Why are most beam ballance scales 500 grain capacity?

[chkunz]

Most folks are loading powder charges less than 100 grains. So why are beam balance scales that are marketed for hand loading mostly 500 (or 1000 grains) capacity? Most of these scales are very accurate in the less than 100 grain range so it is not a problem. But, in general, instrument accuracy is somewhat a function of full scale reading so why are we using an instrument that is an order of magnitude higher in capability than what we need?

 

[ericbc7]

Interesting question, although I did a lot of shotgun loading in my trap days and used the scale to its fullest then.

 

[CatShooter]

'cuz there are people that load very large cartridges that hold 250+ grains of powder... and of course, weighing bullets comes into play sometimes too.

 

[bigedp51]

Re: Why are most beam balance scales 500 grain capacity?

1. Because a scale is most accurate and calibrated at its mid scale point.

2. Any cartridge using over 500 grains of powder requires having a shooting buddy standing by with a defibrillator to restart your heart again.

3. And any bullet over 500 grains is going to give you a nose bleed, which means ripping the wires off the defibrillator and using the wire ends to cauterize your nose.

Trust me, I was given three 500 grain .458 bullets for the .458 Winchester magnum and fired two of them in my 5 1/2 pound Ruger 45-70 No.3 carbine at near max velocities . I kept the third 500 grain bullet to remind me how stupid I was to pull the trigger twice and give myself two nose bleeds. I had cigarette filters shoved up my nose to stop the first nose bleed and on the second shot the massive recoil caused the bloody filters to exit my nose at the speed of light. It might of been the speed of sound, but I'm not sure how fast blood can move from a standing start. :'(

So just remember anything over 500 grains translates into pain so don't worry about the upper numbers on your scale.

 

[riflewoman]

Dunno. But I used it to advantage when setting a powder measure. I'd drop 5 or 10 charges to get an average. So I'd adjust by dropping two charges then confirm wit a 10 charge drop on my 304 scale.

 

[Lapua40X]

1. Because a scale is most accurate and calibrated at its mid scale point.

2. Any cartridge using over 500 grains of powder requires having a shooting buddy standing by with a defibrillator to restart your heart again.

3. And any bullet over 500 grains is going to give you a nose bleed, which means ripping the wires off the defibrillator and using the wire ends to cauterize your nose.
:'(

Gets my vote for both the best technical response (Item No 1) and the best practical responses (No. 2 &3) Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[Rpbump]

AMEN, to the above post.

Rpbump

 

[CJ6]

Re: Why are most beam balance scales 500 grain capacity?

1. Because a scale is most accurate and calibrated at its mid scale point.

2. Any cartridge using over 500 grains of powder requires having a shooting buddy standing by with a defibrillator to restart your heart again.

3. And any bullet over 500 grains is going to give you a nose bleed, which means ripping the wires off the defibrillator and using the wire ends to cauterize your nose.

Trust me, I was given three 500 grain .458 bullets for the .458 Winchester magnum and fired two of them in my 5 1/2 pound Ruger 45-70 No.3 carbine at near max velocities . I kept the third 500 grain bullet to remind me how stupid I was to pull the trigger twice and give myself two nose bleeds. I had cigarette filters shoved up my nose to stop the first nose bleed and on the second shot the massive recoil caused the bloody filters to exit my nose at the speed of light. It might of been the speed of sound, but I'm not sure how fast blood can move from a standing start. :'(

So just remember anything over 500 grains translates into pain so don't worry about the upper numbers on your scale.

LMAO ..Oh man that's a good one and one I can relate to.

 

[1066]

I've always thought this, ever since trying to load .32 competition pistol ammo with 1.6gn Bullseye.

I would guess that over 95% of all use of the scale is in the 5-70 grain range so loading pistol ammunition you are using the first 100th of the range of the standard scale. That's like trying to accurately keep you speed at 3.4 mph with a standard 0-140mph speedo.

The RCBS 10/10 weighs to 1000gn by simply adding an auxiliary weight on the beam. It would be handy if they made a scale in the lower range to do the same, say 0-100 standard or 0-250 with the extra weight.

The Lee scale weighs 0-100 grains and this accounts in part for it's accuracy and sensitivity, the beam is just too short to take advantage of this though.

Many of the older scales such as the Redding No 1, Websters etc. weighed 0-300.

I recently rebuilt a scale arm to read 0-70gn that works a treat.

 

[zipollini]

This is why you need that kind of capacity

http://www.staged.com/video?v=q0eb

 

[BoydAllen]

My experience tells me this is a non issue. What is worth looking into is tuning scales to a much higher level of performance, well above any new balance reloading scale. My scales will move from a single granule of Varget. I would not use any stock scale for critical work.

 

[Brians356]

My scales will move from a single granule of Varget.

Both my balance beam scales will register a single kernel of extruded powder, every time, and both are original, unmodified scales. I'm not sure how reassured I should feel. Sensitivity vs repeatability.

Just for fun: Will the scale move the same amount each time you re-weigh that granule? And how to determine that?

 

[Brians356]

This is why you need that kind of capacity

http://www.staged.com/video?v=q0eb

That should require a doctor's waiver to shoot.

I once was offered to fire a Brno tropical rifle in 505 Gibbs, and passed on it. That very evening I crashed my mountain bike and broke my collar bone.

"Life contains a particle of risk, Jack!"

 

[DocBII]

T-REX,

Sometimes you need to verify the charge is actually in a loaded round. If you screw up, it's nice to find out before you pull the trigger.

45-70 bullets weigh 400 grains, plus or minus. It's nice to know what's on the plus or the minus side, since the difference can be as much as 12 grains.

bigedp51,

You have my sympathy. I learned discretion is the better part of valor a while ago with big pistol calibers.

HTH All,
DocBII

 

[chkunz]

Several folks have replied with valid reasons for needing to measure things that are much heavier than the normal weight for powder charges and I totally get that. But why compromise the weighing of powder charges which is 99.9% of the usage of the powder weighing scales to make one size fit all? I have an electronic digital scale that does the occasional heavier weighing even better than the beam balance scale. I prefer to have a beam balance scale that is optimized for weighing powder changes.

 

[abishai]

When you cast your own boolets , the 1000 g capacity comes in handy. Most keep an old beam scale on the shelf just in case of Y2K

 

[CatShooter]

"I prefer to have a beam balance scale that is optimized for weighing powder changes."

What does that mean? If a scale can weigh up to 500 grains (or any other number) how can it be optimized to weigh a specific material - can you weigh powder, but not something else.

If it weighs up to 500 grains, does it not weigh 50 grains (my M-5 does)... or 10 grains (my M-5 does).

A scale can weigh anything that will fit in the pan.

A scale has two characteristics:

Accuracy and Repeatably

Reloaders need some close accuracy, but +/- 1/2 grain is fine unless you are reloading 25 Auto, because you start low and work up. Many benchrest loaders do not use a scale... they use "clicks" on their powder measure... so the numbers, no matter where they come from are only relative to YOUR loading.

But reloaders MUST have repeatably. If you work up your load from 10% low, and the scale says it is a 34.6 grain load, but it actually weighs actually weigh 35.1, it makes no difference - but every load MUST be the same, even if the scale 0.5 grains off.

Any halfassed beam balance will run circles around any regular, non-laboratory, digital scale

I have to re-tare my Dillon digital every 5 or 10 weighings - so it is only used for case sorting.

 

[amlevin]

I have to re-tare my Dillon digital every 5 or 10 weighings - so it is only used for case sorting.

I don't. I just leave it plugged in and turned on 24/7. Tare it at the beginning of a session and it stays dead on (showing the same amount of negative weight every time I remove the pan and returns to zero when the pan is replaced) for an entire session which can be hours long.

As to the original question, I actually bought my 5-0-5 to measure shotgun powder charges as well as shot charge weights. A typical shot charge is ~500-550 grains.

 

[chkunz]

"I prefer to have a beam balance scale that is optimized for weighing powder changes."

What does that mean? If a scale can weigh up to 500 grains (or any other number) how can it be optimized to weigh a specific material - can you weigh powder, but not something else.

If it weighs up to 500 grains, does it not weigh 50 grains (my M-5 does)... or 10 grains (my M-5 does).

A scale can weigh anything that will fit in the pan.

A scale has two characteristics:

Accuracy and Repeatably

Reloaders need some close accuracy, but +/- 1/2 grain is fine unless you are reloading 25 Auto, because you start low and work up. Many benchrest loaders do not use a scale... they use "clicks" on their powder measure... so the numbers, no matter where they come from are only relative to YOUR loading.

But reloaders MUST have repeatably. If you work up your load from 10% low, and the scale says it is a 34.6 grain load, but it actually weighs actually weigh 35.1, it makes no difference - but every load MUST be the same, even if the scale 0.5 grains off.

Any halfassed beam balance will run circles around any regular, non-laboratory, digital scale

I have to re-tare my Dillon digital every 5 or 10 weighings - so it is only used for case sorting.

What I meant by "I prefer to have a beam balance scale that is optimized for weighing powder changes." was I prefer having an instrument whose full scale range is optimized for the range I will be using it for.

 

[CatShooter]

"I prefer to have a beam balance scale that is optimized for weighing powder changes."

What does that mean? If a scale can weigh up to 500 grains (or any other number) how can it be optimized to weigh a specific material - can you weigh powder, but not something else.

If it weighs up to 500 grains, does it not weigh 50 grains (my M-5 does)... or 10 grains (my M-5 does).

A scale can weigh anything that will fit in the pan.

A scale has two characteristics:

Accuracy and Repeatably

Reloaders need some close accuracy, but +/- 1/2 grain is fine unless you are reloading 25 Auto, because you start low and work up. Many benchrest loaders do not use a scale... they use "clicks" on their powder measure... so the numbers, no matter where they come from are only relative to YOUR loading.

But reloaders MUST have repeatably. If you work up your load from 10% low, and the scale says it is a 34.6 grain load, but it actually weighs actually weigh 35.1, it makes no difference - but every load MUST be the same, even if the scale 0.5 grains off.

Any halfassed beam balance will run circles around any regular, non-laboratory, digital scale

I have to re-tare my Dillon digital every 5 or 10 weighings - so it is only used for case sorting.

What I meant by "I prefer to have a beam balance scale that is optimized for weighing powder changes." was I prefer having an instrument whose full scale range is optimized for the range I will be using it for.

Yeah... but what does "optimization" mean??

Scales work over their entire range. Just because a scale only goes to 100, or 50, or 30 or 10 grains, means absolutely nothing - it gives you no advantage.