Bought an RCBS Chargemaster...

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Netpackrat
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Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:04 pm

Bought an RCBS Chargemaster...

Post by Netpackrat »

At Midway's "birthday" pricing a few weeks ago... In the words of FPS Russia, this thing is %$&*ing awesome! Totally worth every penny I spent on it. I needed a new digital scale anyway, and I'm really glad I decided to go whole hog with it. I've been loading up some "warm" 10mm loads with 800x, which doesn't meter through a measure worth a crap, and the Chargemaster throws the exact charge almost every time. Once in a while it will throw one that is a tenth of a grain over, so I just toss it back in the hopper and it automatically throws another charge. My only complaint so far, is the clear plastic cover that swings over the pan area to prevent air movement from affecting the scale, is not very securely attached, and is a bit of a pain to swing open and closed. I'm sure they made it the way they did so if it gets knocked, it will just fall off instead of breaking off. And I found that I can set it up in an area of my shop that doesn't get a lot of air movement and turn the heater off, and then it isn't really needed. I'm really looking forward to making up my next batch of rifle loads with this.
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Netpackrat
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Re: Bought an RCBS Chargemaster...

Post by Netpackrat »

CByrneIV wrote:I've been telling you for like three years now.

It completely changed the way I load.
You should get a commission or something, since your postings are the main reason I bought it.
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"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
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HTRN
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Re: Bought an RCBS Chargemaster...

Post by HTRN »

Net, worst comes to worst, you can build a draft shield around it like they do lab scales.

For the longest time, I wasn't crazy about the Chargemaster, because I was under the impression that it was all one unit, meaning if either the scale or dispenser crapped out, you had to replace the whole thing. Also, it wasn't terribly convenient for case sorting. But I've since seen photos that show Chargemaster dispenser as a separate unit, with extending legs as docking station for the scale - so which is it?
HTRN, I would tell you that you are an evil fucker, but you probably get that a lot ~ Netpackrat

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Netpackrat
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Re: Bought an RCBS Chargemaster...

Post by Netpackrat »

HTRN wrote:Net, worst comes to worst, you can build a draft shield around it like they do lab scales.

For the longest time, I wasn't crazy about the Chargemaster, because I was under the impression that it was all one unit, meaning if either the scale or dispenser crapped out, you had to replace the whole thing. Also, it wasn't terribly convenient for case sorting. But I've since seen photos that show Chargemaster dispenser as a separate unit, with extending legs as docking station for the scale - so which is it?
The scale and dispenser are separate units. It looks like to combine the two, there is a pair of rails that they sit on together, that sandwich in between the base and the mounting feet. I haven't tried to separate the two units and likely won't. I nearly bought just the scale component, and I'm really glad I just bought the whole thing at once. It would have cost me a LOT more in the long run to buy the units separately.
Cognosce teipsum et disce pati

"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
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Netpackrat
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Re: Bought an RCBS Chargemaster...

Post by Netpackrat »

I learned a new trick this evening that deserves some thread necromancy.... One thing that is annoying, when using a stick powder (including the vast majority of my rifle loads to date), the powder tends to clump up in the threads at the end of the dispensing tube, so that sometimes an overcharge is dropped. With Varget, it probably happens once or twice out of every 10 charges or so. Just often enough to be slightly annoying.

Was browsing 300blktalk.com a little while ago, when I saw mention of the "straw mod" to the Chargemaster. Lo, and behold, it's a simple trick to mitigate that problem, which I suppose everybody except for me already knew about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTnhTv2Uc8Y

It will be a while before I can test it, but maybe somebody else here can get some benefit from it in the meantime.
Cognosce teipsum et disce pati

"People come and go in our lives, especially the online ones. Some leave a fond memory, and some a bad taste." -Aesop
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