Powder Dispenser/Electronic Scale Combo > Recommendations ??

[renaissance]

I'm biting the bullet. (snic)

Tired of Weighing with a Mechanical ( 10/10 )
and fiddling with a Dillon, Lyman 55, and Uniflow.
( Even though the Dillon and Uniflow have micrometer Heads ).
I have all three.

Weary of the "crunch" of cutting stick powder and the innaccuracies that go with it.
I want to be able to "Experiment" easily and consistently.
Change Powders, try different loads etc.

I want to get a "Combination" Dispenser/Electronic Scale set up
The choices are:
RCBS
Lyman
and
Pact
They all seem to have their Pros and Cons.
RCBS is the most expensive ( ~ $ 270 shipped )

Who uses one or the other?
What are your experiences?
Anybody had an opportunity to compare any of them side by side (or sequentially)

My use for the combo will be "Highly accurate Bench Pistol type ammo".
I will probably batch them single stage in loading blocks with my Rockchuker.

I will crank out my "blaster" 9 and 45 on the 650 and Piggyback progressively.
and
Do the Small quantity - HIgh Quality stuff - single stage with the combo.

I'm not going to be making a lot of them
but I DO want them to be GOOD!

 

[Car Knocker]

Might want to check out this review of 3 popular machines:

http://www.6mmbr.com/powderdispensers01.html

 

[dmftoy1]

I've only got experience with the RCBS but it's a nice setup. I particularly like the feature where it automatically dispenses a charge when you replace the pan on the scale. I find myself using it for things where I'm not using the progressive but have a batch of loads that I want to do . . say 100 rounds . . . I run through all the cases until I'm ready to put in the powder charge and seat the bullet and then just run through them 1 at a time. Seems to work out really well. (FWIW)

 

[dcloco]

"My use for the combo will be "Highly accurate Bench Pistol type ammo"

My experience with two Lyman DPS II's and a RCBS Chargemaster, will not deliver the accuracy you crave.

I expected accuracy from $230 to $300 spent as well....none of the three were worth it.

 

[Matt-man]

My experience with the RCBS Chargemaster and stick powders (Varget, H4350, IMR4895) is that it works pretty well, but not great. It will throw heavy from time to time simply because the kernels are so coarse and it's not designed to trickle that kind of stuff by the kernel. So, you will see it try to trickle those last couple of kernels in, but a big clump of them will fall, and it'll be over by a couple tenths. You can usually see it when this happens, and you can throw that charge back in the hopper and have it throw another one. Of course the scale only measures to .1 grain, so it can't be any more accurate than that. It is more consistent than my Hornady measure with stick powders though.

Other than that, it's easy to use - easy to fill and empty, easy to calibrate, pretty fast. Having the digital scale for other tasks (sorting brass, etc) is a nice bonus.

The serious benchrest people are using AccuLab digital scales accurate to .02 grain, throwing short with a measure and trickling up to their desired weight. The AccuLab will cost you about the same as the RCBS Chargemaster.

 

[Lennyjoe]

Same here on stick powders and the Chargemaster. I was using IMR 4350 and I'd say 30% of the time It was over by .1g and I had to remove a couple of sticks to get to my weight.

With AA-9 though it was spot on every time.