using household items as check weights

[44minimum]

I don't suppose that any of you guys would have a list of common household items that could be used for a check weight for a scale, would you? For instance, the other day I was measuring out five grains of titegroup and I sorta wished that I had something to compare it to. I am new in reloading and would prefer to keep all of my appendages intact. It just would have been nice to have something to doublecheck it with. It seems that somebody mentioned that a dime weighed 45 grains or something like that. Can you think of anything that would weigh five grains, 10 grains, 20 grains and so on?

[Bullshop]

A penny, it wieghs exactly ah ah ah I forgot, drats! Well anyway I know for shure it weighs something and maybe some body here has one and can tell ya. Maybe they even have some of the bigger silvery ones too.
BIC/BS

[imashooter2]

I took the newest, shiniest dime I could find in a fist full from the change jar, weighed it and then passed it around to my friends.

1 Dillon electronic: 34.4 grains
1 Dillon beam: 34.6 grains
2 RCBS beams: 34.7 and 34.5 grains
1 PACT electronic: 34.5 grains
1 Lyman beam: 34.5 grains

Lesson? A man with a watch always knows what time it is. A man with 2 is never sure.

Not exactly what you are asking for, but I say weigh a nickle, dime and quarter on your scale. Put them in a bag and use them to see if your scale changes over time. Work up your loads like it says in the manuals and you'll be safe.

[BruceB]

My quick-and-dirty check is simply to weigh my scale pan, when firing up my PACT electronic scale. If it doesn't read "148.7" after calibration, there's something wrong, and I re-calibrate.

For other types of scale, I just use a first-quality jacketed bullet from a major maker such as Sierra, Hornady, Nosler etc. Because my main concern is the accuracy of powder charges, i.e.: lighter weights, I generally use a .22-caliber bullet of around 50 grains nominal weight. If the scale reads more than ONE GRAIN 'off' from the manufacturer's stated weight, there is likely something wrong with the scale. Yes, the bullets ARE that consistent....amazing, isn't it?

[NVcurmudgeon]

A common aspirin tablet weighs five grains, baby aspirin 2 1/2 gr. Larger common objects used for check weights around here are what BruceB uses, jacketed bullets. My variety of firearms and loads requires factory bullets ranging from 87 gr. to 250 gr.

[Ricochet]

Aspirin tablets won't work as check weights. They contain five grains of aspirin, mixed with other stuff like cornstarch.

[Edward429451]

I either use jacketed match bullets or swaged bullets that I control the weight precisely, set it aside and use it for future reference. I double check these bullets on a friends scale every once in awhile.

I got lucky and found a pc of raw brass that weighs exactly 505g that I use sometimes also to check my 505.

[XRING363]

Seems to me that the term grain was for rice. Long grain, short grain? don't know.
Maybe someone with WAY to much time on there hands will see how much 5 grains of rice weighs.

[Scrounger]

Seems to me that the term grain was for rice. Long grain, short grain? don't know.
Maybe someone with WAY to much time on there hands will see how much 5 grains of rice weighs.

No, it was a barley grain. http://home.clara.net/brianp/weights.html
Interesting note: Twenty grains equals one scruple. So those of us with 40 or more grains of powder (or anything else) can honestly say we have scruples... [smilie=l:

[XRING363]

All the barley I have is of the malted variety.

[grumble]

"...So those of us with 40 or more grains of powder (or anything else) can honestly say we have scruples..."

Maybe. BUT, when you shoot up that powder, you become unscrupled.

[StarMetal]

I have a chunk of photons that I put on my scale, if it reads anything but zero then I adjust it to read zero.

Joe

[sundog]

Joe, I used to do that, too, but now I have a real zero, so I use that. Just lay it on the scale, do the zero adjust, and store it back on the shelf for next time. sundog

[nelson133]

A serious answer would be that Lyman has a set of check weights for reloading scales.

[Bent Ramrod]

The rule of thumb is that a nickel weighs around 5 grams. Each gram is 15.432 grains. so the total on your scale should be around 77.2 grains. Naturally, I don't have a nickel in my pocket right this minute to make sure of this, but a rule of thumb is a rule of thumb.

Edward 429251's idea of weighing match bullets is good, too. I would weigh ten of them in a clutch and take an average.

[Dye]

XRING363 5 grains of rice will 5 grains

Be carefull Dye

[versifier]

"...So those of us with 40 or more grains of powder (or anything else) can honestly say we have scruples..."

Maybe. BUT, when you shoot up that powder, you become unscrupled.

Probably you are scrupulary in the act of charging the cases, and scrupulous when in the possession of a number of the loaded rounds. You become unscrupulous in the act of touching off such a large charge, (especially if you do it with someone else's rifle and lead up his barrel because you were trying to push the boolits out too fast). Then you are unscrupled, even more so when you fail to warn him how much work it will be to get it clean for the next load testing. :smile: ;-) A man with a huge stash of powder could very welll be a scrupuloid.

[trooperdan]

I see we have a wordsmith amounst us! It is good to be enlightened! :)

[KCSO]

Doesn't Lyman still sell a set of check weights? That is what I have always used. If I remember they were about 5 bucks and they haven't wore out in the last 30 years.

[rhead]

16 grains of RICELAND extra long grain brown rice weighed 5 grains 8 out of 10 times 5.1 and 4.9 grains once each. any that had any visual breaks or chiped ends were culled.
16 different grains were weighed each time.

[carpetman]

Nelson133 & KCSO---What an absurd recommendation,buy a set of Lyman weights. That is akin to buying an ingot mold. Neither idea will work. It is much easier to scrounge muffin pans at garage sales,Goodwill Industries,wifes cabinet when she is gone,Salvation Army etc and then determine whether they work best with or without teflon,rusted,aluminum etc. For weight check,use your spare tire and if it shows heavier than the capacity of your scale you have a pretty good guess that part of the scale is working.

[blackthorn]

Many years ago when I started reloading, I didnt have much money. An older gent mentored me and he suggested taking a penny and a small file to the post office. We weighed the penny on the postal scale and filed a bit and reweighed, untill it was right on 50 grains. I used that penny to set my scale for a lot of years untill I could afford a set of weight checks from Lyman.

[Scrounger]

Many years ago when I started reloading, I didnt have much money. An older gent mentored me and he suggested taking a penny and a small file to the post office. We weighed the penny on the postal scale and filed a bit and reweighed, untill it was right on 50 grains. I used that penny to set my scale for a lot of years untill I could afford a set of weight checks from Lyman.

I didn't know a postal scale would weigh in grains! That might be a collector's item. I've always used commercial jacketed bullets to check weight. Readily available, relatively cheap, and accurate enough for our purposes.

[NVcurmudgeon]

The bottle of Safeway store-brand aspirin in my medecine cabinet reads on the label "ACTIVE INGREDIENT: Aspirin 325 mg (5 gr.) per tablet." However, the tablets weigh 5.5 gr. (I weighrd two.) Apparently the extra 0.5 gr. is because they are "specially coated for ease in swallowing." So I'm guessing that plain aspirin does weigh in the neighborhood of 5 gr.

[Linstrum]

Hi, guys,

I use United States five cent coins for rough checking my scale. Unfortunately, about fifty years ago the Mint stopped paying as much attention to keeping the weight of the nickel as close to its specified weight as it once did.

In 1866 when the United States Mint decided to make a five cent coin using an alloy containing the newfangled metal called nickel, they set the weight of the coin at exactly five grams. In English weight that comes out to pretty darn close to 77.16 grains.

One of the intended purposes for making the nickel coin was to provide the ordinary citizen out in the remote frontier with an object that anyone could own that could be used as a tare weight for checking scales to keep merchants honest, besides helping apothecaries (pharmacists) keep their scales accurate.

One of the reasons why the rather tough and difficult to use 75% copper 25% nickel alloy was chosen for making nickels was for the very reason of being tough, it was very much more abrasion resisting than iron but would not corrode, hence a coin would be a reliable tare weight over a very long period of time.

Nowadays the importance of owning a tare weight to keep the local merchants honest is not very great. Consequently, the U.S. Mint's manufacturing tolerances for the nickel coin have been relaxed to the point where some of them are a grain or two either side of 77.16.

After the Civil War, the United States was again trying to convert to the metric system, which 80 years earlier both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson had highly recommended because of its extreme ease of generating, understanding, and using.

Another way to check your scale is to use exactly one cubic centimeter of water at room temperature, which weighs one gram, or 15.432 grains. You can get reasonably pure water anywhere, anytime, to check your scale. The hard part is finding an ACCURATE one cubic centimeter measuring cup to put it in! I suppose a high quality syringe would work well enough to squirt out one cubic centimeter (one cc) of water into your scale pan.

[imashooter2]

Federal small pistol primer= 3.5 grains each

CCI large rifle primer= 5.2 grains each