Regarding the accuracy of the Chargemaster, sometime back I did a quick test of my CM 1500, using my A&D FX-120i as the reference.
The Chargemaster actually acquits itself pretty well. Of 26 charges thrown, only one – the 10.72 gr charge in the third group – was outside its 0.1 grain spec, and that just barely. The average throws are very close to the target weight. And the standard deviation isn’t bad.
How about with a cartridge of higher capacity, using an extruded powder?
Again, the Chargemaster does a pretty good job. Out of 20 charges thrown, only one – the 34.12 gr in the last group – is slightly out of spec.
I think the Chargemaster does quite well, living up to its promises. I still use mine occasionally. Especially with larger capacity cartridges where a charge variation of some hundredths of a grain isn’t going to make much difference; or with loads where less precision is required.
One last twist, though… those of us who use QuickLoad know that you can (and should) tweak the Burning Rate factor in that software to dial in the particular powder lot you’re using. What I’ll do as I run near the end of a current lot of powder is build a handful of rounds of a known load, using known primer and brass, using the old powder; then load an equivalent number of rounds using the new lot of powder. Setting off those two groups in front of a chronograph will then give me a quick baseline of where the new powder sits vis-à-vis the old lot.
But if you’re using QuickLoad to evaluate chamber pressures, you need a fair bit of precision. So when I’m running that old/new powder exercise I’ll demand that all charges be within three ticks of the highest precision that the FX-120i is capable of – either dead-on, or 0.02 grain under, or 0.02 grain over.
With that in mind, I set up the Chargemaster to throw those requisite charges – five of the old, five of the new – and set to seeing how many throws it would take…
Looked at one way, this test is entirely unfair to the Chargemaster. RCBS has never claimed anything other than 0.1 grain precision for that scale. Holding it to an accuracy level of 0.04 grains seems a very high bar, indeed. And yet the Chargemaster hit that level on ten out of 27 throws.
I’d call that good.
The bottom line for me is that precision and accuracy are addictive. You'll rarely see me using anything other than my A&D FX-120i and AutoTrickler combination. Pry it from my cold, dead hands and all that.
But if I
had to, I could see myself going back to my Chargemaster. If I did, I would be entirely confident of the charges I was loading.
What
won't ever happen is me going back to that old 10-10 scale of mine. Doesn't mean I didn't love the countless hours, over many years, I spent in front of it. But some things are best left as a happy memory.
YMMV.