• This Forum is for adults 18 years of age or over. By continuing to use this Forum you are confirming that you are 18 or older. No content shall be viewed by any person under 18 in California.

gempro-baldeagle-?-elec scale

brokeasajoke

Silver $$ Contributor
I have a rcbs 10-10 I've been using for years now. It continues to serve me well. I fully intend to send it to sparker for a tune. I have decided to pick up an electronic scale to complement it and aid in speed of weighing bullets/brass and powder checking. With that out of the way, whats a decent scale to go with? I have got info overload from google on this subject. I wish there was a thread or sticky on the gempro with dos/donts, tips, tricks. Seems it dosent like trickling.Did boyd ever finish his test on the baldeagle and I missed it? Seems it was promising. been leaning to the gempro 250. Maybe the cheapos wold suffice. I dont expect lab results from a scale used outside a lab. Would love a nice gd503 or fx120i but that ain't happening anytime in the near future.
 
Last edited:
I picked up a gempro 250 after my 505 began to hangup. It does have a few quirks, but does produce repeatable results. if you are trickling your last few flakes/kernels in, it may not register the change, but what I have gotten into the habit of doing is shaking the pan level and it reads it correctly. I calibrate it before every session as well. I have a couple bullets of known weight that I keep handy to spot check with. You can do that with the 20g tester that comes with it, but I would rather check with a weight closer to what I am trying to measure. ie 38.4 grains of powder, I would throw on a 53gr vmax. otherwise great scale!
 
Thanks guys. I'm going to set aside s couple of powder charges weighed with the 10-10 untuned to reference back to with a electronic or the tuned 10-10. Is that a wise idea or just silly and anal? Wish there was more on that baldeagle scale. Its a nice price.
 
When I first got mine, I pulled a few bullets to check the charge. don't think its silly at all! It makes weight sorting cases go very quick as well...
 
There was a thread started about this bald eagle scale.

I think if you don't have one or the other now, go with bald eagle. I was told by member here if I already had GP250, it's not worth switching to bald eagle. But that if I didn't have GP250 already, the bald eagle is better value.
 
The Bald Eagle is a good scale for the money and was a lot less than the GemPro last time I looked.

Dennis
 
I don't see any mention of a warranty on the Grizzly. Also doesn't seem that it is able to be linearly calibrated. Grizzly is $80 with $15 shipping-don't know about tax. The GemPro can be had for $125 no shipping or tax. Not much difference in price. I'm trying to decide between the two also.
 
I do a "linear" calibration on mine. It's not documented but you can load 100g as requested and then do another and load 50g when requested. You just have to hold down the button a couple seconds to change it to the 50g. I also turn mine on a couple hours beforehand just to make sure it's warmed up. I use the Omega trickler and can load to a "displayed" value of 29.4 (+/- .02 grains) I usually end up with either a displayed 29.39 or 29.41 grains - both shoot well in my 6BR.

Dennis
 
Has anyone tested these with a high end scale? Would be an intresting test.
I just used my new Fx-120 for the first time today. Comparing a $650 scale to $125 scale is ridiculous. There is no comparison. The FX-120 is off the chart in features and operation.
I liked the GP250 well enough for accuracy but it responded to change very slowly. The FX120, even in slow mode, is ten times faster response time.
 
For $500 more than the gempro i sure hope its better!!! Have you done a weight comparison between the two?
 
Fully understand there is no comparison. I understand you can't trickle well with gempro. I'm curious as to testing the gempro with something like your fx120 or the like not putting them head to head. A scale can read anything but if you have nothing to compare it to thats better, how do you know?
 
The lack of ability to trickle with the GemPro is what made me choose a different scale over it. It's also subject to drift, like any strain gauge scale. However within those limits I suspect that you will see excellent performance from the GemPro.

Here's my experience, comparing a GemPro 250 against an Acculab VIC-123, with some reference data from a high end Sartorius compared against the Acculab (from the prior owner who tested the Acculab prior to selling it to me).

From the prior owner, comparing 20 different powder throws on the Acculab vs. the Sartorius showed an average difference of 0.019g (Acculab read slightly heavier) and a standard deviation of .018g across the series. So the Acculab puts up a pretty decent performance alongside the Sartorius.

I then compared the Acculab against a GemPro. I weighed three different fixed weight objects of varying size, each weighed 5 times in a row at three different times of the day. The GemPro performed better than the Acculab at weighing fixed objects. Within each series of 5 repeat weighings of 3 objects (45 total measurements), the GemPro produced an average standard deviation of 0.006g and an average ES of 0.013g. Across all 45 measurements the SD was 0.012 and ES was 0.0333 (averaged across 3 items). The Acculab was slightly worse, subset SD average 0.014, average ES 0.031, total SD 0.019, total ES 0.06g.

The GemPro was excellent, but the lack of sensitivity to trickling made it harder to use in practice which is why I kept the Acculab and sold the GemPro. The Acculab will pick up each kernel as it is added to the pan, the GemPro requires 3-5 kernels to respond, or a lift/reset/bump of the pan. For a sense of scale, the powders I'm loading (H1000, 4064) have big kernels which can weigh between 0.03 and 0.06g each so both scales were accurate enough to be down to the kernel level.

So my summary thoughts would be...

GemPro is more than accurate enough to load powder to the kernel.
You need to watch drift by checking that the powder pan rezeros properly after each round, and by referencing a fixed weight object periodically during loading. I have a screw that I filed down that weighs exactly 45.00g and I check every 5 rounds or so.
GemPro is more difficult to trickle. You need to guess how many kernels to add, then lift and reset the pan to see if you were right.


What buying a nice scale like the FX120 or Sartorius gets you is not "more accuracy", but rather a more consistent and easy to use scale that is free from the above quirks.
 
For $500 more than the gempro i sure hope its better!!! Have you done a weight comparison between the two?

I have. The GemPro is surprisingly accurate once calibrated. The difference is that the GemPro, like all strain gauge balances, especially ones that purport to go down to the milligram (0.02gn), drifts like crazy and are extremely aggravating to use compared to a magnetic force restoration balance like the A&D. No strain gauge is truly milligram sensitive, and the electronics use a lot of interpolation to give the 0.02 grain sensitivity, hence the drift.

Sometimes I'd have to calibrate the GemPro every 10-20 rounds, and I've taken all the usual precautions (clean power, drafts, fluorescent lights, etc.), whereas I've calibrated my A&D and it is still spot on a month later when verified with a check weight.
 
I had a GP 250 for a while but, I, personally can't get myself to trust an electronic scale. Maybe if I had one of the aforementioned high dollar ones I would feel differently. I used to test my GP against a 505 a "tuned" 1010. They both always read different then the GP. One thing I found on the GP...If I needed to add say a kernel or two I would throw the kernel into the weigh pan with a down ward motion and the scale would respond to it.
 
The difference is that the GemPro, like all strain gauge balances, especially ones that purport to go down to the milligram (0.02gn), drifts like crazy and are extremely aggravating to use compared to a magnetic force restoration balance like the A&D.

Exactly. Don't underestimate the aggravation of carefully weighing a charge, only to see the scale reset back to -0.04 when you set the empty pan down. Thoughts run through your head... "Is that last charge accurate? What about the one before it? Should I go back and reweigh them?".
 
Funny thing is we will invest crazy money in guns and scopes yet skimp (me included) on items to manufacture what we feed our guns. Ammo making epuipment should be just as important as the gun itself. On a note, this site is great as well as the people on it. I have had two Gempro offers just by this thread and have commited to purchasing one of them.
 
I was in the same boat a couple months ago, went with the Bald Eagle. I did a lot of testing against my Ohaus beam scale, and it was flawless, reads to .01. Maybe I just got a good one, but mine doesn't drift, and I have no problem trickling up. But, if I wait too long to trickle, it will stabilize, and I have to lift the pan, or touch it to get it to re-calculate. After it stops at the weight, there is around 5 seconds that I have to start trickling, might be a shorter time, I never really timed it.

I'm real happy with mine.
 
So what are some of you guys doing to minimize drift on gempro 250? Seem these scales are in use heavily in our sport. A sticky would be nice.
 

Upgrades & Donations

This Forum's expenses are primarily paid by member contributions. You can upgrade your Forum membership in seconds. Gold and Silver members get unlimited FREE classifieds for one year. Gold members can upload custom avatars.


Click Upgrade Membership Button ABOVE to get Gold or Silver Status.

You can also donate any amount, large or small, with the button below. Include your Forum Name in the PayPal Notes field.


To DONATE by CHECK, or make a recurring donation, CLICK HERE to learn how.

Forum statistics

Threads
165,812
Messages
2,203,100
Members
79,110
Latest member
miles813
Back
Top