Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Measuring powder charges

JG, the sc is just shorter granules than the old H4831, I do believe.

I wish I could say I didn't weigh charges, but I'm still learning how to really get my measure working well with stick powders. It throws RL-15 and anything from Ramshot like a boss....

Yeah, I know it's supposed to be, but since it looks just like the Retumbo I'm wondering if it's mislabeled and is just regular H4831. I was just curious, it's accurate as all get out.

I'm an admitted thrower and trickler every time. It makes me feel better about myself.

It all looks like that

Not so, my friend. As long as there is some gravity, or as long as your spaceship is accelerating, beam scales work and give the same answer. A balance scale will give you the same answer at the poles, the equator, deep in a mine, on the top of Everest, or on the Moon. A common digital powder scale or a spring scale will not.

The scale balances the torque of known masses at known distances from the pivot point to unknown masses at a known distance on the other side. Torque 1 = Torque 2.

But torque is mass x gravity x distance. Since gravity occurs on both sides of the equation, you can divide both sides by gravity and drop it out.

Dang, I thought the only place you needed an engineering degree to partake in a topic was with the birdwather dudes.

I was one of those suckers who bought a Lyman DPS 1200 thinking I was gonna save time, but on the upside, I use a powder measure, set it to throw just under, and now I've got a really fast $300 powder trickler and scale in one. I can charge a bunch of cases in a flash though.

Yup. Torque is equal to force applied x distance from the pivot point x sin(theta). Force is mass x gravitational acceleration.

Because gravitational acceleration works equally on both sides of the pivot point, on both masses, the acceleration due to gravity is irrelevant.

2 philosophies in reloading; weight vs volume. I have stood by the volume for years and it works even with H322 in my 6mm PPC. Clint Smith was another noted writer/shooter that experimented with weight and volume and found no advantage of the weight method.

I didn't need some writer to qualify this, I found it worked without a writer's endorsement, but some people need a famous person to verify some data. There you have it, JB, Denton Bramwell, Clint Smith, all found the same results. Why weigh, then change the powder measure after you check it and find some difference in the weight?

Volume actually works better, which was my point, and another reason to not weight charges once you have a load worked up. Otherwise every time you change lots of powder, you change your load, then you blame the powder manufacturer because it has too much lot to lot variation. Set the measure and load some ammo. Spend time shooting, not trickling powder.

Thanks for all of the great information.