measuring woes....ball powder

[alinwa]

Good to know I'm not the only one that beep annoys the heck out of. You do know you can turn that *off*, right? After loading up 600 rounds for 2007 SOA/FCNC I don't think I've ever had the beep activated since.

The speed thing was kind of a bummer for me, especially since I'd bought mine based largely on the test/review on 6mmBR.com, which claimed something like 8-12 seconds for roughly 42gr IMR4064. I shoot a *lot* of .308 win, so hearing that I about dislocated my arm getting the wallet out to order one. Imagine my 'joy' upon finding that reality for ~46.5-46.8gr Varget was more like 30 seconds if you got lucky, 60 if you were unlucky, and about 45 seconds on average. About the only saving grace was that it was *almost* enough time for me to finish trickling the last few kernels on the Acculab.

The simplest way to speed it up is to set one of your powder measures about 0.5-1gr low, throw the charge in the pan, put it on the Chargemaster and hit 'Dispense' (auto-dispense mode won't work unless it starts from zero). The other option is to use the McD straw trick, and tweak the motor speed parameters (published all over the 'net, much to RCBS's displeasure I'm sure) to bring things down to the 15-20 second range with pretty good reliabilty (occasional over-shoot from a powder clump, simple to toss back in the hopper and start over).

At that speed I can prime a couple cases, dump the charge down the funnel, put the pan back, let it zero and auto-dispense while I prime a few more cases. When I'm finished priming I go back and start seating bullets. By the end I'm still waiting on it but at least the time went a little faster

Ok, I think this one has already been tweaked. It's new.

WHEN IT WORKS OUT it'll dispense in 10-20 seconds but here's the deal. If it DOESN'T work out well, if the leading edge sloughs off leaving a shy slope, the poor dear will set there making millimetric twitches forEVER until one or two lonely kernels drop...... what I'll do is, if I run out of stuff to do, I'll whisk me' office chair over and gut 'er out with a wire pick and vavooom... "beep!"



is Okay

BTW I use a tray with the funnel on it, the black one, suhweet.

al

 

[Boyd Allen]

A couple of well known Benchrest competitors, who want to load faster, with Chargemasters, at matches, simply use two.

 

[alinwa]

A couple of well known Benchrest competitors, who want to load faster, with Chargemasters, at matches, simply use two.

whatever it takes I guess...

I think I'd be exploring preloading ala Borden!

LOL


al

 

[Big Al]

I know this out fit has been defunct for several years now, but it does seem there was a solution to this problem and that was Prometheus powder measure/scale. Some of the vary top 1,000 yard competitors were users of this machine. The machine went away and I have no idea of who bought the company or if they even sold out? As I recall the real killer of the whole idea was the cost of the unit, around 1500.00 bucks as I recall.

 

[Boyd Allen]

A unique and well built piece of equipment, but not well adapted to loading at the range.

 

[alinwa]

all in all I'm satisfied.

It's even slower than I expected but I can hear that silly beep all over the shop already

Just to be clear here, I DO NOT find the beep annoying!

I've got the satrad crankin' out the oldies, ball mills and other small motors running, my chair's creaking and crunching around.... I'm multi-tasking 17 ways from Sunday...... I LIKE to be told "I'm ready."

al

 

[John Kielly]

A can of beans 'n pork & you'd have a real orchestra!

 

[alinwa]

Here's a pic of me answering the beep

yippee!

looks as though the beans might be ass'isting eh!

al

 

[alinwa]

This pertickler day turned out froggy-to-the-max! PNW wintertime....

Here's the view downrange all day. Took me 6hrs to make 9 shots.....

But it cleared up about dark....

And I can shoot all night sooooo ....... I did!!!......



al

dunno what happened to my pic size... oh well.

 

[alinwa]

trying pix again, not that anyone cares!

Bear wit' me.... this is for me, gotta' figger it out.

al

 

[alinwa]

BTW today I timed myself with the Chargemaster....

I did a block of 50rds prime/powder/seat ready to fire in 40 minutes. Here's my setup, prior to getting out the stuff.... ready to race the timer.

I also bedded the scope today. Had the camera out so what the hey....

And a couple random shots just cuz it's wintertime and I love this stuff!

German will notice the marked lack of a coffee cup...... it's THERE German! It's off to the right of the chocolate candies...

(but the pics did look empty without it! I was wondering what was wrong .......... ambiancewise........)

 

[Tony Shankle]

This pertickler day turned out froggy-to-the-max! PNW wintertime....

Here's the view downrange all day. Took me 6hrs to make 9 shots.....

But it cleared up about dark....

And I can shoot all night sooooo ....... I did!!!......

Took me 3 hours to setup and make 15 shots yesterday at 1000. I was out in the open and the wind chill here was 17 degrees. At one point I had to see a man about a mule...I don't think they will drop for another couple of years!

I have 20 shots to test today, just checked and the wind chill is at 5 degrees. I wish I had something to "bed" or "clean" or "prep" so I could stay inside, but damn it...If Al can do it, I'm doing it too! German, don't you dare chime in with how warm it is at your house today!

 

[Big Al]

Al, the price was a real impediment to greater use of the Prometheus, but so was the machine itself. While well thought out, it was a pretty "Rube Goldberg" apparatus. I used one for about 6 months (on loan from a friend) and I never really warmed to it. It's been a long time now, but I mostly remember a hard to read beam for the scale, lots of delicate parts and no gain in efficiency over manual trickling. There's a brief write up here: http://www.6mmbr.com/prometheus.html

I went back to manual trickling after throwing from a decent measure and have remained satisfied with that mehod for my purposes (Highpower prone 300 to 1000).

Your solution has been what has worked for me better than any other I have found, cheaper as you already have what you need and have learned to rely on what you have long ago. I looked at the Prometheus dozens of times when the web site was up and running and read everything they had to say about the machine on 6BR.com, about the great shooters using the machine and figured that the trickle from thrown charge from the Harrells to the 1010 scale and trickle to the pan was what I used and cost nothing to stay with it. I did find the postings about making the 1010 scale more user friendly to be of great help. Plus the fact that I have no real trust in electronic scales due to RFI. A trip to Dillon's and seeing the pallet load of electronic scales setting on the floor as returns still sticks in my memory. Here in Alaska this time of the year static electricity plays heck with electronic scales, I have a few sets of scales that don't make it even as also ran. There is a lot to be said for sticking with what you know that works and not venturing off to the unknown and untested.

 

[alinwa]

You need to get out of those dirty pajama bottoms in the first picture, get dressed real proper like, and get back to work. This time off is going to drive you to drink, or worse, sobriety. Too much egg nog on New Years Eve will do that to you.
Oh, and forty minutes for 50 rounds is slooooow. I'm assuming you are priming and seating as the ding is donging so you are restricted by the speed of the Chargemaster.....

Hey... at least I put clothes on for the pic!

Yes forty minutes is slow..... but because of my setup I can/do use the time for caseprep, priming, seating etc.

The only thing that scares me is that my method has always been:

-prep the whole block of cases, inspect
-prime the whole block, inspect.
-charge the whole block, inspect
-seat the whole block, label and put away.


Ripping about the room as I'm doing now I'm using 5 loading blocks and doing stuff in steps.

I'm a wicked multi-tasker (and smart enough to just STOP every now and then and check my six) .....but difference in speed all devolves to the charging cycle. Obviously running the block under a powder thrower would cut this time by two thirds. NOT an option, these are to be weighed charges, end of story.

Bridging in the powder measure is just too common an occurrence.

It is my opinion that for WEIGHED bulk loading (this set is 500rds) it can be accommodated for, AND..... I feel that my chance of inadvertant OVERload is diminished. While maintaining a usable accuracy parameter.


I may forget powder though.....



haven't



yet..



al

 

[alinwa]

Al, if you have the coffee AND chocolates, then you've already covered two of the three major food groups (pizza) so you're good to go. I love your reloading/shooting setup, man that's slick! Is that an Alpine action? Looks like one I've got buried in a tubegun.
Thanks for the pics!

Yes it's an Alpine.

I cleaned 'er down to bare metal yesterday and rubbed in a Smith and Wesson pistol lube that's on my shelf. I don't know what it is, it's 10-12yrs old, but it comes in a little fliptop squeeze bottle and the lube is two-part, separates out quickly.

Separated it's got a white milky substance in the bottom quarter and it takes a lot of shaking to re-emulsify....... but with this stuff on the bolt is very slick to operate.

I've tried die wax, CLP, LPS, Davey Dohrmann's bolt slick and three different syringes of bolt grease (red, green and purple) with mediocre results.

The S&W stuff is Da' Shnizzle.... for Borden's.

al

 

[alinwa]

Took me 3 hours to setup and make 15 shots yesterday at 1000. I was out in the open and the wind chill here was 17 degrees. At one point I had to see a man about a mule...I don't think they will drop for another couple of years!

I have 20 shots to test today, just checked and the wind chill is at 5 degrees. I wish I had something to "bed" or "clean" or "prep" so I could stay inside, but damn it...If Al can do it, I'm doing it too! German, don't you dare chime in with how warm it is at your house today!

Difference is..... I shoot from inside a heated building!

The only expenditure of effort I have is that I must transfer my bonesack from the rolling office chair to the Sinclair stool at the bench.....

Sorry to hear of your difficulties .... scrotal issues are always difficult for guys to deal with maybe it'll come in handy if you ever decide to bulk up and get into sumo?

LOL

al

 

[GlenO]

OK. I have to ask.

I was hoping someone else would ask how to turn the CM beep off. Turning it's volume way down would be better, but barring that capability I'll choose off.

BTW, after I tweaked the settings to speed my unit up, it has a new pan ready just about as quickly as I can get the bullet seated from the previous one. Very occasionally it'll run over a tenth and I have to dump and restart but not often enough for me to change the settings back.

Thanks,

Glen

 

[milanuk]

Glen,

I don't have it in front of me at the moment... but it used to be listed in the manual.

Monte

 

[alinwa]

I was hoping someone else would ask how to turn the CM beep off. Turning it's volume way down would be better, but barring that capability I'll choose off.

BTW, after I tweaked the settings to speed my unit up, it has a new pan ready just about as quickly as I can get the bullet seated from the previous one. Very occasionally it'll run over a tenth and I have to dump and restart but not often enough for me to change the settings back.

Thanks,

Glen

OK, if yours is this fast I WILL go down and play with the settings..... thanks Glen and Monte.

i'm off


al

 

[GlenO]

Monte,

Thanks. I found it (downloaded the manual from RCBS - not sure where mine is).

If anyone else is interested in turning the Chargemaster beep off/on -- press and hold the "zero" button. The display will show the mode.

Thanks, again.

Glen