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 RCBS Chargemaster Settings 
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MadPick wrote:
I'll tell you what, this settings update has really changed my perspective on the Chargemaster. I was getting so frustrated with it that I came very close to buying one of the competitors' products as well, just in the hope that it would be better. (Though the reviews don't show that any of them are perfect.)

Anyhow, I tried running some Benchmark powder through it the other day. Benchmark is a stick powder, but it's cut into fairly small pieces. It worked very well.

The Chargemaster is still kinda temperamental, though. It was running along just fine, dispensing fast and perfect charges, then it suddenly started throwing a LOT of overcharges, sometimes by as much as half a grain. I pulled the power cord to "reboot" it, but that didn't fix it. I hadn't turned on any extra lights or fired up any new electronics in the room, so I really can't explain it.

I finally pushed the straw farther back into the tube (as Eric explained in the video), and that fixed it. I had to push the straw WAY back; see the pic below. Look for the red stripe on the straw, and see how close to the back of the tube it is. This photo is taken looking straight down into the powder hopper. There is only a very tiny gap at the back, probably less than 1/8".

Image

But hey, it worked . . . and even though it was a little slower to throw the charge, it was still fairly fast. thumbsup


You're on the right track.

There's another "mod" that doesn't get mentioned much. Take the same type straw, push it ALL the way into the dispenser tube and cut off smooth just outside the mouth of the tube. Then take a "cutoff wheel" on a dremel tool and cut a slot only on 1/2 the circumference of the straw about the middle of the existing port in the dispenser tube. A "window" if you will. Try it and enlarge if necessary to get a good balance of speed and accuracy of drop. Remove that tube, mark it wiht the brand, number, type of powder and create another "straw" for different powders you use. In a sense you'll have straws created that will meter exactly the right mount of powder INTO the straw so it gets dribbled out granule by granule, not in large dumps.

Change Powder, change straw, leave machine adjustments alone after you've done the basic "speed up" mod's.

Using a different straw "calibrated" to each powder/type just means you don't have to "twiddle" with it the next time. Pour in new powder, insert straw for that powder, and get busy loading. Lots of shooting waiting for you. :bigsmile: :thumbsup2:

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Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:46 am
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Deadshot2, with the current method I can just pull the straw in and out to adjust the "window." Is there an advantage to the method you describe?

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Sun Aug 21, 2016 7:49 am
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MadPick wrote:
Deadshot2, with the current method I can just pull the straw in and out to adjust the "window." Is there an advantage to the method you describe?


To me, the advantage is that you just change straws and are ready to go from the first charge you drop. No more adjusting. Small advantage perhaps but in my mind an advantage. Kind of like how Dillon has all their little bushings for the case feed mechanism. Each one for different case diameters, no futzing around just put in the right bushing then load at a high rate of speed :bigsmile:

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Sun Aug 21, 2016 8:17 am
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Thanks for the welcome Madpick !
Have been competing in the NW since 2010, I don't post on here but I'm sure we have many mutal friends without even knowing it lol.'

Be sure to mark your straw with a permanent pen for your ball powder and another mark for your stick powder.
On mine there's only about 1/4" between the two marks so its pretty easy to go from one to another quick.

It is a fine line between hauling ass and getting over throws lol...just moving it in a touch when you get a few over throws takes care of it and stops it from happening 99% of the time.


Tue Aug 23, 2016 10:08 pm
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Thanks for this. I'll try it tonight.

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Mon Sep 12, 2016 9:00 am
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dogfish wrote:
Thanks for this. I'll try it tonight.


Andy, how did it go for you?

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Sun Sep 25, 2016 5:32 pm
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Worked well. Sped up the charge times. Didn't time it, but I could tell the difference.

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Thu Sep 29, 2016 7:54 am
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I've been monkeying around with the Chargemaster (CM). This is a longer (20 minute) video showing a fellow comparing charges thrown straight from CM, and then thrown shy and trickled up. He does this by 2nd checking on a Sartorius GD503 (I think), a ~$1500 scale.
It may seem tedious, and nonsensical to some, but he states his purpose- to show how much more precise the throws are when trickled up, rather then a single throw with the CM.

Quote:
Different shooting disciplines require different levels of precision. I shoot F-Class, and yes, I need to be that precise. I don't spend that much time loading though, I use a Prometheus II to load my ammo. The video was made for those that need the precision, cut can't afford a more expensive scale......
Not meaningless at all. I compete at 1,000 yards regularly and it matters, that's the reason I have a Sartorious scale. If you are in the middle of a node, it won't matter much, but if you travel like I do and find yourself on the edge of a node due to temperature differences, it's better to have your powder charge as consistent as possible so that you can stay in the node even if you are on the edge....
"Why wouldnt you transfer the pan at 29.8 to the Sartorious and trickle the remaining as the weakest component is the rcbs scale." I do, but not everyone has a $1,000+ scale, that's why I was showing how they can get the most out of their chargemaster.


This is from a commenter... Not sure what he meant by "worked well at first but became worse".
Quote:
There is good video on you tube on reprogramming RCBS Chargemaster, although I have to say it really depending on your powder charge. I had to experiment to find right values. I also did straw mod and it improved, but wasn't perfect, I tried cutting the end of straw jagged and it worked well at first but became worse later. Also this mod was horrible because I ended up spilling powder all the time when I removed pan. A straight straw is better. Finally I decided to try something similar to Erik's mod, except I picked a smaller 5.7 casing and cut it in half, chucked it in drill and sand it a little on the outside and crimped the neck to make it even smaller and then inserted inside, it fits well. First 20 or so throws were exactly 18gr and later it started to deviate. It seems like any mod I do works really well initially and then gets worse. I think to really prevent overthrows I really need to restrict powder flow, so when it trickles, it doesn't drop 4-5 kernels at a time, but 1-2 at a time at last trickle stage. Here's my last results from 50 throws. 30 charges were right at 24.5gr, combined 20 charges (40%) were overthrown. 13 charges (26%) deviated +0.1gr and 7 charges (14%) deviated 0.2gr, this was with Accurate 2495.


Thu Mar 30, 2017 12:45 pm
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This photo is an old one, from the beginning of this thread. Take a look at the straw and notice that there are a couple of flakes of powder stuck between the straw and the metal tube:

Image

That was taken some months back. Today I looked down there and saw a whole lot more powder. icon_eek I failed to take a pic while the straw was in place, but after I pulled out the straw and ran the powder into the pan here's what it looked like:

Image

:runforthehills:

Let's see, what do we have here . . . some Unique from my shotshells, some Trail Boss from my killer quiet 300BLK loads, some various ball powders from God knows what.

I don't really know if there's enough in there to cause a problem, or at least if it's likely to come loose and significantly contaminate whatever powder happens to be in the Chargemaster at the time, but there was enough to cause me to take notice. I'll plan to keep a closer eye on it and clean it out more often.

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Sat Apr 29, 2017 8:45 pm
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The revised settings have been working well on the Chargemaster . . . until today.

I loaded with four different powders today: Benchmark, TAC, CFE 223, and AA2520. The Benchmark, TAC and CFE 223 all worked just fine; Benchmark is a stick powder, and TAC and CFE 223 are both very fine powders that meter nicely.

Then came the AA2520 . . . and it was taking me at least ten tries for every good throw. Lemme tell ya, that AA2520 is like little tiny fucking ball bearings, and it just rolled out of that tube. It didn't matter where I positioned the straw, I still got overcharges.

I went back and changed a couple of numbers in the programming. I changed HSP_B1 from 1.50 to 3.00, and HSP_C1 from 0.40 to 1.00. This tells the machine to slow down earlier, and once I made this change every one of the throws was spot-on. It ran a little slow for my liking and I think I could have sped it up, but I only had about 20 rounds to do so I didn't worry about it.

When I was done, I changed it back to the settings I had.

FYI in case anyone has a similar problem....

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Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:03 pm
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Another powder that I've using a bunch of is Ramshot Hunter and I'll have to try Madpick's settings for AA2520, It too is perfect little ball bearings that not only fly out of the CM but also the pan at speed lol...
Thankfully after load development its not an issue because I'm dropping it from the LNL progressive but holy crap is it annoying from the CM, flows like water.


Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:33 pm
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