Over the last weekend and this evening I loaded 500 rounds of .223 and 100 rounds of .308. For every one I used my (relatively) new RCBS Chargemaster 1500 that I bought last May. I’ve reported on it before, but (now that I’ve actually, you know, read the instructions and made use of some of the neater features) I thought I’d report in again.
Worth every penny.
However: “Throw a measured charge ±0.1 grain, in about 20 seconds?” HAH!
All my loading over the last few days has been with Varget, which is a short-cut extruded powder. The Chargemaster handles it fine, but each charge takes closer to 30-35 seconds. Plus, it never throws a charge light. It either hits the mark or goes 1-3 tenths over. One tenth I will live with. Two or more, no.
This is a function of how the powder stacks up in the trickler tube, mostly. Tonight, for example, I threw twenty charges each of 42.0, 42.2, 42.4, 42.6 and 42.8 grains. On average I probably had to throw 22-24 charges to get twenty at the programed weight (within 0.1 grain). Interestingly, at 42.6, the Chargemaster threw 19 precisely at the programmed weight and one at 42.7, but when I programmed it for 42.8, I had to throw 25 charges because it kept trickling up to 43.0-43.1.
Still, it’s faster than I used to be using an RCBS powder measure and a Wheeler Engineering trickler over a PACT electronic scale, so I’m not going to complain.
Previously I used the Chargemaster to throw some 2400 loads for .45LC. 2400 is a tiny ball powder, and it measured a bit more accurately. Plus, the lighter charges measured out a tiny bit quicker. The individual granules of 2400 don’t weigh as much as the cut granules of Varget, so consequently it takes a few more of them to make up 0.2 grain.
Like I said – worth every penny. If you’re loading for accuracy, this is a very nice setup.
UPDATE: Original JS-Kit/Echo comment thread available here, thanks to reader John Hardin.