Fun with my reloading scale

I’m getting into reloading ammunition for my .45 ACP, and one of the tools I’ve had to pick up has been a scale to weigh out powder in grains, a very small unit of measure, one pound of Winchester 231 gunpowder would make 1400 cartridges at a 5 grain load weight

So, after I set my reloading press up and began to reload load ammo, I got out 3 decent rounds before my used Lee Progressive 1000 press crashed on me, it bound up on the deprime/resize die, the carrier jammed up and stayed stick on the resize die, it looks like the set screw holding the carrier on the ram loosened up enough to come off the ram, I need to get a hex bolt driver and tighten it back down

anyway, I’ve been weighing small items to see what they would weigh in grains;

Winchester large pistol primer (unfired); 4.6 Gn (.011 Oz)
Large pistol primer (fired); 4.2Gn (.010 Oz)
U.S. Penny (1960) 48.0 Gr (.109 Oz)
U.S. Penny (2006) 38.3 Gr (.087 Oz) (cheap newfangled pennies!)
U.S. Nickel (1985) 77.5 Gn (.177 Oz)
U.S. Nickel (1999) 76.7 Gn (.175 Oz)
U.S. Dime (1975) 35.3 Gn (.080 Oz)
U.S. Dime (1999) 34.6 Gn (.079 Oz)
U.S. Quarter (1965) 86.6 Gn (.198 Oz)
U.S. Quarter (Maine 2003) 87.7 Gn (.200 Oz)
U.S. paper dollar (current value, .03¢ :wink: ) 15.4 Gn (.035 Oz)

325 Mg asprin tablet (coated) 6.5 Gn (.015 Oz)
Alkaline AAA battery 174.5 Gn (.399 Oz)
Lithium AAA battery 114.8 Gn (.262 Oz)

Citibank MasterCard 69.9 Gn (.160 Oz)

Single pea seed 2.9 Gr (.006 Oz)

X-acto knife blade 10.6 Gn (.024 Oz)

Why yes, I was grabbing random crap off my desk and weighing it, why do you ask? :wink:

Something’s off a little.

If a Maine Quarter is 87.7 Gn then a regular 1965 Quarter should be 86.8, and the 1960 penny should be 47.8.

Does this affect the loads your doing?

I’ve mentioned before that I’m in the scale biz and we get some pretty exotic stuff in from time to time.

Picture a filter balance that has a 2.1g capacity. A penny on the scale platform is seriously overloading it! Those are good for measuring fingerprints and air boyancy demonstrations.

How about a 2x3 foot platform that weighs up to 150kg in 0.1gram grads? Those are great for weighing yourself before & after lunch to see just how much you ate… to within 100 milligrams.