Author Topic: second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??  (Read 949 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline leprecon21

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 18
  • Gender: Male
second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??
« on: October 02, 2011, 04:18:06 PM »
i was given a Ohaus scale 5-0-5. and i just want to know if these are reliable.
it is old but looks OK
any one have experience with these


21
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -- Robert Heinlein

Offline Savage

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4397
Re: second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??
« Reply #1 on: October 02, 2011, 04:35:51 PM »
Well, I still have one I acquired in the early 70s. Although I have other more expensive beam scales as well as a digital, I frequently use the 505. Still accurate, still dependable. IMO, it's a great scale.
Savage
An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last,

Offline wncchester

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3856
  • Gender: Male
Re: second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2011, 06:01:42 PM »
Excallant tool.
Common sense is an uncommon virtue

Offline leprecon21

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 18
  • Gender: Male
Re: second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2011, 06:19:53 PM »
thanks
i don't have a weight gauges to  check accuracy
any suggestions?
21
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -- Robert Heinlein

Offline strut64

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 61
Re: second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??
« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2011, 03:10:52 AM »
A convenient weight check is to use a bullet.  For example a 150 Grain, 0.308" or similar.  Color the sample bullet with a sharpie marker and save it.  Good bullets are surprisingly accurate and if you continue using the same bullet you will be quite consistent.   Set the zero with an empty weight pan and put your sample bullet in.   If your within +/- a 0.1 grain your good to go.

Offline gray wolf

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 25
Re: second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??
« Reply #5 on: October 04, 2011, 03:41:47 AM »
""surprisingly accurate""
As compared to what ?
""If your within +/- a 0.1 grain your good to go.""
 Not without a standard to go by.

That scale is a good scale and should be checked and repaired by Ohaus scale
If needed.  RCBS should be able to help with an address or phone # as some or most of there scales are made by and repaired by Ohaus.
 Using a bullet or other sample weight is OK if you have a scale of known accuracy to go by.  Get a small set of check weights and be done with it.
  A powder scale should replicate it's accuracy to .1 ( 1/10 ) of a grain and most decent scales will do that. How could you or anyone reload without knowing that your scale is telling the truth ?

Offline Savage

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4397
Re: second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??
« Reply #6 on: October 04, 2011, 05:06:36 PM »
You mean I might have a Lying Scale? Horrors !!!!! :o

Still----------a set of check weights will ease your mind. Think of them as a scale polygraph-----!

Savage
An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last,

Offline wncchester

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3856
  • Gender: Male
Re: second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??
« Reply #7 on: October 08, 2011, 10:42:17 AM »
I often chuckle at the suggestion everyone 'needs' a set of scale check weights; that's just not so and very few of us have them.  Sure, we would all love to have scales accurate to +/-.000000001 grain but that would be very costly and, actually, it wouldn't add a thing to our reloads if we did.  Weighing a good quality jacketed bullet will tell us if our scale is close enough.  Undamaged beam scales do not change calibration over time, the calibration is cut into the beam by the maker and those beam notches never move.
 
Given a reasonable degree of pure accuracy, what reloaders seriously need is consistancy/repeatability.  Meaning, if we develop a load and the scale reads 38.5 grains when the charge is actually 38 grains (or 39) it won't matter a bit because what we really need is a high degree of repeatablity, next week or 10 years from now, so we can safely duplicate any load ever developed with that scale.  Any common reloading scale (beam, not digital) will easily do that if it's clean and undamaged. 
Common sense is an uncommon virtue

Offline Drilling Man

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3633
Re: second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??
« Reply #8 on: October 08, 2011, 11:26:04 AM »
  The 505 is my fav lower priced scale!  They are very accurate and easy to use, it just needs a bit of weight added to the "body" to keep the whole scale "weighted in place" better.
 
  DM

Offline strut64

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 61
Re: second hand Ohaus scale 5-0-5??
« Reply #9 on: October 10, 2011, 07:41:09 AM »
Bullet/scale test
The scale I have is a Hornady/PACIFIC 500Gr +/- 0.1 capacity scale. 
I used to have an OHaus 10-10 scale.  The scale was actually a 5-0-5 with an extended scale by hanging an additional weight on the beam.  The additional weight was a 250Gr weight provided by OHaus.  That scale is long gone due to having rusty pivots but the little brass scale weight is still around.  When I put the scale weight on the pan the scale indicated 250.2 Gr. 
Now who was right OHaus or Hornady?  The max error involved is
0.2/250 or +/-0.08%
That is pretty darn good for a instrument of its type and an OHaus 5-0-5 is the same sort of instrument with similar accuracy and precision.  However, trying to claim any precision greater than +/-  0.1 grain on any measurement is problematic at best due to the capacity of the scale with either OHaus or Hornady
For Example if attempting to weigh a charge of 50Gr for a 30-06 powder charge for example, the nominal weight of 50 is in reality 50 +/- 0.1Gr or about 0.2% possible error.
I have weighed several styles of bullet to check for deviations.
An example Sierra 53.0Gr match bullets,
Sum of deviations is +0.75Gr over 10 bullets thus +.075Gr and extreme spread is 0.1Gr.  Note this is well within the capacity of the scale and if used as a standard for would be well within the system accuracy potential. Any attempt to stretch precision is very problematic.  I hesitate to punch in all the measurements since I think this proves the point.