So I've been weighing out powder down to the kernel for a while now using a couple different precision digital scales. I've also got an Omega powder trickler and have carefully trickled up each charge until I hit the target weight. Slow, meticulous work.
Through this process and trying different things I've made a couple observations.
1) If a scale has a variation of +/- 0.02gr, it's going to exhibit that variation whether it's the first, second, or third time you weigh a charge. Only way to get around it is to double and triple check a weight then take the average of multiple readings.
2) The Hodgon powders I load are remarkably consistent in terms of weight per kernel. I'd find myself knowing how many more kernels I needed to hit my target weight as soon as I see the initial weight.
3) Lots of time is wasted waiting for scales to register a weight, either a sensitive scale naturally responding to one more kernel, or an "insensitive" scale needing to have the pan lifted/reset so it could register a new weight.
4) I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at the Omega trickler watching kernels fall out one by one, or watching to make sure I didn't get a double kernel drop, then reweighing when I wasn't sure.
All of these things are general inefficiency problems that I was running into. So I thought, what if I just bypassed them all? If don't want to weigh repeatedly to "average" the results and I trust the scale the first time, then why not just weigh once? If the kernels are consistent and I know how many I need, why try to trickle them in one by one when you can just cut them out of a pile and sweep them off the counter into the powder pan? So here's my new approach...
Throw a charge, weigh it once, add the correct number of kernels. Done.
Now I've actually done a fair bit of double checking to make sure this works. I know how many kernels per 0.1g that I should add, I know what the crossover point is where I need to add or drop a kernel is if I'm putting in a larger number of kernels like 10-15.
But enough words.... a video makes it so much more clear.
~15 seconds per charge, and I'm confident that they are +/- 0.02gr. All done with a cheap RCBS powder thrower and a $120 Gempro. Use a straight edge to cut/count out the number of necessary kernels to add.
Has anyone else tried something like this? Any other suggestions for how to speed things up while keeping accurate charge weights?
Through this process and trying different things I've made a couple observations.
1) If a scale has a variation of +/- 0.02gr, it's going to exhibit that variation whether it's the first, second, or third time you weigh a charge. Only way to get around it is to double and triple check a weight then take the average of multiple readings.
2) The Hodgon powders I load are remarkably consistent in terms of weight per kernel. I'd find myself knowing how many more kernels I needed to hit my target weight as soon as I see the initial weight.
3) Lots of time is wasted waiting for scales to register a weight, either a sensitive scale naturally responding to one more kernel, or an "insensitive" scale needing to have the pan lifted/reset so it could register a new weight.
4) I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at the Omega trickler watching kernels fall out one by one, or watching to make sure I didn't get a double kernel drop, then reweighing when I wasn't sure.
All of these things are general inefficiency problems that I was running into. So I thought, what if I just bypassed them all? If don't want to weigh repeatedly to "average" the results and I trust the scale the first time, then why not just weigh once? If the kernels are consistent and I know how many I need, why try to trickle them in one by one when you can just cut them out of a pile and sweep them off the counter into the powder pan? So here's my new approach...
Throw a charge, weigh it once, add the correct number of kernels. Done.
Now I've actually done a fair bit of double checking to make sure this works. I know how many kernels per 0.1g that I should add, I know what the crossover point is where I need to add or drop a kernel is if I'm putting in a larger number of kernels like 10-15.
But enough words.... a video makes it so much more clear.
~15 seconds per charge, and I'm confident that they are +/- 0.02gr. All done with a cheap RCBS powder thrower and a $120 Gempro. Use a straight edge to cut/count out the number of necessary kernels to add.
Has anyone else tried something like this? Any other suggestions for how to speed things up while keeping accurate charge weights?
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