warbird2006 said:
Gentlemen
I started precision reloading abut 12 months ago.
I weight and dispense the powder with RCBS ChargeMaster, which is great, and I know every cartridge has 45.3 grains (etc) of powder.
But it is PAINFULLY SLOW.
So my question is how is how good are the powder measures? Can they be as precise as the ChargeMaster scale and trickle?
Thanks, all help is appreciated.
I have been using a Chargemaster 1500 for over 7 years now, and I like it very much, but one of the things I have noticed right off the bat is that it is slow, if you are simply dispensing charges and doing nothing else. The Chargemaster, like any other "robot" relieves you of boring repetitive, yet exacting tasks and allow you to multitask. Let me explain.
Before the CM, I used to dump a scoop of powder into the pan of my beam scale and then trickle up to level. While I was doing that, I could not do anything else. I also found it faster to just weigh a bunch of loads one after the other and then take a break and seat bullets on the charged cases. Then go back to weighing more charges and so on. The problem with this method is that everything was serial; one operation had to be complete before the other one could start. Also, weighing charges on a beam scale was tedious and you had to make sure you were looking at it the same way every time, it is an analog instrument after all.
After using the CM to charge two cases, it became obvious that a different methodology was in order. First of all, you need to turn on the automatic mode where a charge starts to dispense as soon as you replace the empty pan on the scale. While the first charge was dispensing, I prepare the case to receive the charge by pushing a brush through the neck and fitting the funnel to the case. When the first charge is measured, I take the pan and drop the powder in the funnel and immediately replace the now-empty pan on the scale. While the next charge is being dispensed by the robotic CM1500, I seat the bullet on the first case, do a final inspection on the finished cartridge, put it in the ammo box, take out the next case, brush the neck, install the funnel and usually by that time, the CM has whistled its completed charge at me. I check the final weight, pick up the pan, empty the powder in the funnel, replace the empty pan on the scale and ...
At this rate, I could do about 100 cartridges in about 70 minutes. It was fast and I would be waiting for the CM to complete its charge only every so often.
The charges from the CM were definitely good enough for mid-range and allowed me to win local matches in LR over the years. But I was noticing some events on paper at 1000 yards, that I simply could not explain. So I got a GM-250 and started using the CM to throw short by .1 grains. My suspicions were confirmed. I got my method down using the CM, the GP250 and the Omega trickler just in time for the run-up and the marathon loading session leading up to my trip to Raton. I believe the added uniformity using the Gempro contributed in a big way to my results in Raton, especially when it was all at 1000 yards in the FCNC. It did take 4 times as long to load with this technique but it was worth it. I would charge 50 cases and then seat bullets in them, the come back and do the next 50. It took me 3 days to load 450 rounds for Raton, but they were GREAT rounds.
Now that I have learned a few more tricks here about using the GP250, I can load and seat 100 rounds in about 120 minutes, still longer than with the CM alone, but the consistency of the charge is that the kernel.
