Reloading Kit or Not?
 

I want to get into reloading my own stuff, so I will be starting out with nothing. I am planning on buying the RCBS Digital powder measurer and Digital scale as well. I am pretty sure that I want the Rock Chucker Supreme Press. Should I buy the Supreme kit or just the press, since the kit has the manual scale and powder measurer that I won't really need?

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

I would buy the kit, its a good setup- it has just about everything you need to start reloading.
Only thing I would add to the kit would be a good dial caliper, a lee case trimmer set, and possibly a cheap lee press to mount the powder measure on- don't use the flat metal piece for mounting the powder measure, you need a very solid mount for getting a consistant throw. With a cheapo lee press you will also have the advantage of having a spare press to do oddball taks like decapping, belling mouths of pistol cases etc. I would also spend the money saved over buying digital equipment to buy an extra reloading manual or three.

As far as a digital scale goes- I don't see the point- they don't measure as fast as a beam balance, and they are not any more accurate. A digital powder trickler is nice, but certainly not anywhere near necessary. If you learn to set up the uniflow measure correctly it will throw powder charges much more quickly.

Once you learn to reload and get the hang of it, you will be in a better position on deciding what to spend big $$s on, or if you even enjoy reloading at all.

Just my $0.02

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

The manual scale[IMO],will save your butt,when the electronic one quits!!!!Get the kit.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Thanks for all the info! Besides dies and caliper, is there any other thing I should get or need? More reloading manuals as was stated or maybe a reloading CD?

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Plastic shell boxes to put your loads in. Buy more than you think you'll need, you'll use them.

A notebook to keep notes about your loads in., spend $5-10 to get a good composition/laboratory type notebook.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

other notable items......rcbs hand priming tool, universal shell holder set,bullet puller, and the kit from rcbs only comes with one tray for holding the casings you are working with, I bought 3 more just to have some extras, you may not need 3 extras but one extra is a must.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

At some point you might want to pick up one of the vibrators for cleaning your brass.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

I promise you, you will like the manual scale better. I have tried all the digitals and sent them back. They are hard to trickle a load. And yes, when you get up to 80gr loads, you will need to trickle. The digitals are apt for ground noise, which can be bad out west. Bad near dryers or any vibrations. I can throw and trickle a load much faster with a beam. If you worry about precision, buy a calibration set for it of wieghts. My 5-0-5 is dead on.

I like the digital for wieghing wieghts that don't change, like broadheads, and brass, things you are not trying to add too. Also need a kinectic hammer, and trickler. both well worth the money. I have a RCBS hand primer, but would get the lee if it was me.

Well, the trimmer. There's not too many alternatives for a hobbist reloader. Especially if your just loading 20 rounds a week. There is the lee drill bit pilot, but I have seen them not square the mouths well. You got Wilson which is the be most precise, but very slow and tedius. Stick with the RCBS for the time being. I just don't see going out and buying a gracey just starting out until you see how much youwill reload.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

I got the kit, and I've used pretty much everything in it. I like the RCBS hand primer fine. The main additions would be a trimmer, trickler, and calipers. I got the digital calipers from Frankfort Arsenal at Midway, and a Redding trickler and trimmer.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

yeah, I have found my digital scale, will not work with the ac adapter, I called rcbs and they said I have "dirty' electric. My house is only 5 years old but they said that didnt matter. I think I will be pulling the 505 out of the box soon. I cant afford to trust a battery it may fail. Bigcountry I might need to borrow that calibration set:)

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Anytime, Its just sitting there. You only use it once a year, kinda like that stoney point.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Mossy,
They told you that you have " Dirty " electric? Har, har, he, he, har!!! Sorry to say, but there is no such thing! You either have electric or you don't! If there is 110 volts there, then it will work. " Dirty Electric", what will they come up with next?? Har, he, he har.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Absolutely there is. I used to be a electrical engineer long time ago and electrical noice problems in the home is nothing new. It comes from all kinds of problems. You can trace it down to one appliance even. Take a occilliscope and put it on freerun and take a look at the noise yourself.

It gets worse as you go out to real sandy areas, where a good ground to sink the noise is hard to find. Noise on the line is the reason we had to put a sprinkler or water trickler out in Regenerator's for fiber optic systems with the grounding rod when I worked for LCI and MCI out in Reno, NV.

These scales consist of transducers that work in mA and uA electric currents. Especially something as small as a grain. Opening the window, drafts, dryer running with the same circuit as the scale all have an effect. Something as noisy power line has no effect on your radios or TV or computer that could care less about .1V changes, but some items do. They can isolate this, and I am not sure why they don't with some high Freq filtering, or capacitance circitry. I guess cost too much.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

I've seen some discussion here about digital scales not being any good. I'd say that my Pact digital scale is the single best piece of reloading gear I've bought in the last 10 years - I've been reloading for over 25 years. I did have some trouble with the battery powered one not working right - sent it back and got the one that runs off wall power and it's excellent. I trickle powder into it everytime I use it and it works great - it's much faster and I'm sure more accurate than either my balance scales (RCBS and Lyman). I've read about the Dillon scale not working with tricklers - the Pact scale does.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Your the only one I know that could beat a beam. You must got a good one. I have tested the pact myself also and still have it. Sent back to cabelas along with the RCBS twin and dillion and Cabelas brand.

I guess I am confused how it could be faster than a beam or more accurate?? Maybe you can educate me. Your only fast as your trickle no matter which. And a beam moves real time. That means, no or little lag with the speed of a human eyeball. I know the pacts do not update more than once a 500milliseconds, not real time and a lag. How again.

Also how are they more accurate than a beam?? A beam is either accurate or its not. You constantly have to recalibrate a digital. They recommend it anyway. I used to do work on transducers, and would like for you to educate me how they are so accurate.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Big Country,
I am sorry, I have been a Journeyman Electrician for over 20 years 10 of which were Residential, and have Never heard of " Dirty " electric! If what you are stating would be the case, then ALL household electric would be " dirty " because it ALL comes from the same panel! Every circuit in that panel is going to pick up fluctuations in voltage, amperage and resistance every time an appliance starts up, whether it's on the same circuit or not, because it is fed from the same buss!I currently am working in a Polymers factory where they use digital scales all over their laboratory, and have to make VERY precise weight measurements, and have large extrusion machines running 24-7., and we have never had a problem with " dirty electric" effecting any measurements!

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Rob1, a jouneyman electrician never would know about it. A typcial one wouldn't. My lab tech has creditials like you, and was shocked on how much he didn't realize about electronics when he came to work here. We both taught each other alot. He showed me proper grounding techniques, and home wiring expertise, we showed him about ground loops, and very specialty electronic gear working in the RF world. So he was a smart feller that could live in both worlds of high frequency analysis and home wiring which is rare. They rarely use occilliscope's or spectrum analyzers, in fact only time he looked at a specturm was in tech school. Typical home appliances have enormous dynamic range for voltage fluctuations. Almost all your home sterios, and TV's are immune for high frenquecy spikes due to almost all the power is converted to DC thru a typical 4-way bridge, and capacitance inline for filtering out such. Of course washers dryers, ovens, and lights are even more immune to the issues, as washers work on AC motors and could care less about a 10V 2KHz spike, ovens just heat an element. The human eye can't pick up a 2KHz-10KHz change in light, and even if it could the capacitance in a light would filter it out.

A peizo electric devices and tranducers unfortunatly works on a different set of rules in the uV range. uV is .001volts. Compare that to 110v AC. Yes, at my company, we use the digitals also. We have our own power, and are immune to the outside world. Totol different set of rules for proper commercial power. Since you are a journey man you know all about different standards for grounding for a commercial 10 story goverment building and mossy oaks split foyer in a developement so you actually could easily school me in stardards. I know I sure as crap don't know everything, but these devices, I do have a grasp on. hey, if you don't believe me or think I am full of it, just ignore me.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

All signals to some extent or another have noise in them. This is why instrumentation utilizes filters in order to block unwanted frequencies and such. Noise can interfere with sensative instrumentation that is working on a small scale voltage, etc. Utilizing an instrument like a multimeter will not show this situation.. you truly do need a signal analyzer which can capture and magnify the signal. You can then see if there is a fluctuation in the frequency as well as eronious noise in the main signal... think of a nice smooth oscillating line like you'd draw with a pencil... then redraw that line but instead of being smooth make the line very shaky and jagged as you retrace the original line. that'd be one example of noise...

i own a 5-0-5 and an RCBS digital. i use the digital more than the ole beam though... i find if i get close and trickle some in and give the pan a little nudge it'll upset the scale and instead of taking forever to update it'll pop to the actual measurement. I also tend to calibrate just to make sure it's thinking straight before i sit down to do any loading... if i am weighing every charge i'll often check to make sure the scale is staying zero'd. my RCBS tends to be a little finicky now and again... but for some reason i dont care to fiddle with the beam... the one thing that really bothers me when iam being ANAL is the 0.05 gr resolution of the digital... if you are .48 it is going to say .4 if you are .52 it's going to say .5... kinda silly to worry about now that i think of it... but with the beam you still have to eyeball it and wait for the oscillations to settle and hope there isn't any significant friction to stop the beam from moving when it is just creeping home...

the greatest asset to my reloading venture has been an RCBS hand primer... a good cheap progressive loading press like the Lee turret is nice to just throw together plinking loads for the revolver too...

Jamie

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Thats why a quality lab scale or counting scale can cost upwards of a 1000 dollars. Excellent filters built in and tracking ciruitry like a extech scale or ohaus. Usually only in grams. Which it takes 15.43gr per 1 gram.

You pay 120 dollars for a pact or RCBS, you get what you pay for.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Exactly!
The problem is not in the household electric, it's in the scale! The filtering for the fluctuations would have to be contained in the appliance being used ( in this case- the scale ), because there is no way to prevent fluctuations in your household electricity. The scale should work fine in your home on any dedicated circuit for that purpose. Apparantly, this one wouldn't work right in anyone's home!

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Goodness graceous rob1, you will only pay 80 dollars for a scale, what do you expect?

I agree however, 10 dollars of extra filtering and capactance is all it would take I believe. I just don't get it sometimes. Maybe cause I don't care about Bill of material cost where I work, but a little extra effort in designing something can go a long way. I doubt however that the cost margins are that great on those little scales. So to be competitive, I would say they save every resistor they can.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

After 30 some odd years of workn' for a large electric utility I am hear to tell you there is such a thing as "dirty" electricity. Just let one little connection somewhere between the generator and you get loose, or have a weld with some splatter and there you have it. The tv and radio people call it static. Sometimes you can see it, that's called corona.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

I guess I have never heard the term " Dirty " electric. Where I am from, we call that a bad connection and fix it! My point is: In a home you ALWAYS have fluctuations in electric ( I.E. Dryer being turned on ), It uses BOTH busses if it is an electric dryer, therfore it will cause a fluctuation in ALL the circuits on both sides of the panel. You can't call that " dirty " electric. That's NORMAL operation! If someone had a problem ( as you have stated- loose connection, etc. ) in their household electric, then I agree with the scale manufacturer 100%. If not, then the scale is at fault and the manufacturer should fix it. We shoudn't have to take the scale apart when we get it and start adding resistors etc. to make it operate correctly on normal household current, it should be that way when we get it.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

Ok, rob, I took what you origianlly said the wrong. I guess we were agreeing to agree. Sorry about that. Anyway, you know its not always in your house believe that or not. If joe smoe neighbor's grounding sucks, or inproper, and he has RF devices, that are real noisy, it can contamiate your power also. I have seen this in pipe grounds in apartment buildings.

I can't say I have heard of dirty power, but knew what he meant.

I know I am beating a dead horse. I just miss my electonics days. Seems I manage more than design these days.

RE: Reloading Kit or Not?
 

RCBS' response sounds like BS to me. I haven't seen one but I'm guessing that the RCBS transformer that you plug into the wall is most likely an AC to DC converter. That should filter out any line noise and you are not putting the 'house' AC into the scale.

Simple way to check it out if you already have a UPS for your PC. Plug your scale into the UPS outlet. Isolation transformers in the UPS clean up the power and filter the noise and spikes out. There are some out there that actually take the sign wave in, filter it, convert it to a DC output, and then convert it back to a close facsimile of a sine wave to run their sensitive electronics.

Sounds like RCBS just needs to spend $1.25 on their transformer rather than the $1.10 that they're currently spending.

You could possibly find a 'cleaner' transformer to power the scale.