Decent inexpensive powder scale?

[WobblyHand]

Anyone have recent experience with a decent powder scale that's reasonably stable, for not too much outlay? I'm trying to sort out cast pellets and slugs by weight. The only scales I have are the equivalent of an old Redding scale (with no damping) that can measure to 0.1 grains, or a crappy digital scale that only goes to 1 grain increments. The digital scale drifts which makes it even more worthless. Basically I can trust it for oh maybe a couple of minutes.

Probably realistically only need 0.1 gr resolution. Because I'm not going to sort to under 0.1 grains. There's a lot of junk out there (worthless products - I'm looking at you Amazon). So if you know of something that is decent, I'd appreciate learning about it. These projectiles are for 22 cal airguns, so they aren't too heavy. Just cast some 28 gr slugs, so max weight capacity really doesn't have to be that high. If I buy from Midway within the next couple of days, I get a birthday discount, but if not, that's fine too. Just looking for something decent - don't like buying crap and regretting it.

Still working on my casting technique, so weighing the slugs gives me a pretty good idea how I am doing.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

The RCBS balance scale is pretty hard to beat for longevity.
No batteries needed!
Hornady also has a similar product that may be worthy of examination

 

[WobblyHand]

The RCBS balance scale is pretty hard to beat for longevity.
No batteries needed!
Hornady also has a similar product that may be worthy of examination

My Redding scale is a balance type scale. It's ok for one or two measurements. I've had it for 40 years. But it is undamped, so for weighing hundreds of slugs, it takes a long long time. Are the scales you mentioned damped?

I have the equivalent of a Redding #2 that isn't damped. https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1012972121?pid=658771
That begs the question, how can I damp what I have? The beam itself isn't magnetic, I just checked that.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

The RCBS M500 is magnetically dampened

 

[WobblyHand]

The RCBS M500 is magnetically dampened

That's good. I found a price of $80. Not too bad.

 

[WobblyHand]

Wonder if there is a way to magnetically damp my old Redding balance. The beam is not magnetic. I like the balance - it's an old friend, is there a way to dampen the movement of the arm?

 

[RJSakowski]

The old laboratory scale standard was an Ohaus Cent o Gram scale which weighed to 1/100 gram or .154gr. It is fairly easy to interpolate between the graduations to get down to less than ,1 gr. Beyond that, my Sartorius analytical balance will weigh to .01mg or .000154 gr.

With the advent of digital scales, it should be fairly easy to find one of the Ohaus scales. Every freshman chem lab had multiples.
edit: The Ohaus has magnetic damping. Basically, it's an aluminum plate passing between two magnets.

 

[WobblyHand]

I think I will try a simple experiment of attaching some Nd magnets to the frame of the Redding balance. The magnetic dampers work via eddy currents. What the heck, this could be a $0 improvement. Worth a try I say! Be back in a while, have to hunt down some magnets. I have a stack of them somewhere...

 

[lordbeezer]

I’ve been using RCBS 505 scales for years. Goes down to 1/10 of a grain best I remember.

 

[WobblyHand]

Gee, science in action! I'm happy that I fixed this, it seems to work pretty well! Two 12mm diameter by 3mm thick disc magnets stacked on the back of the unit. The magnetic field interacts with the aluminum balance bar and damps the oscillation. Well those magnets must of cost me 15 cents each. Kind of feel dumb only figuring this out just now, but hey it's a real improvement, so I'll take it!

I think it would work better if the magnet was closer. If there's 3 magnets the stack rubs on the beam. So I have roughly a 2.9mm gap. But if I put in a steel disk between the two magnets, I could space it closer and perhaps improve the damping a little. Perhaps I could make a 2mm thick slug, or find a thick washer. But anyways, that's for later. I was trying to weigh and sort all of these.

I have to say, I'm pretty pleased that the fix was so easy! Back to sorting.