Them Dern Chargemasters again.

Pete Wass

Pete Wass

Well-known member
While loading yesterday for a Big Match this weekend I decided to keep track of the actual weights my Chargebastard was throwing. I offer 30 cycles for your consideration. This Chargemaster is 5 or 6 years old and has been used quite a bit.

I selected 33.6g as the load I am going to use this weekend.

33.7--- 33.64
33.6--- 33.68
33.7--- 33.74
33.6--- 33.58
33.5--- 33.44

Those were the frst 5 cycles. After that, I dumped back all those that didn't say 33.6 on the Chargemaster scale.

33.6-- 33.52
33.6-- 33.64
33.6-- 33.61
33.6-- 33.52
33.6-- 33.70
33.6-- 33.61
33.6-- 33.72
33.6-- 33.54
33.6-- 33.72
33.6-- 33.54
33.6-- 33.54
33.6-- 33.58
33.6-- 33.68
33.6-- 33.68
33.6-- 33.54

That said, is the accuracy better than those thrown from one of the "Better Measures"? Well, I have never been able to throw, with mine, closer to this and in fact, not this close. What I did after this test is to set the Chargemaster @ 33.5 and trickled the remainder of the powder to get my 33.6 as close as I could. ( The verification scale is an Acculab that reads out two places )
More useless information for consideration.
 
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bingo...
the man wins a stuffed panda bear!!
your results are the expected in my opinion.
the scale in use is plus or minus 0.1...( the chargemater scale)and basically that is what you got.....
and in the real life...much better than the typical powder thrower...

ya done good!
mike in co
 
Seems like a lot of work, but now you know it is right. Confidence in your load is a big factor in shooting well.
 
A couple of thoughts:

A decade ago, I "had confidence" in my load because it was carefully thrown from a Harrell's at such-and-such clicks and worked fine. Nobody had started the process of truly "analizing" me!

Recently I bought a used Lyman DPS. I know that, according to guys on this site, it's junque, but as far as I can see it works as good as any of the Green Monsters. It will regularly throw 30.4 of IMR 8208XBR (and other powders) within the +/- .1-gr. parameters and I am willing to go to the line with +/- .1-gr. If it registers something other than 30.4, I dump back and pour again. It takes from 13 to 16 seconds to pour the charge. The problem is that my normal loading style is to charge a block of cases with powder and then seat the bullets. To do that with a DPS is slow and tedious if you have to double-weigh every one, dump the powder through a funnel with a long tube, etc., etc.

My Harrell's, using a fine grain powder like IMR 8208, Benchmark, etc., will throw within +/- .1 reliably enough not to shake my confidence level. The loading time is much faster and I still cannot shoot well enough to see any difference on the paper. The difference in the temperature of the barrel from one shot to another is probably more critical than .1-gr. of powder (which, by the way, in a charge of 30.4-gr., .1-gr. is .3% as in three-tenths of one percent).

I am doing some testing just for my own sanity and the data is pretty much useless here as I use a Chrony Beta Master, an RCBS 505 scale, and other low-cost equipment. By I have shot hundreds of rounds of thrown and/or weighed charges in the past couple weeks. I have shot tiny little groups with ammo Chrony'd as much as 100 fps apart, and groups that didn't make the grade with loads with an ES in the single digits.

At this point, in my short-range (100-, 200-yds.) shooting with a 6 PPC using Euber, Bart's and Berger bullets I cannot go to the line and say these perfectly weighed charges will outshoot these thrown charges. But I sure am having fun shooting out my barrel! I don't approach benchrest shooting and loading as the pursuit of some sort of Nirvana perfection, but rather a way to reliably go to the line with the wind blowing, the mirage boiling, and eyes that long ago lost their cutting edge and putting some "on the X".
 
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glp said:
90% of life is between your ears, the other 10% is who you know.
Click to expand...

Amen on this. I've developed confidence in my Jones measure but always use a (relatively) inexpensive scale to track where I'm at.
 
A while back, I did a little testing with my tuned up RCBS 10-10 balance type scale, my RCBS trickler, and a electronic scale that reads to .02 grain, (that seems to be reliable). I set up a web cam to read the balance scale so that the balance marks were very magnified on my computer monitor, and there was no possibility of parallax error, since the camera did not move. As best as I could determine, I was able to produce charges that stayed within a total variance of .15 gr. Putting it another way, I could hold better than +- .1 grain. Tuning up the scale, and being able to see better made all the difference. Next time you are playing with a balance scale, weighing an unknown, once you have it perfectly balanced, change the scale setting by .1 and then let it resettle. Magnification helps when reading such small differences, and parallax is a significant issue.
 
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glp said:
90% of life is between your ears, the other 10% is who you know.
Click to expand...

99 % of shooting small groups or lots of X es is attention to details. There is no way to "will" shots in if the ammo is erratically loaded.
 
in the middle of his text is a reference to a 505......
so the best is plus or minus .1 on his CHECK system....
mike in co
Pete Wass said:
Reed,

What for scales or a balance are you using to verify your result?

Pete
Click to expand...
 
Reed,

Your experiments are valid and agree with what most honest folks will tell you about this topic. I have many dear friends that pre-weigh into vials and/or load with Chargemasters and some even have high dollar scales capable of weighing to the infinite reaches of anality. But when I have asked them if they have seen a difference in thrown vs weighed charges on target, not one of them have been able to say, "yes" yet. They are the first ones to admit that it just makes them feel better, not shoot better.

Makes perfect sense to me. I know with absolute certainty that .1 grain of powder variation will never make any difference. My targets and my chronograph (something a shocking percentage of shooters don't own or use) can't seperate any load's inherent standard deviations from whatever additional velocity .1 grain makes. If my chrono or my targets can't tell any difference, why should I beat myself up over it? Because some archair theorist on the internet that doesn't even own a br gun says it should? Get real.
Our guns just aren't efficient enough machines to tell the difference in energy that one kernal (or one half of a kernal) provides. If you do stumble into one that miraculously can, DON'T USE IT FOR COMPETITION! Well, unless you love tormenting yourself to death. Instead, sell it to JPL and let them figure out why.......
 
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Yup, my "check scale" is an RCBS/Ohaus 505 at +/- .1-gr. ... no granite table, no NASA clean room, no humidity or draft controls, etc. As near as I can tell with this antiquated set-up to move the balance beam the width of the mark on the scale takes three kernels of most BR powders (actually only two kernels of N133). If you think your equipment or skills are good enough to require that accuracy then a tip of my hat to you.

FWIW, Peter, I don't consider +/- .1-gr. to be "erratically loaded". I also don't believe a perfect .000001-gr. load can be "willed" anywhere. You still gotta steer it.

If a personality requires the extra-anal attention to details which are sometimes discussed in these forums, then by all means go for it. Peace of mind is exactly that and you have to do what it takes to achieve it. Mine is content at a lower standard and I intend to pass no judgment of those whose needs are different than mine. I do enjoy the free exchange of ideas and experiences but am trying to keep my own eye to reality and not to theory.
 
reed,
first i do not shoot a bunch of n133 anymore...
but if you watch results you will see alot of n133 winners with thrown charges....
what that means is the powder has a large sweet spot...plain and simple...cause the facts are that most thrown charges of n133 are no where near plus or minus 0.1.
no one said a thing about .000001..
what we have talked about was KNOWING that my charges are consistant...and thrown charges are NOT.
I SEE NOTHING WRONG WITH WHAT YOU ARE DOING.it is consistant...tho it is probably a bit over plus or minus .1..it is a bunch better than the guys with thrown charges who are at plus or minus 0.2 or worse.
so continue,,,
some day some of us will get consistant enought to see the diff...for now just knowing you are consistant is a big mental plus in this game.
mike in co
ReedG said:
Yup, my "check scale" is an RCBS/Ohaus 505 at +/- .1-gr. ... no granite table, no NASA clean room, no humidity or draft controls, etc. As near as I can tell with this antiquated set-up to move the balance beam the width of the mark on the scale takes three kernels of most BR powders (actually only two kernels of N133). If you think your equipment or skills are good enough to require that accuracy then a tip of my hat to you.

FWIW, Peter, I don't consider +/- .1-gr. to be "erratically loaded". I also don't believe a perfect .000001-gr. load can be "willed" anywhere. You still gotta steer it.

If a personality requires the extra-anal attention to details which are sometimes discussed in these forums, then by all means go for it. Peace of mind is exactly that and you have to do what it takes to achieve it. Mine is content at a lower standard and I intend to pass no judgment of those whose needs are different than mine. I do enjoy the free exchange of ideas and experiences but am trying to keep my own eye to reality and not to theory.
Click to expand...
 
Romney would prefer "Lyman Culver" ,, I heard Obama likes things that are "Green" HFV
mike in co said:
bingo...
the man wins a stuffed panda bear!!
your results are the expected in my opinion.
the scale in use is plus or minus 0.1...( the chargemater scale)and basically that is what you got.....
and in the real life...much better than the typical powder thrower...

ya done good!
mike in co
Click to expand...
 
glp said:
90% of life is between your ears, the other 10% is who you know.
Click to expand...

I think Pete must be off his meds again Greg.

My good friend Pete
You have the same problem winning matches I do, stiff competition and less than stellar self performance. it is not the .005 gr variations in powder weight or the .003" ogive variations in bullet length that are the difference between between you me , Dean, Kim, Greg, Randy, Herby, Lee and Allie it is the pure shooting ability and attention to details especially flags that kill me. When I am on top of things I do ok but when I don't there is no way it is because my charge master is varying a tenth of a grain.
Just my opinion.
Dick
 
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It's interesting, I have tested loads all the while I have been shooting and I have always been able to tell the difference in the shapes of groups with as little variation as .1 and .001" of seating depth. I have had three or four barrels over the years that seemed to forgive small differences but most of them have demanded close attention to detail.

Dick is quite right in that most of the time, I do not have the patience to wait for conditions and/or do not have the abiltiy to read conditions well enough and have limited memory for conditions. I feel that with all of that going against me, I need to make my Ammo the very best I can make it. If there ever again comes a day when I can get into a groove then the great ammo will shine through.

I am sorry I don't have enough interest to learn how to upload pictures of the test targets I have done of late and the corresponding group shapes by varying charges and seaing depth. I have heard folks speak of being on nodes that forgive all sorts of stuff but me, using the same charges, those forgiving nodes seem to elude me most often.
 
Pete,
Send anything that you want posted to me (full sized file, attached to an email), and I will post it for you.
Boyd
 
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