All About BEAM SCALES! RCBS M500 Tips & Mods

Here's some of the modifications I have made to my RCBS M500 beam scales. Enjoy!

[@Sanwizard1]

Love it! Just bought the scale. Great idea with the pipe cleaners! I am just using my phone camera.

[@ripcordjr5696]

Thank you for posting this video. Good thinking on the pip cleaner idea and a few other tricks you showed. Invaluable info for new reloaders. 👍

[@richardkut3976]

Excellent. Pipe cleaner to dampen movement.

[@drewevans6908]

This is a great idea. I enjoy hand loading while watching TV and have to bend down to view the scale level for each load. So, I did a little research and you can use your I-Phone as a webcam. So, I just ordered a $5 cell phone holder off Amazon and will use with my laptop. Thanks! great hack.

[@anthonychrismartin7888]

Very good 👍 I like the camera, smart. I use a magnifying glass. The pipe cleaning trick is interesting 👍 Again smart. Heading to the bench now to get my beam scale set up like yours. Definitely worth a try. These are the kind of ideals that are worth trying. You get a new subscriber. Thanks. 👍

[@stricklyreloading8494]

Hey hey! Thanks so much! Yeah, if nothing else, the pipe cleaners really help the scale settle down much faster!

[@mitchellcartee2853]

great vedio

[@dirkd8202]

Awesome video! My rcbs m500 seems to be off by about a 10th of a grain with the Lyman check weights. I'm going to try the pipe cleaner trick. Happy new year!

[@blueridgeboy7721]

Mines off by 4/10ths

[@dirkd8202]

@@blueridgeboy7721 that sucks man! I ended up buying an older rcbs off eBay and it's an absolute tank. Really accurate. Then I ended up buying a rcbs chargemaster link. I know it's a little pricey, but the chargemaster link is insanely accurate, repeatable and I can load about 10 for every 1 on the beam scale.

[@blueridgeboy7721]

Awesome video just found your channel. Great ideas

[@stricklyreloading8494]

Thanks so much! I would appreciate you subscribing to my channel!

[@blueridgeboy7721]

@@stricklyreloading8494 I subscribed

[@kassilewis5511]

I have the same scale and check weights. My 20 grain check weights really weigh. 20.2 and 20.3. I checked them on 3 different scales and they all agreed. So 2 20s and 2 2s give me around .04 under zero at 44.6 grains on the poise beam. So I may have to ditch the Lyman weights. (BUT luckily one of my pet loads runs on 44.6 grains of varget so weight can easily be calibrated to the charge)A big help for repeatability on mine was sharpening the knife edges to a razor's edge, carefully scraped the paint off the agate pillows under the bearings and polished those to a mirror shine , lightly bent the pan hanger support evenly upward on 4 sides to help center and hold the pan in the same place every time it is put back. I also padded the travel of the scale but I just used a piece of adhesive backed felt inside the cast under the dampening plate. Seems to have done the trick. A single piece of varget with throw the pointer clean off the line now and returns to dead center of the line of "zero" as many times as you want to check it. Oh and I also use a camera to eliminate parallax.

[@stricklyreloading8494]

Awesome! Yeah, I noticed my two “2 gn” weights weren’t exactly with each other, so I took some fine sandpaper and sanded the heavy one until it weighed the same with the other. Fortunately, mine was heavy so I was able to correct it. My two 20 gn weights were really close.

[@reece674]

Thank you for the video! I am already doing something sort of like the camera setup you have but the pipe cleaner idea is a good one. That is one thing that i didnt like is that slamming down when the pan was lifted. Also it makes sense about the "zeroing" at or close to the charge weight. Another little tip that i saw on another video was to fill in the frame of the scales with some plaster of paris just to give it a bit more weight and a little less chance of being bumped around because they are quite a light device.

[@stricklyreloading8494]

Yes, adding weight to the bottom of the scale would be a really good idea! Thanks so much for watching! I hope you’ll subscribe to my channel!

[@gregander64]

G'day..... Found your video extremely helpful....just about to load up 100 Martini Cadet .310 Cases. CHEERS..........

[@stricklyreloading8494]

Awesome! That’s a pretty uncommon cartridge! Where are you from?

[@gwsears7478]

OCD?

[@water737]

where do you get the check weights thats nifty as hell

[@stricklyreloading8494]

Brownels, Midway USA, Amazon, anywhere like that would have them. Mine are the Lyman Check Weights. RCBS makes a set too

[@claytonpegram6035]

Pipe cleaners absolutely helped! I got the targetmaster powder tricker in this i do believe is just as good as the A&D scale. for everything it was $300 but I did you mod and added 20 oz of weight to the rcbs m500 scale for stability. Andrio tablet you can get a adapter usb to usb micro or USB c have the Hue document camera with it's on stand on a gooseneck .I did take a black magic marker and painted my pointer.The cam focused much closer.Alsome tips THANKS FOR THE INFORMATION !!!!

[@allanedwards5349]

Hi Clayton - How are you getting on with your Targetmaster?

[@claytonpegram6035]

@@allanedwards5349 Hay Allen have been working kinks out with my scale repeating going to do a true test today but looks like the Targetmaster is going to be Awesome and fast.I'll give an updated later today. Thank you Allen !!!

[@Targetmaster1066]

@@claytonpegram6035 Excellent - keep me posted on progress.

[@stricklyreloading8494]

I absolutely believe a good beam scale is every bit as good as the A&D scales, maybe even better! Thanks for watching and glad my video was some help to you!

[@claytonpegram6035]

@@Targetmaster1066 did my testing and I do believe the scale is working well.100 drops with targetmaster once I got it dialed in was pretty much on the money and I used the hardest powder cfe223 small flake!Thank you Allen!Can recommend the Targetmaster...........

[@tmurray1972]

Is your M500 still working to your satisfaction?

[@stricklyreloading8494]

Well, when I was last using it, yes it was. I primarily use an Auto Trickler these days

[@user-jl9jt8dp4o]

1/2 the video is on the camera and pipe cleaner….wtf. It’s supposed to be a video on the scale.