1500 chargemaster mods

[BUFF7MM]

I got to thinking after a few post in this thread: http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=166229 about some of the little glitches that were talked about when dealing with the RCBS 1500 Chargemaster combo. I never had any of the problems that most talked about with the exception of it being slow at dispensing a charge. I went looking around on the net to find some info on reprogramming the unit. I ran acrossed this on YouTube:



I made sure I wrote down the factory settings so I could put it back to factory specs if need be. I followed his discription of what he was doing, stopping the video after each new setting so I could make absolutely sure I was doing everything correctly. I then added the very scientific McDonald's straw upgrade.
After the 1500 restarted, I proceeded to calibrate the scale, added some IMR 4064 to the hopper and proceeded to test some different sized loads. The dispenser was spot on with 5 different charges, 10 of each charge were thrown to see the accuracy of the chargemaster. Now I had never had a problem before with either over or under charges, the differences I did notice was the speed in which the dispenser filled the scale pan, it seem to me to have cut charge times in half, I was impressed for sure. Now as for the McDonalds straw mod, I really didn't notice a difference.
I'm not trying to tell anybody that they should do this reprogram, but it definately makes charge times shorter. Here are the settings I used for my reprogram, I stayed with what is in the video except for the last one.
Factory setting.
HSP_A1 15.68
HSP_B1 3.42
HSP_C1 1.08
Upgrade setting
HSP_A1 10.00
HSP_B1 2.00
HSP_C1 .90
I didn't get a chance to try any ball or flake powder, but I'm sure they will work well with these also.

 

[Speed3]

Interested....might make the mods myself. You can be me guinea pig.

 

[BUFF7MM]

Interested....might make the mods myself. You can be me guinea pig.

BTW, my straw went in a lot harder than what it did on the video.

 

[skidmoe77]

I seen this mod when I first got mine. But I never changed it. I think I'm going to give it a try.

 

[outrider58]

This is good seeing as how Santa is bring me one for Christmas.

 

[Pinecone]

On mine, the straw mod and the castle top straw mod did little to help.

I did my own version. I took a pen barrel and cut longitudinal grooves on the inside. The grooves help break up the clumps, so in trickle mode, it dispenses one or two granuales at at time.

Reprogramming can really speed up dispensing.

 

[coopermania]

I sent a email a email to RCBS about my 30 year old Uni-Flow, Lyman about my Black powder #55 and Harrell Bros about any software , straw or ballpoint pen upgrades and this is the response I got.

RCBS....no response
Lyman.... no response
Harrell Bros.... They actually called me, 5 seconds into the call, Everyone was laughing and they thanked me for the fun. Good times had by all..

 

[BUFF7MM]

I might change again to
7.00
2.00
.50
Tinkering with it these numbers might work a little better.

 

[noylj]

The only time mine is slow to dispense a charge is if the charge weight is under 4 gn—then, it never gets out of trickle speed. Not sure if trying to change that would actually work for such small charges.
Other than that, dispensing times keep up with my 1050 quite well. Of course, mine is one of the first ones sold, so it wasn't "improved" like the new ones...