RCBS M1000

R

Rock Knocker

Well-known member
My GemPro is 16 years old and I damaged the cord, thats been my excuse for not reloading lately. I was just at the store and I bought a RCBS M1000 for $170, right beside it was the RCBS $40 digital scale. I liked the idea of simplicity and no cords or batteries, thats why I got the balance beam. Taking it out of the box and messing around calibrating and playing with it a bit, im not the happiest with my discission, I could return this and get the $40 scale. They also had a $170 digital Hornady scale with 0.1gr resolution, im used to the GemPro 0.02gr resolution...

How many of you use one of these balance beam scales? Even when I made 0.1gr adjustments on the scale it was hard for me to notice much change. I started out loading Fclass and I load my .40 s&w the same way, I dont need that accuracy anymore but Im picky. Way back with my first reloading kit I got a super cheap Lee balance beam scale, it doesnt look to me like the M1000 is a whole lot better, I dont think its worth $170.

I havent tried it on powder yet but I question what kind of repeatability I can get with 25gr 223 charges and 7grs of powder for the .40.
 
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IDK, but looks like a lot of frills and doubt very seriously if it will do anything that the old style RCBS, Redding, Lyman balance beam scales would do. Used this old Redding since 1958; 100% reliable and only two weights to fool with.
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also use this old RCBS which works equally well
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If I could return the $170 scale, I'd personally pick up the current version of the above and buy powder with the $100 left over, but that's just me.
 
Used a lee beam scale for a while, then switched to a dillon electronic scale for a long time. Got tired of having to recalibrate all the time and switched back to an rcbs beam scale. Now using an rcbs charge master scale/dispenser.
 
I understand the newer powder dispensers are much better than the first ones out. I had one of the first balance beam automatic dispensers that came out and found it was about as quick to trickle into my old balance beam scales on my long range loads. The early tricklers would often overshoot set charge, especially with long grain stick powders and I could control charges more accurately by hand.
That being said, found little value in weighing charges for ammo to be used out to 300 yards, and not sure that the advantage @ 600 and beyond might very well have been the mental confidence in the loads rather than an actual advantage once the accuracy node was identified on the loads since
I could throw +/- .1 gr with the measure.
 
Im sure its accurate enough but I dont think this 1000gr scale is going to be ideal for 25.x gr. And beside that, its pure Chinesium, I fumbled the pan a bit while calibrating and I squeezed a bit harder and bent the pan with my finger tips, its clearly made from the cheapest stamped and pot metals, the stamped calibration weight area has stamped threads on it I think I already started to strip threads while i put it back together after calibration. It certainly isnt $170 in build quality.
 
The GemPro 250s are discontinued, i see they have a GemPro 300 but I dont see any for sale. A couple months ago I found a website that had GemPro 250s for $165, I waited a few days, I didnt even close the web tab, when I checked back they were sold out.

I dont know what is so hard to repoduce about those. I see Hornady now has a lab type scale with .02gr res if I remember correct for $400ish, thats not bad if the electronic are anything like the GemPro and Hornady put some build quality into it. The GemPro 250 was built like a chinese toy but the electronics were worthy of a $550 lab scale.

Performance on this M1000 isnt so bad, I did more testing with all the bullets I could find, down to 50gr. I havent tried powder yet of even lower grain weights but it seemed to work better in the 50gr-140gr range than it did with the 694.6gr check weight, I was worried it would perform worse at its lowest range. The calibration at 694.6gr was off today by .4gr, I spent a good bit of time last night and had it spot on, now that I think of it all the bullets were .4gr heavy also, so thats probably a good sign of consistancy if I get that calibration figured out. I do think the price is a bit of a scam but with a home upgrade or two I should be able to get .1gr accuracy or better.
 
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I've been using a 505 RCBS for so long it's amazing. Actually think any beam scale will work as well as I will! Problem with humans is they are always looking for the best product and there is no best. Just the products we like the best! Which, BTW, in someone else's opinion might be the worst!
 
Polock said:
I've been using a 505 RCBS for so long it's amazing. Actually think any beam scale will work as well as I will! Problem with humans is they are always looking for the best product and there is no best. Just the products we like the best! Which, BTW, in someone else's opinion might be the worst!
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Yeah, Ive heard a lot of good things about RCBS balance beams, and I want one. I havent had one before, 505 would be more suitable fore me, its the quality that bothers me a bit, for the price and size and what you're actually getting I figured it would be a little nicer. Its quite Chinese, its a better scale than a $40 Lee saftey scale for sure but it looks like it was made in the same factory.
 
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