RCBS Chargemaster

[bsumoba]

I love my Chargemaster. The only thing I don't like about it is it beeps after the charge is measured. After a hour of constant beeps I can't take it anymore.

You can turn the beep off...

[mycrstuff]

Oh great now I have to read the manual.

[Pauliedad]

I really like to keep moving when I reload so I have two ChargeMasters now.
I use it for all rifle except .223 plink loads and .357 and up pistol.
Had one almost three years now and the second about two years.

[anyracoon]

Have had the older PACT/RCBS scale and powder dispenser set for maybe 10 years. Worked great until last year when scale took a long time to zero. Had a life time warranty, so sent scale in and it came back worse. I did score another scale, but last year found a brand new Chargemaster for $225.00 shipped. Bought it and very a Happy Camper!

[boomer135]

I have been considering going the gem pro 250 route with an Omega to trickle. How much has this brought down your velocity spread measuring down to the .02?

I had a chargemaster for about a year. I outgrew it when I wanted to start weighing charges to the +/- 0.02 gr range. The chargemaster will weigh to the +/- 0.1gr, which is perfect for most shooting, but when it comes to precision shooting, 0.1gr is to loose of a tolerance.

If you decide to get into more precise shooting, I would opt for a digital scale that at minimum, reads to the 0.02 gr range such as a GemPro250, which is the next step up, or a A&D FX120i, which is another step above the GemPro250 and what I use and is, IMO, the best scale in the $400-$600 dollar range.

For your powder dumping, just buy a whole bunch of Lee Perfect Powder Measures (as of 3.7.16, was $23 dollars each on amazon), dedicated one to each powder and set it to a certain powder range and now you do not have to do changeovers. I undercharge each one (usually about 0.1-0.3 gr under), then trickle up by hand on the electronic scale. I will have only one powder measure filled with powder so I do not accidentally use another powder. Now, you don't have to worry about powder residue mixing with other powders (because there is a residue/fine dust), you now get a dedicated powder measure for each powder so no changeovers needed on the CM, and you get a more precise measurement because you are using a higher end scale. I was averaging about 13 seconds per powder dump with this set up just this past weekend.

[2shotjoe]

you can reprogram the chargemaster to speed it up and make it more accurate.

[ER308]

I did the reprogram for faster weighing. Maybe 1 out of 30 throws, it will be 0.01 off, and I just recycle that one and recharge it. I reloaded for ~25 years before I bought it, and all I could do was regret the years of manually weighing and trickling charges and wasting time. Buy it and you won't look back. Life is too short to trickle powder!

[anyracoon]

Where can you get instructions to reprogram?

[2shotjoe]

Where can you get instructions to reprogram?

i used this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-DRJCL0D3A

[tanks]

One thing about reprogramming. There is NO "return to factory settings" setting. So, make sure you record all the previous settings before you start messing with it.

[bubbala]

I have been considering going the gem pro 250 route with an Omega to trickle. How much has this brought down your velocity spread measuring down to the .02?

i went with the optical omega to trickle and it works for me. not as automatic as i'd like but with a little work it 's right on.
it seems omega is redesigning the unit and apparently i got one of the last from brownell's

[BillyGoatCrawler]

Not trying to derail, but it is pretty relevant as a comparison unit. I had a Hornady auto charge and found it annoyingly inaccurate. About 3/5 would over charge in the stock form with powders like varget and 4064. After a straw mod and leaning it back so the tube angle wasn't so aggressive it got to about 1/5-2/5 over charges. But it was still unacceptable to me. It was slower than throwing and hand trickling.

So I've gone back to throwing and using a gempro250. Only thing that annoys me there is drifting issues.

[12yak]

I've had a ChargeMaster 1500 for about 3 months now and I really like it. It is easily reprogrammed to change the transition points from slow trickle to fast trickle to normal. If you vary the loads you're doing between large cartridges and small, it may be worth the minor effort to customize the transition points to reduce charging time and also have a better likelihood of not overcharging by .01 grains. I discovered a problem with mine when I started to load 5.7x38 with a targeted load of 5.2grains. With my system, it wasn't recognizing that it was a really small charge weight and it would fast trickle for a second or two and then overcharge before it realized that it should have slowed dramatically and then stopped at the correct weight. The result was overcharges that were .02-.03 grains and the 5.7 has a very narrow range since the cartridge is so small. I called RCBS and told them about the problem. They had me send in the unit for eval and then checked it out. They called me a day after they received it and told me they'd be sending me a new unit and that they'd be refunding my shipping fee that I incurred when I sent the unit back. I don't know if they have a formal warranty policy or not but I'm extremely happy with their customer service.

[phdo]

I've had a ChargeMaster 1500 for about 3 months now and I really like it. It is easily reprogrammed to change the transition points from slow trickle to fast trickle to normal. If you vary the loads you're doing between large cartridges and small, it may be worth the minor effort to customize the transition points to reduce charging time and also have a better likelihood of not overcharging by .01 grains. I discovered a problem with mine when I started to load 5.7x38 with a targeted load of 5.2grains. With my system, it wasn't recognizing that it was a really small charge weight and it would fast trickle for a second or two and then overcharge before it realized that it should have slowed dramatically and then stopped at the correct weight. The result was overcharges that were .02-.03 grains and the 5.7 has a very narrow range since the cartridge is so small. I called RCBS and told them about the problem. They had me send in the unit for eval and then checked it out. They called me a day after they received it and told me they'd be sending me a new unit and that they'd be refunding my shipping fee that I incurred when I sent the unit back. I don't know if they have a formal warranty policy or not but I'm extremely happy with their customer service.

That's very good to know. I've never had an issue with my unit but now I know they will take care of me.

[OpenSightsOnly]

I used to use a Redding BR30, RCBS 1010, and an Omega trickler. Have used that setup from 8208XBR to Varget. They produced accurate loads but I switched to a Chargemaster to save time since I was going through about 260 rounds per month.

Have been using the Chargemaster for almost four years. Not an issue and if there is a 2/10 of a grain of overcharge I dump it back into the hopper.

The trick for me is to batch the charge and seat process into 15 or 20 rounds and spray static guard on my bench. Take a break after that and re-calibrate the Chargemaster.