by Erud on Mon Nov 03, 2014 6:25 am
You really need to spend a fair amount of money to get one that's worth anything. At the lower end, they will be much less accurate than a beam scale. At the low/mid grade, there are models that are accurate, but not really made for powder and don't handle trickling well, drift a lot, and require frequent re-zeroing. If you really want something accurate, you should basically disregard anything that is branded by any of the reloading press companies right out of the gate. If it says Dillon, Hornady, RCBS, etc, don't buy it. Not that they don't sell serviceable products, but "accuracy" is not what you will get from them. Once you start spending some money, they get better, but you need to know what you're looking at and I'd recommend doing some serious research before you make a decision. The very least I'd recommend would be the GemPro 250, which is pretty popular among reloaders, but also has a pretty spotty record for reliability. Search around and you can find a ton of folks talking about sending them in for repairs and complaints of excessive drift. I've had a few different digital scales and I've learned that the cheap ones are more trouble than they are worth to me. The one I have now is accurate to .005, and stays rock-solid on zero. Fluorescent lights have no effect on it, and it can read trickling powder as fast as I can trickle it. It was not cheap though. A phone call to the folks at balances.com would get you a lot of useful info on this topic, they are very knowledgeable.
I expect Seismic Sam will be back shortly to tell me(or you) that I don't know what I'm talking about...