I decided to just buy everything individually instead of buying a kit, then replacing the cheap stuff.
ive bought a press, tumbler, etc this week, and now looking at powder dispensers. What’s your opinion on the electronic dispensers like the chargemaster, or hornady electronic dispenser? Or am I better off staying with a manual setup with beam scale?
Depends on the free money you have to spend.... I did just fine with a throw, beam scale, & trickler for better than 25 years before picking up a Chargemaster. It is really nice having, but if you're on a tighter budget, that extra money could be better spent elsewhere while learning.Originally Posted by jrgreene1968
Word of note... if you do wind up picking up a Chargemaster, it will be really slow out of the box, and it will make you doubt your purchase. However, you can easily go into the programming of the machine to tune/tweak it for individual powders, which makes it a joy to use.
They say "Don't try this at home"... so I'm headed over to a friend's house.
I'd say it depends on what you're loading for, and the volume of loading you intend to do. Like I said, most of my loading so far has been blasting ammo for my AR, I don't shoot a ton, but I can go through a fair bit when I do get out. My first loads were with powder measure to scale, then trickle up to weight. Accurate, but REALLY slow and tedious. Then I hit on a technique that seems to give me the best of both worlds, with a reasonable compromise between accuracy and speed, and without having to buy an expensive piece of equipment.
First, I set my powder measure to throw the load I want, and I keep fiddling with it until I get it consistently +/- .1 gr. of target. From there, I break out my little Frankford Arsenal DS-750 digital scale, put a case on the scale and zero it, then throw the charge and put it back on the scale. Digitals do drift a bit, so I've learned to give it a couple of seconds to settle, especially when switching cases. I also double check it against my balance beam every 10th round or so. Works fine for the higher volume stuff, and .1 gr. plus or minus really isn't going to make much difference with the AR. This only applies to plinking ammo, for the precision stuff, I throw light, and trickle up on the beam scale.
That said, I've never used a ChargeMaster, although one is definitely on my some day wish list. For now, I have other things I'd rather spend that kind of coin on, like powder and bullets. Plus, I have a lot more time than money, and sitting in my shop reloading is a far more enjoyable use of my time vs. sitting in front of the TV drinking beer. Later.
Dave
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