and it just reflects the lower cost. It’s got to come out somewhere and at least to me that is not a critical part and I am happy that they spend the money on the critical parts. The same thing with the pan, you can easily replace it with something better.

 

[flatlander]

My experience with a DI MXX-123 mirrors that of dreever's. I bought an early one, not long after first reading about them here, and while they were still offering a discounted price to forum members. It's miles ahead of the Dillon digital scale that it replaced, as well as the gen 1 Lyman 1200 DPS that I was using before purchasing the DI. I've found it completely satisfactory for the loading I do, with the possible exception of using N550 in my LR 223 loads, just as froggy mentioned.

That's mostly due to the widely varied size of individual powder kernels of N550 - it's just a tougher row to hoe compared to trickling individual kernels of Varget, N150, N160, or H4831. With the average kernel of 4831 weighing .04grs, after trickling up a few charges, it gets pretty easy to figure how many kernels I'll need to hit the target weight with 4831. About 90% of the charges I throw with 4831 require no more than three kernels to bring the charge up to snuff.

If I were going to upgrade from my current equipment & method of weighing, it'd probably have to be a Gen II Prometheus - and after the past two years of extreme drought here in farm country, I'm not feeling quite flush enough to plunk down $3200 for one of these masterpieces.

 

[HoytFlinger]

Ive been sifting through some info that I could find doing a search but still havent really come up with an answer. What would be the best scale I could buy for around the 500 mark. I was going to buy a Sartorius ay123 untill i read this. http://forum.accurateshooter.com/index.php?topic=3772774.msg35993361#msg35993361

GemPro 250

 

[dogdude]

bought the Sartorius ay123, bought the Gem Pro 250. i use the Gem Pro, easy and accurate. that little plastic thingy is great for single kernels. JMHO dogdude