Thanks Rally. I watched some Youtube and something's fouled up for sure.

Just thought of something else I've seen a couple times. Make sure the pins the beam balances on are straight and not bent. I've seen two cases where they were bent by people dropping stuff on them while they were on a loading bench.
Those really are wonderful scales, and will last several lifetimes if you treat them well and keep them out of the weather/ corrosion free. I have electronic scales too but always rely on the balance beam scales when something is amiss. Electronic scales have some bad habits too, like returning to a reading via memory when doing long strings of the same measurement, and losing zero. Not a bad idea to check one against the other anyway.

I discovered if I add 9.3 grains of table salt to the silver weight dipper, then it zeros out. (with the gold dipper on too.) So it is off significantly somehow.

Wow, you are very fortunate to have survived without injury.

Long ago a friend was new to reloading. He proudly gave me a box of hand-loaded .30-30 ammo. His grandson even more proudly said “We filled the cases with gunpowder so they would be extra powerful “. I thanked the friend and more importantly thanked the grandson! I threw them in a farm pond somewhere.

Followed this whole thread with interest. First we were talking about a powder SCALE that was suspect and then it switched to a powder MEASURE.Looks like we are back to the scales again.
Rally is correct-either the scale balances out at zero or it doesn't. I have owned 2 of this very model and they are stellar. They DO have to be treated as though they were a Swiss watch to prevent damage.

Ya, when I got this whole shebang the scales were rolling around inside a box. Not surprised that something is amiss. I think someone took the silver dipper apart and removed some weight, or the whole silver dipper is from a different scales.

Gary , again , good thread.
I bet a lot of reloaders are looking over their gear and thinking a lot more when they are reloading.

Safety first , last and always.

Thank you again for posting this thread.

I use a Lyman #55 and tried to duplicate what Gary did. What I came up with is that he probably loaded closer to 15 gr than the 10 he thought or the 5 he wanted. A testament to the robust construction of modern firearms that he walked away, basically unharmed

Ric,
I'm not sure 15 grs of 231 would go in a .45 ACP case, if so,
it would be seriously compressed also.

Gary,
Could you put that scale on a flat surface and take a close up picture of it then post it here. Curiosity is killing this cat. LOL
RCBS had several different powder pans for their scales, but I'm not sure if that is the correct pan for your scale. I think it is suppose to have the same pan as the 5-10 scale, which is smaller and narrower. That's just a guess on my part, but your pan doesn't look like an RCBS pan. The wrong pan would make a big difference also. Maybe do an internet search for that model scale and see what the pan looks like.

Think I figured it out! Your pan is missing the tab/ handle your suppose to use to pick the pan up off the scale with. That may be why you can zero by adding such a small amount of salt. Not a problem if you have the piece that was broken off (I broke mine 10 years ago) you just put the handle on the part the pan sets on.

Gary,
This is what your pan should look like. It’s upside down in the picture because
The handle is broken off and the only way I could get a good picture of what it should look like.

You are right Rally! Id have never seen it. Thank you. Been pulling on my brain too.

That tab weighs 9.3 grains. 15 grains is one gram. That's delicate.

Since you don't have the tab that was broken off, you could just add the appropriate amount of lead shot with the rest ,in the silver pan the powder pan sets on. There are 7000 grains in a pound, remember that, and you'll use that measurement if you reload or cast bullets, sooner or later. Gives you an idea how many loads you can get out of a pound of powder, or bullets out of a pound of lead.

And Rally for the win! Good detective work guys.