RCBS M500 Scale

Tim1

Well-Known Member
Gent's,

I'm thinking about purchasing one of the M500 scales. Does anyone have any first hand experience that they'd like to share and in particular how effective is the magnetic dampening system?

Thanks for any advice.

Kind regards,

Tim
 
I've had a chance to have a good look at the new RCBS M500 scale. It's a simple two poise scale, a direct replacement for the 502. It's very much the same as the 502/505 scales with the usual RCBS floating Agate bearings and exactly the same knife edge and pan hanger system with adequate magnetic damping

Although made in China I feel it has a better finish than recent Chinese/Mexican made RCBS scales. It's a 500 grain scale and although the base is cast metal it's quite light weight.
Two things make it different than the now obsolete 502 and 505 scales. The copper damper blade is fixed in line with the beam and the weight graduations are printed on both sides of the beam, this is obviously useful if you're left handed.

The shape of the base makes it a good choice if you are thinking of using it with an auto trickler because the sensor can be positioned well away from the fulcrum point to aid accuracy.

One thing I found that could be improved is that the zero mark on the scale is about 6mm from the actual beam, this could possibly lead to parallax errors.


I'll do a video review of this scale when I get chance. Here's picture of one that I made an experimental beam for. This beam weighs from 0-70 grains and has replaceable razor knife edges.

 
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Thanks for the input 1066 which is appreciated. Do you consider the magnetic dampening useful or would you put it down to a gimmick?

Kind regards,

Tim
 
All reloading scales made since the late 1960's have been magnetically damped, some better than others. Prior to that, reloading scales were either not damped at all or were oil damped. Oil damped scales work well but are not so practical as magnetically damped scales. Non damped scales can be very accurate but are a real pain to use. They are ok if you usually throw all your charges from a measure and just need to weigh a charge now and again but not if you want to regularly use the scale.

No non-damped or oil damped reloading scales have been made more than 40 years although you do see them around second hand sometimes. I have a few of both.

Here are some of my beam scales:

This is an old, very well made oil damped scale:


and here's a few more:
 
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