New Smartreloader iSD Digital Powder Dispenser
A new digital powder dispenser just hit the market. Priced at just $205.99 (at Grafs.com), the new Smartreloader iSD Digital Powder Scale & Dispenser, is about $100.00 less expensive than RCBS’s popular ChargeMaster. Designed in Italy, the Smartreloader iSD dispenser has the ability to work with either 110 volt (American) or 220 volt (European) power supplies.
The new Smartreloader iSD has some impressive features, such as fast calibration and a selectable trickle function. We hope to get our hands on one soon so we can comparison-test it against an RCBS Chargemaster. You can learn more about this new powder dispenser at Smartreloadermfg.com. General specs are very similar to the Chargemaster: the iSD scale has a maximum capacity of 1,500 grains and has claimed accuracy of ±0.1 grains. You can store up to 50 loads in internal memory, and users can select four (4) different measurement units: grams, grains, carats, or ounces.
Where can you find this new powder dispenser? Supplies are very limited right now, but in the USA, Smartreloader-branded products will be carried by Cabelas.com, Grafs.com, Midsouth Shooters Supply, and Cabelas.com. The worldwide distributor of Smartreloader products is H.T. Helvetica Trading, a Swiss-based company. CLICK HERE for a list of Smartreloader vendors in other countries.
Looks like a direct Chargemaster knock-off … even down to the knurled knob and shield pivot method! I guess RCBS forgot to file their international patents…
My personel opinion is that for 500-1000 yard shooting none of the current offerings are accurate enough. +/- .1 grain just won’t cut it. That’s a spread of .2. That’s going to increase your ES which directly translates to vertical. Untill they come out with a model with better accuracy i’ll just keep weighing charges on my MXX123 which is accurate down to hundredths.
Wow, being an exact copy of the RCBS chargemaster of a fraction of the cost!!! Shows you just how much RCBS over prices their stuff…
OK, here’s the reality check on this unit. My sweet wife bought me this for my birthday in August 2010. I set it up and immediately noticed a problem – the digital display numbers were only partially activated at the “ones” and “tenths” digits (i.e., the digits immediately to the right and left of the decimal point). From a normal viewing angle, the numbers were ghosted out but if you changed your viewing angle, they were more readable. OK, I thought, irritating but not worth returning the unit…I can live with it. I then (over the course of a few weeks) used it to load a variety of .223 Rem and .300 WinMag loads ranging from 25 grains to 73 grains of various powders, namely BLC-2, Varget and 4831SC. Some of these were for me and some for a friend of mine.
My friend got to the range first. Upon firing some of the .3000 Win Mag rounds, he noticed the point of impact was about 1 foot south of loads I had made for him previously…they grouped well but were far off the impact point they should have been. On trying the .223 Rem loads, they had a “light report”, almost like a “cap gun” and were impacting well in front of the target stand at 100 yards. He stopped shooting (wisely) and returned the loads to me.
I spent the better part of an evening breaking down and weighing the charges in each round he had remaining. The powder charge in the .300 Win Mag rounds, which should have been 73.0 grains (as the scale assured) actually weighed 64.3 grains (weighed on another, calibrated RCBS electronic scale I have used for many years). The .223 rounds, which should have been charged with 25.5 grains actually weighed out at 14.4 grains each. The loads were absolutely consistent to within .1 grain, round to round, just dramatically lighter than they had been indicated when dispensed.
Note that I followed all of the manufacturer’s warm-up, set up and calibration instructions each time.
I have returned the unit to the US distributor and we’ll see what happens next. Fortunately there was no harm done and it only cost me wasted time pulling bullets and reloading the rounds the “old-fashioned” way, but imagine what might have happened if the charges had been mis-weighed on the heavy side!
If the replaced unit functions correctly then I’ll be happy, but for now, I am highly skeptical. My recommendation to anyone buying one of these is to verify the loads dispensed using a different scale until you are convinced of its accuracy and repeatability. Until then, caveat emptor.
I had simular incident happen to me using the rcbs charge master combo. I purchased it new. The first time I used it it was great. I loaded 60 7 rem mag loads had 3 over by a .10″ The second time I used I noticed the bell was sounding before the scale would finish droping my weight.This prompted me to ck th weight of the charge. It was suppose to be 64 gr. On my digital scale and my ballance it weighed 65.7 gr. Tried this several times with same results. (65.5 to 65.7) Tried calibrating several times. Bell would sound befofe scale would zero and stable. I sent mine back for a refund and got my money back. I called Pact ordered there combo and a extra scale (the same scale that comes with combo to verify the loads the combo was throwing.) 1 wk goes by and I recieve no email of unit and xtra scale being shipped. I call them up and ask if my order was shipped .He took my zipcode and hesitated for 30 secs and said it hadnt been shipped. I ask when It would ship he said about 3 wks I ask why he said they didnt have any built and was in the process of building some. I said cancel my order. I went and bought a redding BR30 powder measuer and a good digital scale. They never told me it would be 4 wks just sent a emaillisting the purchase with order pending next to shipped. The man that anwsered the phone was damn near rude. I think Ill just stick with my digital scale and my old ohaus balence ans use my redding 3BR powder measure.
I just purchased the ISD Smart Reloader and have noticed the exact same issues as Kyle. The unit is very consistent but the charges is throws are substantially on the light side. My approach is to adjust the load setting on the ISD unit until the charge it dispenses measures correctly on a different (trusted) scale. I am still planning on keeping it because it is so convenient to use. And for the $159 I paid for it from Midsouth, the small inconvenience of verifying every 10th charge or so isn’t a big deal. But if the consistency starts to fail, it’s gone.
I recently purchased the ISD Smart Reloader a few weeks ago.I didn’t get a chance to use it right away (waiting for brass),but when I set it up and tried to calibrate it all I keep getting is a error message.I let it warm up for 15,20, even 30 minutes, still the same thing. Also the readout is really hard to read. Can anyone help Me Out?