Comments on: Weight vs. Volume — The Great Debate

By: Louis

Louis — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 17:56:14 +0000

I forgot to mention : “But, for large rifle cases (375 Wby in my case) I often go in the single digit velocity ES with weighted charges”, not so much with dumped charges especially with extruded powders.

By: Louis

Louis — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 17:48:15 +0000

I could be inclined to go with Richard’s friend opinion, because it looks “scientific”. Somehow I once made a dump test with the same ball powder canister, within the same hour for all the dumped charges. I used an empty revolver case which I filled up from the canister through a funnel until it overflows, then leveled the overflow with a knife and finally weighed. After many samples, the weight ES was very close to the same I get when using a volumetric powder measure. So I don’t think the hygroscopic nature of powder explains everything. What I can add is for handgun cartridges it doesn’t seem to matter much which technic you use, so go with the fastest one. But, for large rifle cases (375 Wby in my case) I often go in the single digit velocity ES with weighted charges.

By: Francois Jonker

Francois Jonker — Thu, 16 Aug 2018 10:06:49 +0000

Would humidity and temperature not play a role in weighing your charge?
If you use volumetric means then you should get a consistent volume and when weighing this volume,they should all be very consistent weight for the same day.
The next question is what powder measure will give you consistant dumps?

By: Stefan Isaacs

Stefan Isaacs — Sat, 02 May 2015 02:13:31 +0000

This question has already been asked and answered.

Go to my friend Sergey’s site: http://www.preciseshooter.com for a thorough (scientific) analysis of how accurate the Chargemaster is.

By: JF

JF — Fri, 01 May 2015 15:47:42 +0000

I switched to volumetric about a year ago after having issues with my high end scales drifting. So far I have not seen any adverse affects and probably won’t switch back to weighing anytime soon.

By: JS

JS — Fri, 01 May 2015 00:40:12 +0000

In general, there shouldn’t be a great deal of difference between your results (with respect to Chargemaster vs Harrell’s) when using 24 to 24.5 grains of Varget behind 77 SMKs. My own experience shows that both generate acceptable groups in my bolt guns and space guns – around a half minute. When I found that they both shot well enough to make me happy with a service rifle, I quit experimenting and just started loading.
Having said that, there is a distinct difference between a Harrell’s meter and a Dillon meter with Varget. Since it is relatively coarse-grained, it doesn’t flow in a Dillon meter all that well. Lots of people are happy with the Dillon meter – and lots of them shoot higher scores than I do.
What I haven’t done is run a test of the actual weight of loads thrown on a Chargemaster using a very good scale as a control. I suspect there won’t be a great deal of variability between throws, but then that is why we do testing.

By: Michael Torre

Michael Torre — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 16:23:09 +0000

Zedikers reloading book beats this topic to death if you want to really turn this inside out.
M-

By: nick brungard

nick brungard — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:26:15 +0000

Another good post. Almost got me rethinking my whole charging process. Then i kicked myself and said. Read the target. The details are fun to play with but experiment and check downrange results. They don’t always reflect everything else.

By: Guy

Guy — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 22:57:05 +0000

Without knowing the weight of the throw charges its hard to come to a conclusion. Id imagine the quality of the powder measure and the meter ability of the powder used plays a roll as well.

By: Andre

Andre — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:54:26 +0000

I use Somchem S365 extruded powder and found 0,5 grain spread with a Harrel measure. This seems a bit much to me, so I continue to use my RCBS chargemaster. I would love to use the measure only as it will save a lot of time.