I bought a new Lyman 1200 DPS digital powder scale for a song. Looks to be a nice set-up.
I would like to read any comments, good or bad about it.
Thank you

Jake - if you already bought it, what difference will it make what others think about it? :confused:

Jake - if you already bought it, what difference will it make what others think about it? :confused:


because, I bought it on the spur of the moment without researching it. I wanted to know the pros and cons about it. That's why!

I got one for this past Christmas and think it's great. It's much easier to use than the RCBS Powderpro Scale/Powdermaster Dispenser that I had been using.

Check out the customer ratings and comments for it on Midwayusa:

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=235817

Most people that I know that reloads will tell you that a scale such as a RCBS 502, 505 etc. that are of a mechanical nature - are guaranteed for life.

The electronic digital scales are mostly all guaranteed for 2 years.

When your digital scale is wore out, broke or out of calibration - the mechanical scales will still be going strong.

http://www.gunaccessories.com/RCBS/Scales.asp

I have one of these scales. It worked for about 5 years, then gradually drifted to the point it could no longer zero without a small pre-loading weight (three or four grains) being left on the pan at all times. Other than that, it still calibrates and runs. A plus side of the design is it includes both battery and A.C. line adapter operation. A downside is lack of a wind screen, especially important for taking it to the range; you'll have to improvise that. A shoebox isn't too bad.

How is the time savings for loading with the Lyman DPS 1200??? I plan on loading .223, 30-30, and 30-06 with it.

For loads under 40grains, I heard it is actually pretty nice... faster than using just a digital scale by itself.

Purely personal opinion, but weighing charges to the .1 grain with a 30-30 and .30-06 is almost pointless. And also for the .223 unless you have a custom barrel and tight chamber. So, if you are concerned about saving time, it is a poor use of time to do weigh each charge, just set your measure properly and dump it in.

Any decent powder measure will drop charges averageing inside .3 grains of spread with all but the most coarse powders and, if your load is in the "sweet spot", that small variation won't mean a thing.

Electronic scales are a passing fad, IMHO. They are good enough while they last but they won't last for long. My Lyman/Ohaus" M5" is as perfect today as it was when I bought it in '65. It's now available from RCBS. NO digital scale is going to last 40+ years and they cost three times as much as a balance scale you can actually depend on!

Unless you are loading hundreds of rounds in a single session, the time saved with a digital won't amount to much either.

Wonder why the previous owner sold it "for a song"?

OK I had the rcbs 502 scale and I ended up selling it to buy a Lyman 1000XP. I really was getting buggy eyed fiddling and staring at lining up the two lines for balance. I hand weigh each charge so I dont make mistakes ever and I demand the utmost precision;after all its one of the reasons I reload.The electronic scale was twice the price and probably wont last as long as that mechanical scale but it goes easier on my nerves and eyes and its also a little quicker. There has to be some advantages right! When It breaks down I will happily buy another. PS- I also had an RCBS powder measure.You can keep those.Mine sucked and I wouldnt trust it either.Not consistant enough for me. Some guys are happy with theres but theres also some guys that seem to blow there guns up too.

. . . PS- I also had an RCBS powder measure.You can keep those.Mine sucked. . .

I don't know what powders you use, but most measures have a very hard time doing better than +/-0.2 grains with stick powder. This includes commercial ammunition, which I've pulled a good bit of and weighed on my lab scale (.02 grains resolution). Only the finer ball powders, like 748 can be got to meter really closely from a measure. Indeed, in my measuring of commercial loads I'd expected the best accuracy would be from the most expensive ammunition, but it wasn't. I had a box of Winchester Supreme .308 match ammunition that won hands down. Every round was within a 0.1 grain span (+/- 0.05 grains). That, I am sure, is mostly due to their use of a non-cannister grade of 748, which is very fine ball powder and easy to meter. I have no trouble trusting my very conventional Redding 30BR to get about that same level of accuracy with 748.

Most of the guys I know who weigh each stick powder charge will set the measure up to throw about a half a grain short, then used a trickler to top it up on the weighing pan. Discounting setup time, with a correctly organized bench, the electronic dispensers don't honestly seem to be much faster for filing rifle cases. They just require less manipulation.

Jake, I didn't mean to 'diss your new scale. You got it cheap enough to make the experiment worthwhile anyway. And digitals are, at the worst, excellant for weighing cases!

All this info is "off topic" but relates to your basic question of the value of any scales, by thinking of their uses.

A well made beam scale is easy to read IF you put it on an eye-level shelf and have good light. But unless you are weighing bullets AND preping cases by 1) trimming them to exactly the same length plus 2)deburring the flash holes and 3) uniforming the primer pockets and 4) turning the necks before 5) weighing them to a narrow range, weighting powder charges to the nearest .1 grain is an exercise in self deception.

The worst thing about trickling charges is the tricklers. ALL the commercial tricklers I've tried, maybe six anyway, are to light and too hard to spin smoothly.

(I gave up on store bought powder tricklers and made my own. Made three before I got it right but it's a jewel; heavy enough to stay put and the tube spins freely, it makes trickling-up on my beam scale easy. I ought to sell the things! Mine has a 2 lb. lead-filled base, a 4" tall thin wall brass pipe hopper, a chromed 4" x 1/4" brass drop tube (radio antenna) and a 3/4" dia. x 1/2" knurled aluminum knob. This TRICKLER is what saves me some time!)

(Probably the most uniform common powder measures are the "micrometer" chamber type, meaning the Reddings and their clones. And even they require a practiced hand to get reasonably consistant results, especially with coarse powders.)

. . . The worst thing about trickling charges is the tricklers. ALL the commercial tricklers I've tried, maybe six anyway, are to light and too hard to spin smoothly. . .

That's why I got the Redding. Casting weighs a pound. Haven't had a problem with it. I suppose the other plastic ones can be anchored to a base.

I'm using a $250 dollar Harrell measure and a $19 Lee scale. I don't wish for a better scale or lesser measure.

If I had to weigh every charge to get accurate reloads I believe I would quit.

I'm using a $250 dollar Harrell. . .

I'll have to borrow my dad's and run a comparison with the QuickMeasure. I'm sure it's great with ball powder and bet the bearings feel really smooth. How does it run with stick powder, though? Can it break the 0.2 grain barrier?

How does it run with stick powder, though?

I don't use anything with larger kernels than 4198 and it works fine with that. On the other hand, it won't work at all with light charges of a fluffy powder like Unique. They make 4-5 different sizes...

Can it break the 0.2 grain barrier?

I don't know, I don't weigh powder. :) I set the measure to a predetermined setting; throw a couple charges to get everything settled and then weigh one to make sure I haven't made a mistake with the setting. I don't weigh another charge until the next session. I do, of course, look carefully in all the charged cases in the loading block to make sure I haven't made a gross mistake

. . . I don't know, I don't weigh powder. :) . . .

You're not alone. A lot of benchresters take their powder measures to the range rather than a scale. They use a scale to learn roughly how many micrometer adjustment graduations change the charge 0.3 grains for ladder shooting. Then they use it to set the measure to a starting load before the first trek to the range. Their theory is, because powder density can change with humidity-induced moisture content without swelling, you actually throw a more consistent dose of energy by volume than by weight. A scale, on the other hand, will reduce the amount of energy it dispenses per charge as moisture content goes up.

The benchresters often reload into a very small number of carefully selected cases, which means they have to reload between relays at matches. Weighing is problematic in windy conditions, anyway, and adding outdoor humidity changes is just torment on top of torture. Powder kept and weighed at home isn't subject to such wild swings in environment. So, you can argue the superiority of both weighing and metering based on the conditions you do it in.

I am more interested in the results, myself. I've seen the statement made that no load cares about precision greater than +/-1% or so of the total charge. That would be +/- about 0.4 grains in a typical .308 load, and is about the charge precision found in disassembled military match loads. I find the statement untrue. I once developed a load of AA 2460 with the 168 grain SMK's that my last M1A barrel would drill cloverleaves with. However, it would open up noticeably with charges just 0.2 grains over or under weight. This was using match sorted brass. It was too touchy to be useful, to my mind, since sensitivity to temperature could be expected. At the other extreme, from the same gun, the 155 grain SMK's over Scot 3032 (no longer made) could be charged from 41.0 grains to 43.5 grains without the groups opening up at all. Though not quite as accurate as the cloverleaf load, it was a great load for offhand and rapid fire because I could set the powder measure to about 42.0 grains and it didn’t care about temperature or primer or brass brand or much of anything else. Almost impossible to screw up.

Dan Newberry has a whole site devoted to finding loads that are insensitive both to charge weight and to the length of barrels they are fired from. In other words, loads that are pretty good without fine tuning. He got the idea from observing that some loads, like the Federal Gold Medal 168 grain .308 match load, performed very well in about anything you shot it in. He concluded it must be possible to find what he calls Optimal Charge Weight (OCW) loads for other brass and bullet combinations. Whether weighing in varying humidity or throwing charges from a less-that-perfect measure, this is a pretty good kind of load to have. Dan's sight is here. (http://home.earthlink.net/~dannewberry/dannewberrysoptimalchargeweightloaddevelopment/index.html)

I think one reason people often don't see the full effect of small load changes on accuracy is brass weight variation. For a middling load of IMR 4895 in the .308, about 1.3 grains of brass weight will affect chamber pressure and barrel time like 0.1 grains of powder variation. The last batch of Winchester bulk .308 brass I bought had case weights ranging from 154.5 grains to 159.0 grains. That’s roughly equivalent to varying powder charge +/- 0.17 grains all by itself, and would cover up a sweet spot that was highly sensitive to charge precision. Someone using this brass may be deceived, then, into falsely concluding a load sensitive to 0.1 grains of variation cannot exist. Benchresters disagree. I just don't want to depend on a load sensitive either to charge or brass weight. It is too easy to get fliers. When you consider the OCW load recipes on Newberry’s sight were all developed in Winchester brass, you figure they had to be optimum enough to overcome this variation in the first place.