Chargemaster question

[Texas Solo]

I'm getting old. I quickly tire of weighing every charge on my beam scale, although I know they're perfectly consistent.
So I need honest opinions/experience with the RCBS chargemaster combo. I'll be using stick powders, mostly Varget.
I've read plenty of good & bad about this $300 unit. It only has a one year warranty and RCBS says it's sourced out, not actually made by them.

So I need to hear from you all. Pros & cons. Accuracy, reliability, ease of use, etc.
I don't need to be screwing with this thing every time I use it. The whole thought is to make life easier, not more frustrating.

BTW....yes, I did the search thingy. Just looking for any more recent results.

Thanks.

[stomp442]

Mine works great! best $300 I have spent on reloading equipment. Depending on the powder, it can be very reliable. I don't have any trouble with it and use anything from H380 to Retumbo. The Straw mod works wonders. You may have 1 out of 10 that it overthrows but its not a bad piece of equipment and it definitely speeds up the process. I have had mine for over three years and I bet I use it almost daily with zero issues.

[LongRange]

i bought one about a year or two ago...played with it for two weeks never loaded a round with it and returned it because it would not throw a consistent charge...and yes EVER trick in the book was tried even reprograming. the one i had may have been a bad unit but that was my experience.

[Texas Solo]

And there we have it.....one positive review, one negative review. Both from experienced reloaders.
I greatly appreciate it guys. I'm not a gambling man, will hold off on the purchase and accept that I'm slower than I used to be.

[LongRange]

More ppl have good luck with them than bad...but from what I've seen the scale will drift and I'm a little more anal than most about my reloading. That said I've been using a Scott Parker beam scale for about 6-7yrs and one kernel will still move the beam and it's still dead nuts with the check weight he sent with the scale and I've loaded right around 25,000 30,000 rounds with it.

[copterdrvr]

Buying the Chargemaster was the single BEST purchase I've made in years (I'm 63, shooting buddy 67) to improve my enjoyment of reloading. Did the straw mod and a tweak for speed of dispensing and that's about it. EXTREMELY accurate and consistent powder drops from the likes of Varget, H4895, I4350, Benchmark, H110, etc.....

I'm kinda OCD so I re-zero mine every tenth load which takes about 2 seconds of pushing two buttons. I've dropped over 20 loads in a row without having to "redo" the drop because it was over. I've loaded thousands of precision rifle rounds using the Chargemaster.


My buddy and I shoot at least once a week, mostly 300 yard with .223, 6.5 Creedmoor, 7mm/08, .308 and 300 Win Mag and if I had to go back to pre-Chargemaster days, we wouldn't shoot nearly as often. We demand "as good as it gets" but we're too old to go back to the crap we went through to assemble quality loads before the Chargemaster.

[Jamie]

I haven't done any of the mods to mine and about 1 in 5 have to be redone but it is STILL faster than trickling in by hand on a beam scale. You can easily see when the load is off, dump it back in and press "DISPENSE" again. The scale seems to be consistent and I have shot a lot of .25" and smaller groups in my 6x47 L using it. Heck, it even is good enough to get my Remington in 300 WSM to shoot solid half inch. I only wish it had the auto repeat that the Lyman has. As soon as you set the pan back on the Lyman and the scale stabilizes, it auto dispenses the next load without you doing a thing. The Lyman's scale was off, not just off by x amount every time, off by .5 grain low to the next being .7 high all while the scale reads 42.7 (was double checking with my beam scale) Lyman got returned.

[Dennis]

I have two of them.

I agree with all of the positive comments above. I also have a jewelry scale I double check the charge with. Both of mine are accurate. In fact, I do not double check the throws unless I am shooting in a match. I usually take out a kernel or two to get almost an exact charge. It almost is not worth being this anal about it, but it's something I do.

I have learned to turn them on about an hour before you start using it. If you start throwing charges after just turning the machine on, both of mine will over throw a few times. But after 10 throws everything seems normal. I was told here to turn them on several hours before using them, and that problem should go away. Well, maybe one or two I will have to re-dispense, but after that, it's fine.

I did reprogram mine, and I added the straw to the thrower. The straw definitely helped mine, both of them.

Hope this helps you, I am not changing anytime soon, and I have never used another brand. I didn't have to. But as said, I will check about the first ten throws with my digital scale. I zero the jewelry scale with the RCBS pan on it. I have not had a problem doing it this way. If the RCBS says 43.3, my jewelry scale will show 43.34 or something similar. I find the RCBS will show the closest hundredth. I consider this normal. Especially when most of the time its on one or two kernels that makes the difference.

I have also used several powders in mine, Varget is the powder you might have to watch the most. RL15, I don't recall having to re-throw hardly any charges, same with the other powders I use. RCBS tech help was always quick answering my questions, and walking me through the re-programing.

Dennis

[blvedere]

I,like Dennis, have two of them. One has Varget and the other has 4198. Both can be a little fussy at times, but do a great job. If they are not feeling well a just short them and trickel the load to what I want.

[rjtfroggy]

I have one of the older ones, scale on the side, made by Pact for RCBS and it is all I will use. Once in a while it throws a little under/over but rarely and I don't mind because I weigh every thing on the beam scale before I drop into the case any way, I load for accuracy only. The last loads I ran over the Magneto were 6br Norma and I had an ES of 9 fps over 20 rounds.
So IMHO it works.
PS I only turn off the scale I leave the Chargemaster turned on and recalibrate first every time. Also beware of fluorescent lighting, drafts from fan or A.C. and some say cell phones. I think an in line filter corrects all of these.

[Mozella]

Mine (after all the mods and many different programming adjustments) is only slightly more accurate than my case activated Hornady Lock N Load mechanical powder system. The Chargemaster scale only weighs to .10 grain, which is not quite good enough for my competition ammo. However, it greatly speeds up my loading procedure. I dump each charge from the Chargemaster onto my Gem Pro 250, correct the errors by adding (usually) between one and 6 kernels of powder, and then putting the case into my loading block. In that respect it works just fine and I get loads precise to .02gr, but only because I weigh each charge on a scale with greater resolution than the RCBS scale.

The reason the Chargemaster helps is that the Gem Pro doesn't respond well to trickling. Using a conventional powder measure as a starting point is too tedious. The Charge Master gets me close enough so that I can use tweezers to add or remove a kernel or two or three, tap the scale, and get the precision I need. In other words, if you can get within two kernels much of the time, the Gem Pro is easy to use. Outside that range, it takes greater effort and outside 6 kernels it quickly gets tedious.

Used as intended, many loads from the Chargemaster are within .10gr but some are in error by .2 or occasionally .4 gr. Since my Hornady mechanical powder system can do nearly as well and is MUCH faster when used on a progressive press, that's how I load most ammo except competition ammo or load development ammo.

So if you need real accurate loads, the Chargemaster can speed up the process but you can't rely on it alone. It's just a starting point to get close. Next you need to use a scale with better resolution. Of course if your needs are less precise, then a Chargemaster will be fine. But don't be surprised if a good mechanical system isn't almost as accurate and, in a progressive press, much faster.

[m12lrs]

The real question is how accurate do your powder charges really need to be?

[copterdrvr]

I turn mine on 30 minutes before use, always calibrate and re-zero regularly. When I first started using the unit I re-weighed loads regularly to verify. Maybe the regular re-zeroing helps because it's never been even .2 gr off.

Jamie, I programmed mine to auto-dispense----- it's an available option.

Also, do the straw mod-you're gonna kick yourself for not having done it sooner after you see the difference!!!

[Zero333]

Love mine.

Castellated straw mod.

Re-programmed.

Load 400 to 500 rounds a month and will overthrow 1 every 50 with stick powders and 1 every 20 for ball powders. No big deal. dump a lil back into the hopper and trickle up to desired weight in no time. Or dump entire tray in the hopper and dispense a new charge... but this will throw off the count of charges you actually have thrown in your brass.

READ THE INSTRUCTIONS and you will be good to go !!!

After you buy the RCBS Chargemaster 1500combo, you will be asking yourself why the hell didn't you buy it long ago.

[Zero333]

Best instructions for modding the CM1500...

http://www.accuracy-tech.com/rcbs-chargemaster-modifications/

Simple !

[bearcatrp]

I picked up a used hornady lock n load fairly cheap. Not very accurate which the seller told me about. I use it to get me close, then use the omega auto trickler to get my load in my gem pro 250. Its a bit slower but my loads are exact. I do run close to max loads so don't want to chance a overload. But everyone I know who has the RCBS charge master like them allot.

[Dennis]

I turn mine on 30 minutes before use, always calibrate and re-zero regularly. When I first started using the unit I re-weighed loads regularly to verify. Maybe the regular re-zeroing helps because it's never been even .2 gr off.

Jamie, I programmed mine to auto-dispense----- it's an available option.

Also, do the straw mod-you're gonna kick yourself for not having done it sooner after you see the difference!!!

Above quote, I should have put the same info in my first post. I do check calibration during loading, which is somewhere around 170 rounds for the long weekend match's. The auto dispense works great. I use the little spoon that comes with the kit, when removing or adding a few kernels, works perfect for me.

Dennis

[bodywerks]

I've had mine for 4 years. In about 1,000 rounds I've had maybe 50 over throws. I'll take that any day over hand pouring!
The scale is plenty accurate. If it over throws it's usually .1 grains. I know a ton of people that would still just use it, as it's close enough. Whenever I have an over throw, I pull a few kernels with some tweezers. Done.
I simply cannot imagine precision reloading life without my chargemaster. Only way I'd do it different is with something more accurate and quicker. Such a thing exists, at 4 times the price...

[J.Baker]

I tried one, ended up selling it and going back to a standard powder measure and beam scale w/trickler. For the way I like to reload - charging all my cases in groups of 50 and then moving on to seating bullets, it was just to slow.

[m12lrs]

Faster and more accurate.

Lee perfect.powder measure throw short charge

Gempro 250 and trickle with a little dandy electronic trickler

Accurate to 0.02 grains

If you don't need that accuracy and most times you don't just throw charges with a powder measure.

I have a chargemaster. Simple to use but much slower than just throwing charges with a powder measure and not much more accurate.