RCBS Customer Service?

General Firearms Reloading & Ammunition
1

NB: I’m following the ROE here, because I have tried to contact RCBS.

I bought a “Chargemaster Lite” a couple years ago, in anticipation of loading small batches of different powder charges for precision .308 rounds.

I’m enough of a Luddite to be skeptical of electronic scales, but based on RCBS’s reputation for good customer service, I took the risk. I opened the box and made sure that it turned on and calibrated itself, and then put it away, 'til last night.

Now I have two issues with RCBS:

  1. The dispenser doesn’t work, and

  2. RCBS’s customer service is AWOL.

I sent them an e-mail last night.

I know I should be patient and wait another day for a reply, but I tried to call today, anyway, thinking it might be easier to explain the problem over the phone.

RCBS’s customer service helpline is now “Vista Outdoor” customer service.
Worse, it goes straight to an announcement that says that they’re closed, and I should call back during business hours (7-7EST)…
It IS during business hours!

My issue: The dispenser never finishes. Example: I input 40.0 grains, and it dispenses 39.1 and stops. The “trickle” button does nothing but beep.
I’m good at following instructions, especially for something like this, and I did. I warmed it up thoroughly, and later restarted and re-calibrated it repeatedly. The same problem persists.

Another issue: I left the scale on last night, with the little cover over the pan, and I’m pretty sure it was at 39.1 grains.
This afternoon, it says 36.4 grains: 10% less!

This is really discouraging, because the automatic dispenser seemed like a real labor-saving gadget… Now I’m ordering a manual trickler. Really.

Damn.

2

Odd. I’ve only run the big chargemaster. My scale will only drift when a few kernels fall into the pan. It wants to rezero itself it seems.

Hopefully you can get someone helpful to respond. That’s definitely not the norm for chargemasters.

3

It’s a weird thing. I talked with a couple guys from my local gun club, and they have the bigger Chargemasters and the typical “over” problem, but nothing like this.

I think the tube may be binding in the tube seals, and/or there’s a problem with the motor that turns it, so that at low speeds it’s just not turning at all.

Most weird: It consistently pulls up short about one grain and just sits. If I then trickle in a half grain manually, so that it’s just a half-grain short, then the “stable” indicator flashes and it goes to work and slowly tops it up to the target weight.

Driven to distraction…

4

OK, finally got e-mails back from RCBS: two of them.

The second, from “Michael,” is ridiculous: He’s confused my case with an inability to get the scale to stabilize.
(No problem there… It actually works quite well as a digital scale.)

The first, from “Alicia D”, was actually helpful, because she sent me the RCBS “motor test” troubleshooting guide.
(Why doesn’t RCBS include this kind of thing in the manual? Or at least on their website?)

Basically, it looks like the motor is bad…

It’ll run at full or medium speed briefly, but then stops and won’t start again.
Turning the scale off and on yields another fraction of a second of runtime time, but that’s it.
It never runs on at slow or trickle speed.

RCBS is closed through New Years, and now I’m curious whether they’ll do anything to help me.

FWIW, the successor Chargemaster LINK is at Midway for $250, and there’s a RCBS $75 rebate, so that’s $175 plus tax, but I’ll be damned if I buy anything from RCBS ever again if they don’t take care of this.
If I decide that I can’t live without a powder dropper, then I’ll try a Lyman or a Hornady.

There’s a guy on AccurateShooter who replaced the motor in his:
https://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/rcbs-chargemaster-lite-problems.4022942/

Maybe for $10 worth of motors I’ll give that a try…

5

An update:

I had a couple more e-mails back’n’forth with RCBS’s tech support. I explained both that the dispenser motor is now dead as Dillinger and that this unit is waaaay out of warranty.

I heard from RCBS again today, and they’re going to stand by this… I’m sending in the dead unit, and they’re going to send me a new one.

I’m impressed.

6

Another follow-up:

I sent in my dead ChargeMaster on January 16th, and I received a brand-new one today… Wow.

Also, RCBS may belong to a big corporate conglomerate, but their tech support is still in Oroville: That’s where I sent mine back, and where the new one came from.

7

Did the new one come with the same problem? I ask it that way, what was the actual cause of the problem?

8

I confess that the new one is still in the box… I’ve been distracted.

The motor of the old one was DOA.

1 Like
9

As of May 2024, RCBS is owned by Hodgdon.

10

Whatever the reason, their CS is still pretty danged good…

I fired up the new machine, and it seems to work fine, so far.

I only used it as a scale (didn’t use the trickler), but it did fine at that.