Would Like A New Electronic Scale, But . .

Had a Pact for 25 years I bought used in the mid 90's. Had it repaired once. I contacted Pact maybe two years ago to see about having it repaired again to find I'm outa luck. So I bought a Hornady beam scale which works fine - but for things like bullet and case sorting or weight sorting sub-sonic 22lr a digital scale would be nice. I, however am not prepared to spend $300 plus. Found the Hornady G-3 1500, costing $60-70-ish, looked for feedback and found some from 2021 on the High Road where losing zero was a complaint. Hornady's CS stepped right up in that instance and replaced the scale. More recent feedback I have not found. I know, it's less than a hundred bucks but still I'd like to hear some recent experiences with this scale. Thanks!

Cannot comment on the Hornady scale as I have never owned one. However, I really like the RCBS Pocket Scale. I paid $40ish for mine on fleabay, it's got a neat protective case like an Otterbox case for a phone, but the scale itself seems to work quickly and doesn't "guess" for a few seconds before it gives the reading.

This scale doesn't have a flat top, so this one will not be popular with drug dealers, it has a round, semi dished platform that the pan sits on. I notice that a lot of digital scales also have this same round platform.

I find the anodized aluminum pan that comes with the scale to be static free, unlike plastic pans offered by Lyman, and the spout will pour nicely into any 30 caliber neck. The spout will fit into smaller case mouths, I just don't have anything smaller than 30 caliber to test the fitment.

FWIW
My Pact still works good...unless the battery begins to go. (I do Not have the power supply option...Dammit!!!)

Looks like I'll roll the dice on the Hornady. The wife is trolling for Christmas ideas, if I don't give her something to buy me I can use I'll end up with books I won't read or videos I won't watch. . . or worse. Got a soapstone carving kit once. Still have it. In the box.

Ive got that exact scale, never had an issue with it. Ive been running it for about 5 years now and it looks like its been through a world war. Still using it daily even though I've been expecting it to crap out any day. I personally feel a lot of the drifting people complain about is electronic interference. With my phone in my pocket, I can tell a second before someone calls or texts because my scale starts drifting. Putting it close to any electronic source has a tendency to make it whonkey.

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Originally Posted by scottnc

looks like i'll roll the dice on the hornady. the wife is trolling for christmas ideas, if i don't give her something to buy me i can use i'll end up with books i won't read or videos i won't watch. . . Or worse. Got a soapstone carving kit once. Still have it. In the box.

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lmao

I go with RCBS beam scales and digital scales. I had a lyman digital that died.. have another but afraid to use it after the other experience. on the beams.. just keep em clean..

I have the Hornady.
I use it weigh bullets.
I also use it check my RCBS powder measure and my Hornady Auto Charge.
I find it to be very accurate.

May not be of any use to you, but I have a Hornady G2-1500 that I have used for years with no issues, other than One needs to keep it out of a draft (I made a cardboard shield for it, which cured that issue). You can't kill the beast: it was seriously drenched when the roof on my shop went off to Oz, yet, after a good drying spell, it still works.

If it's not too late I'll chime in on owning that Hornady scale. I bought it when I was gearing up after my reloading hiatus which was during some of the worst "pandemic" shortages and I was spending so much money I went for the least expensive but still usable option.

I like the Hornady and it works fine, reliable, calibrates fine and accuracy is more than acceptable.

Disclamer: I work on scales for a living, my area of responsibility is "small" scales, therefore I deal with a lot of lab scales. As such I recently picked up an RCBS Ringmaster 2000; this is a great scale, accuracy is fine and I know how reliable they are from work experience. I service a Big E Low Tea manufacturing plant here in Boise and they use these scales on their production lines where they are of course exposed to a lot of "dust" from the tea and yet they perform like a champ.

So I didn't go nuts and only spent $129. I'm happy.

And as a footnote, I still have my RCBS 10-10 scale that's 30 years old, one of the few pieces of equipment that I've had from new and never lost or had to sell. I consider it my "end of the world-no electricity" backup ;-)

@dddddMorgan; Do we Know Who makes that scale for RCBS??? Hornady also even??

Just posted one in S&S

My A&D fx-120i is the stuff and I love it. I have a Scott Parker tuned 10-10 as well but my Frankford Arsenal little pocket scale I picked up used for $20 is going good verified by the other scales. It's handy when I'm only loading 4 or 5 test loads or bullet weighing.

I bought a Dillon Determinator exclusively to complement my "Tail-Gate Loading Set-up" to take to the range, and I've been soooo impressed with it I now have it as an added scale to top-off trickled loads at home. It seems quite repeatable, NOT sensitive at all to temperature or wind, and uses regular batteries -- nothing fancy -- which seem to last forever! I bought mine used at a good price off a WTS on this site. Even so, a new one from Dillon still may fit into your budget range.
(Christmas trolling here not: My wife bought me a new electric LIFT chaifr! :))
geo

I have a FX-120i with the auto throw and auto trickler system. After having a hornady and a few others, I will never go back. When using a powder throw I just check on the scale every 20 charges or so. If I am doing anything over 10gr I let the scale do it for me.

I have the RCBS 750 scale and it has served me well the last 10 years or so.....one thing I learnt the hard way is when you purchase an electronic scale for reloading purposes, make sure it is not battery operated only, it must have an power supply that plugs into the AC grid. Most of the battery only ones have an "auto shut off" function which drives you crazy.....just when you want to measure your next charge or boolit.....the damn thing has switched itself off[smilie=b:

FWIW, when my old PACT BBK gave up the ghost, my Cabelas points got me a Frankford Arsenal DS750 for around $20. They have a deal on their site today you might want to check out. Mine seems stable and accurate (used my check weights) but I restrict it to weighing bullets. It's always been right on with the beam scale though.

Regardless of which "inexpensive" electronic scale you purchase, it is "nice-to-know" how it performs in relation to your beam scale(s). Whether you are sorting cases, sorting boolits, double checking a load, or "whatever", the electronic scale will always provide a result much quicker, with less interaction than a beam scale.

If, when infrequently measuring the potential "weight difference" between an electronic and beam scale for the same objects (test weights), no difference is discernible, or is within a few tenths of a grain, what truly is the "difference"? Your reloads, made on the same periodically tested scale, are likely exactly the same as the published recipe, to within a couple of tenths.

When your accuracy is ON, it is your confidence in the scale, your confidence in your equipment, your confidence in casting, your confidence in reloading, and ultimately your over-all performance that is measured. Repeatability is confidence building.

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Originally Posted by hermans

I have the RCBS 750 scale and it has served me well the last 10 years or so.....one thing I learnt the hard way is when you purchase an electronic scale for reloading purposes, make sure it is not battery operated only, it must have an power supply that plugs into the AC grid. Most of the battery only ones have an "auto shut off" function which drives you crazy.....just when you want to measure your next charge or boolit.....the damn thing has switched itself off[smilie=b:

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While it won't help you with the auto shut off feature it's very easy to convert a battery only Power device to one that uses an AC charger simply by finding the correct voltage DC output charger and then do a little bit of wire doctoring at the battery compartment, of course it takes a little bit of electronics knowledge to do this so I wouldn't Tinker with it if you aren't electrically inclined. Because you will need to know things about polarity current rating for the load and also you should be using a triac-based supply not a Transformer one so that the voltage regulation will be pretty much spot on.