And Now for Something Completely Different....

You know, this is supposed to be a gun blog. Well, sort of. I am a gun-nut, after all. However, I don't post on the topic of boomsticks, their accessories, and the shooting hobby all that much. I think the last post was about my new gunsafe.

Well, I just ordered another doo-dad. I'm a handloader, but like most the part of the job I find most tedious is measuring out powder charges. With a progressive press there's an automatic powder measure, but those really only function well with ball, small flake, and very short extruded powders. Hand-operated powder measures aren't much better. With stick powders and some flake powders, the consistency can be very poor. Since the purpose of handloading ammunition is to build better-than-factory quality ammo and not blowing your gun up, consistent powder charge weights are a must. This means, generally, weighing out each individual charge.

A while back I bought an electronic scale and a powder tricker which allows me to throw an underweight charge with a hand measure, then "trickle up" the charge to the desired weight. That works well. It also takes for goddam ever.

So tonight I dropped a chunk of change on one of these:

That's an RCBS Chargemaster dispenser and electronic scale package. Just plug it in, run the calibration setup (60 seconds), load the powder hopper, set a charge weight, and you're off! It dumps a perfectly measured weight of powder, ±0.1 grain, in about 20 seconds. It's gotten terrific reviews at MidwayUSA, and it's on sale.

Mine should arrive about next Thursday, which is good, because I've got about a thousand rounds of .45LC that need to be loaded, and another thousand 5.56x45.