• 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.

Quick Measure or RCBS Chargemaster Combo

OK Everyone,

I need your advice!!

I am wanting to purchase a powder thrower & want an accurate one, I have been using the Chargemaster Combo, that a fellow shooter owns & love it.


I have also been told about the Quick Measure that it was very accurate & good value.

What are your thoughts & experience??

Cheers,
R.
 
I'm a newbie.. but my choice is the charge master.

I was weighing by hand IMR4350.. it was taking me an hour I figure to weigh out 20 charges,powder bouncing here and there, subtracting grains at a time). That IMR4350 had me cursing.

Then I bought the charge master.. it goes something like this:
1) line up 20 cases
2) fill machine with powder, calibrate
3) dial 39.5.. throw
4) repeat 19 more times... and walk away 10 minutes later with 20 PERFECTLY weighed loads.

well.. at least pretty darn perfect for me. If you are anal and need to 0.001grain or something I guess you could start cutting the powerder with an exacto or something.. but it gets pretty close..
 
Since I do most of my load work at the range running a 500' extension cord from the clubhouse to the bench is a problem,so I bought a Quick Measure. It doesn't take up much room in the box along with a battery powered digital scale,check weight and other necessary stuff .
The QM doesn't throw charges of ball powders any better than my old Lyman 55s, but does pretty well with extruded powders. As with any mechanical measure, technique will go a long way throwing consistent charges.

If I only pre-loaded ammo I'd probably buy a ChargeMaster.

Bill
 
Bill:

After using a Quick Measure for a year now and just having bought a RCBS1500,loaded just over 1000 rounds on the 1500) and only having one or the other I would buy the RCBS 1500. having to do it again.
Rustystud
 
Love my ChargeMaster!

Rememebr to watch the 2nd weight display as the first is just the requested weight, while the second is the actual weight.
 
I believe that the Quick Measure would be your most accurate way of measuring extruded powder by volume. From what I know about the Chargemaster, it is done by weight. What type of shooting are you doing? How many rounds to you shoot per outing? How much time do you intend to spend reloading? If you want to only throw weights then I would go with the Quick Measure but then my biggest limiting factor is in my hold as I don't shoot from a bench.
 
Thankyou all for your replies.

I have actually ordered the chargemaster & it should be here in a couple of days.

I was after something that was accurate & did not have to fiddle with in adjusting throws etc. The report on here about the CM was a deciding factor.

Thanks again for your responses and advice.

Cheers & Good shooting.

R.
 
RCBS needs 3 mods to be accurate:
1) insert a drinking straw,big one) into the trickle tube - stops the granules clumping up and over charging.
2) Tilt it back a bit by putting something under the front feet about 15mm - 20mm high.
3) Reprogramme the electronic setting as follows,exerpt from another forum):
For anyone using the RCBS Chargemaster, I have modified mine recently and I am very pleased with the results. Some time ago I posted a thread about sleeving the trickler tube to improve the accuracy and eliminate overcharges. This worked, but it slowed the unit down and I found myself waiting for the charge to finish after seating the bullet on the previous charge.

I decided to revisit the programmable parameters on the unit and see if I couldn't get some of the speed back. Well it worked, ... really well. If you press the Edit and Enter keys at the same time you enter the programming mode for the unit. The first three parameters that come up are:

HSP_A1 15.68
HSP_B1 3.42
HSP_C1 1.08

There are many more parameters after these that can be accessed by repeatedly pressing the Enter key. I attempted changes to some of these other parameters, but they did not behave as I expected them to, so I ended up leaving them alone. After the last parameter is passed, the unit resets and starts again with the changed values. As I understand it, these three values determine the shift points below the desired charge, in grains, for slowing down the trickler. To change these values you wait until the existing number is visible and then enter the new number and press Enter.

I noticed that the trickler was spending too much time at the slower speeds, so I decided to move the shift points closer to the desired charge. I also changed the sleeve in the trickler tube to a thin-walled smooth metal tube, instead of using the tube from my manual trickler as I had been doing. The purpose of the sleeve is to cover the threads in the trickler tube. The trickler tube is inclined slightly,as opposed to hand tricklers which are typically level) and the unit seems to have problems with powder clumping due the threads. A soda straw of the right size would work also, I think, but I thought metal would have less problems with static electricity. I change the parameters to these settings:

HSP_A1 6.00
HSP_B1 2.00
HSP_C1 0.50

These values are optimized for 24.5g of RL-15. Other weights or types of powders might not work as well. With these settings, my Chargemaster throws 24.5g of RL-15 in 10 seconds, without overcharges. It runs at high speed for about 5 seconds which gets the charge up to about 22g. It then slows down for a couple of seconds and then finally finishes with a couple of "bumps" which usually only drop a couple of grains of powder. If you wait for the unit to stabilize, show the count, and then return to the weight display, it takes about 15 seconds most of the time. Occasionally it takes 20 seconds if the powder doesn't cooperate during the final slow trickle.

Before these changes, it was taking about 45 seconds to get a charge, and I was spending too much time waiting. Without the changes to the programming, the only trade-off I could make was sleeve diameter. Bigger was faster, but also less accurate. This way I get the accuracy AND the speed. You can fiddle with the parameters as much as you want if you are not satisfied with the performance. You can always set them back to the defaults.

Good luck, and happy programming.

p.s. - I meant to mention the fact that the default values from RCBS are, by necessity, a compromise that has to satisfy everyone from the 40 S&W reloader up to the 375 H&H reloader with all brands powder. I only reload one caliber using one powder with the Chargemaster, so it only makes sense for me to optimize the unit for my situation. Too bad RCBS doesn't see it this way, and make the reprogramming information more available.


Thanks for the parameters! I'd tried getting RCBS tech support to send me the information, but they basically refused to tell me anything unless I was sitting in front of the machine at the time - apparently they don't want this sort of info getting out. I had bought my Chargemaster after reading the test reports on 6mmBR.com and seeing reports of 8-12 seconds for 42gr of 4064 - I though "Heck ya!". Reality was in the 30-45 second range, which meant a lot of thumb twiddling waiting on the dispenser, usually because of the early slowdown. For .223, it was just ridiculous.

At any rate, I tweaked the first three parameters above on mine... think I'm at 7.5, 2.5, and 1, but I might need to adjust that some more,running for 40-50gr charges for .308, 6.5-284, etc.) as the high speed doesn't quite cut out in time - but it's a heck of an improvement and its nice to have the ability to control this stuff for myself finally.

BTW, a 1" section of McDonalds drinking and a thin strip of duct tape to hold it in place works just fine - no static issues whatsoever, and I've loaded hundreds and hundreds of rounds like that. Looks a little redneck, but it works. ;) Over charges still occur but *very* rarely, as the powder doesn't 'clump' near as much with no threads in the tube,straw) for that last inch. Even if it does... my thumb n forefinger are pretty well calibrated to where I can lift the pan, pinch off 0.1-0.2gr and throw it back in the hopper, put the pan back on the scale... just right.
 

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
166,314
Messages
2,215,821
Members
79,516
Latest member
delta3
Back
Top