I got everything all set up (except PPM) finally after finishing my bench, looks good to me and I'll post some pics later. Anyway, moving along, everything was going great.. tumbling, resizing/depriming, repriming etc. Loved neck sizing only the 7mm-08's from my new rifle, so VERY easy! Got to throwing my 1st charge by hand just to take things nice and slow. Well, this confounded Lee scale is driving me nuts! I fought for 15 minutes and FINALLY get it zeroed, move the bearing to the 40 mark, rear grain slide to 6, take methe dipper (mostly full of H414) that came with the 7mm-08 dies and gently pour the powder into the pan. No movement.. add a touch more using the powder trickler, finally got it to move and then after a few more twists it settled at the balance mark. Removed pan, funneled it into case and low and behold, filled it to the rim! Returned bearing & slide to zero marks and scale has to be re-zeroed.. again! Been doing this for over an hour now and frankly, I'm about 2 tries away from screaming Digital Scale! Which means I'd be dead in the water for 2 + weeks while I recover from thisstart-up expense before I can order anything else. I do have this thing where the charge is a bit more normal looking, i.e. case is 3/4 full, but my bloody confidence is totally shot in it now since it won't hold zero for 2 minutes. So what am I doing wrong? Is it just me being overly nervous and this is normal or is it the scale or even the alignment of the planets? The instructions don't really cover scale set-up well at allor between the 2 manuals I have. Any advice would be nice and please remember: newbie, kid gloves please.
I have that Lee scale too, and it doenst hold a candle to the cheap RCBS one that I have. The Lee one just doesnt have a good enough /10th of a gram setting.
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Just a gun enthusiast looking to gain more knowledge.
Is the body of that balance beam scale made of plastic? A few years ago i bought someone's scale with a plastic body. It was usless because of static from the carpet. Sent it back to Cabela's. Chunk that thing and get an RCBS or a Redding dampened balance beam scale.
oh, little tip alsa got me thinking about. Before I wiegh any charges, especially flake powder, make sure you wipe the inside of your pans, and powder thrower with static sheets. Also if you can your dippers.
Is the body of that balance beam scale made of plastic? A few years ago i bought someone's scale with a plastic body. It was usless because of static from the carpet. Sent it back to Cabela's. Chunk that thing and get an RCBS or a Redding dampened balance beam scale.
Ok, was expecting a few "I told you so"'s glad they are out of the way now.
No, the scale is a pot metal body, plastic beam and tin powder pan. I'll try BC's tip this afternoon.. vacation is officially over so I must return to work or I'd spend the day whining to my wife. But I do see a digital scale in my future when funds are available.. just can't use this other stuff till then. That'll annoy me for weeks! Thanks all for the help.. and told you so's.
Location: S.W. Pa.-- Heart in North Central Pa. mountains-
Posts: 2,508
RE: OK, so what am I doing wrong?
Before you go digital, I seriously would take some previous advice on here, and get a new RCBS or Redding balance. I went digital for awhile, and ended up going back to my beam due to the fact the digital had very poor repeatability. Try what bc said first, tho.....
OK, so what am I doing wrong?
