Boyd Allen
Active member
After reading Alinwa's thread in which he wrote of unexpected inconsistencies in charge weights of ball powders, I borrowed a friends Acculab VIC123 and did a little work. What I found was that after learning from a few mistakes, and based on previous experience, that the worst that it did over more than 20 straight throws (with Exterminator) is +-.07.
About 2/3 through this series, I discovered that one of my problems was that simply dumping the fired case back in the measure hopper did not get all of the powder out of the old fired 6PPC case that I was using, and had tared the scale with. Rapping the case mouth on the desk top would sometimes produce a few grains of powder. From that point on, the minus value after zeroing on the empty case became consistent, and the subsequent throws showed an extreme spread of .04.
One other factor that came into this is that some years ago I found that the best measure for ball powder was not the same as for short stick. I did this test with an old Hollywood measure, using careful technique.
Added later:
Go out the Harrell's, and after a little practice with the scale to brush up my technique, I was able to throw 20 straight that showed an extreme spread of .24 gr. The same technique and measure produced an extreme spread of .14 gr. for 20 consecutive throws. I did reject two without weighing, because I was distracted by the ball game and broke my rhythm.
About 2/3 through this series, I discovered that one of my problems was that simply dumping the fired case back in the measure hopper did not get all of the powder out of the old fired 6PPC case that I was using, and had tared the scale with. Rapping the case mouth on the desk top would sometimes produce a few grains of powder. From that point on, the minus value after zeroing on the empty case became consistent, and the subsequent throws showed an extreme spread of .04.
One other factor that came into this is that some years ago I found that the best measure for ball powder was not the same as for short stick. I did this test with an old Hollywood measure, using careful technique.
Added later:
Go out the Harrell's, and after a little practice with the scale to brush up my technique, I was able to throw 20 straight that showed an extreme spread of .24 gr. The same technique and measure produced an extreme spread of .14 gr. for 20 consecutive throws. I did reject two without weighing, because I was distracted by the ball game and broke my rhythm.
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