Frankford Arsenal Electronic Scale

[JudgeBAC]

I just purchased a Frankford Arsenal battery operated scale from Midway on sale for $29.99. Fortunately, I read a reader review who suggested ditching the batteries supplied with the scale and purchasing new batteries. He was absolutely correct. The batteries supplied with the unit made it almost impossible to calibrate the scale. After purchasing Duracells as replacements and cleaning the batteries and connectors with alcohol, as he suggested, the scale worked perfectly. This is a very small unit that will indeed fit in your shirt pocket. I needed something to weigh cast boolits with to group them by weight. I did not want to spend in the hundreds to obtain one. This little unit appears to be the answer. It has a max weight of 750 grains and takes up no room on the loading bench. A neet little unit to say the least. Check it out.

[RayinNH]

JudgeBAC, I just got one about a month ago. It is indeed a cute little scale and quite handy to verify weights from Lee scoops or thrown charges from a measure. As you alluded to it does make a dandy boolit scale too. I must of gotten lucky though, the supplied batteries worked just fine when I put on the 20g. calibration weight...Ray

[rbstern]

I had so many problems with the Frankford Arsenal scale, I returned it to MidwayUSA for credit. This was after replacing the supplied cells with Energizers. When it worked, it was great. But it wouldn't stay calibrated. Toward the end of my several weeks experience with it, I was spending more time calibrating than I was weighing charges. It got to the point where I had no confidence in the measurements.

I am a big fan of value-priced products, but I believe, if you want to go electronic, more dollars are needed to assure quality.

That being said, I hope yours continues to work accurately for a long time.

[Baldy]

Hey JudgeBac nothing to do with scales but did you get that Colt you was waiting on and how does it shoot???:drinks:

[JudgeBAC]

The Colt arrived and I have run about 50 rounds through it. It shoots pretty well. I'm going out of town on business tommorow and will be gone most of the week next week so it will be a while before I can really work up some loads for it. I removed the factory grips and substituted some rubber Pacs. They really make a difference. Its a big snubbie so recoil is not a problem even with .357 loads. I'll keep you posted.

[Baldy]

:coffee: Here's a load I worked up to slowly JudgeBAC for the 357. 125gr JHP, 7.8gr's-of Win 231, & mag primers. It will put them down range real good. If your going to shoot 38's I use 4.5gr's of 231 Win & regular primers, & 158 lswc. Both of these loads have a kick to them but more inportant they perfrom real well for me. I shoot a SP101 Ruger a lot, as that is my carry gun. I carry 357's and there's not a lot of difference between my load and factory.

[broomhandle]

Hi All,

My pal bought one about 2 months ago. He found it worked well.

UNTILL TODAY!

He loaded some 45 cases with 5.7 grains of 231. We went to the range with the new crono. and shot a few rounds thru the lights.
The recoil was on the heavy side but he got a nice tight group. He clocked the bullets at 1130 fps when I asked what bullet he replied 230 hollow points!
we stopped & checked the cases the primers were FLAT.

He took a few loads apart & checked them on the reset & zeroed digital scale again 5.8! He is a clear minded guy so he set up & zeroed the old beam scale the scale tells him 9.2 he rechecks again - 9.2 AGAIN!

Now he resets the Frankford scale AGAIN & gets 9.2!

We are now badly spooked about this unit. He will call Frankford monday.
He will also check all the other loads he has made in the past few weeks!

We thanked the GOOD LORD for him not getting hurt or the pistol getting blown up.

I see that at least one poster had a problem with this unit!

If we cannot TRUST our equipment we have a serious problem!

Be SAFE,
broomhandle

[Dale53]

I bought an inexpensive digital scale to supplement the RCBS I have used with satisfaction for some time. I was check weighing cast bullets for a match. Boy, I am a great caster - each bullet weighed exactly the same as the others. However, when I check weighed them on my RCBS scale, the truth came out.

The inexpensive scale was not sensitive enough for weighing powder and bullets. It makes a dandy postal scale, so I kept it.

Stay away from inexpensive scales for the VERY SERIOUS business of weighing powder. Use ONLY name brand scales intended for reloading use backed up by a company that has liability concerns.

Stay safe, people....

THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH!! Repeat after me, "THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH!!"...

Dale53

[NucEm]

Just a few words about digital scales. I have a friend who works with gold and those stones women found attractive:roll: He is using expensive equipment, more than i can aford but...he is a what I call a "safe" guy:mrgreen:
When he zeroes the digital scale he puts a weight on it before he uses it. I do the same now after he told me so. So when i want to weight a bullet or a powder charge, i zero the scale and put on a 10 grains weight. And when the scale says 15.5 grains i know that my charge is 5.5 grains. Before the next charge i take the 10 grains of, see that the scale goes down to zero and put it back on before the next charge.
A bit slower but in that way i can feel safe, too much powder in the gun can give one big problems, ( just as too light diamonds or low carat gold to a lady):mrgreen:

[David R]

I ordered one of these last week. Yesterday I stopped at the gun shop and looked at one on the shelf. Same scale, Probably came from midway. I just flipped the scale cover over and weighed it a few times. Each time it got lighter. I thought for a few minutes and bought a brand new shiny RCBS Rangemaster 750. When I got home, the frankford aresonal one had arrived. Same as the one in the store. Won't keep a Zero and the 20 gram check weight is lighter on the frankford aresonal scale than on the RCBS. Usually by 1 grain, but it varies. Frankford aresonal scale goes back to midway.

David

[marlin.45]

Picked up one of these Franford scales a month or so back for 30 Euros from a dealer in Italy. Initially it worked fine and I regularly checked against the Lee beam scale and they were both consistently within .2 grain of each other.

After reading this thread I dug the digital scale out and tried to zero and cal with the 20g weight. After each zero the reading starts to increase and doesn't seem to want to stop until it is around 20 grains.

I have ordered some more CR2032 for it as the original batts maybe the cause?

If not then it is going back :roll:
Paul

[Lee]

I've got a Midway and one of the scales advertised for sale by a member of this board(disremember the name). The one bought off this board, can be Googled and is found to be advertised for jewelers and such, and used for weighing precious stuff. The midway of course is advertised for...the reloader.
From the very first Mettler I cut my teeth on 40+ years ago, I was trained and taught to always place what you wish to weigh in the "center" of the pan. No exceptions.
Both of the digital scales I have follow the same rule. Either one will weight off by 4-5 grains difference if positioned on different spots on the pan.
Put the same weight in the same spot each time, and they weight the same, and they repeat.
Latest use of the midway was a couple days ago, when I check weighed 60+ rounds of handloaded 45-70. Even after inspecting each case for proper powder charge, I went back when finished and weight each one on the digital, checking every 5 or so charges with the check weight. Lightest to heaviest round differed by about 6 grains. Empty cases varied 3 grains, so it told be I had a charge in each round. Only took a couple minutes, quicker than a beam scale.
Working up a load, the "good ole" Lee balance scale comes out also. and all the scales get a workout. Maybe I'm lucky and got the good one.
Point?? Use the digital scale consistently. If you do not, it may be a source of some problems. YMMV. My $0.02...................................Lee:)

[JudgeBAC]

I dont weigh powder on my scale. It is used exclusively to weigh bullets. I want to emphasize that I followed the instructions of a purchaser who had reviewed the product on the Midway site. He suggested that you trash the batteries that came with the unit, replace them with a quality battery, use alcohol to clean the batteries and the terminals and not handle the batteries by hand. After following these instructions, I have had no problems whatsoever with my scale. I did experiment with the original batteries and had problems calibrating the scale and problems with varying weights. I simply wanted a scale to weigh bullets since weighing them on a beam scale is a royal pain in the butt.