Need help zeroing my lyman 500 beam scale

I know this is not rocket science so maybe my scale is defective or I'm just doing something wrong. Here is what the kit came with. It has a silver tray, copper colored try, and a weight that does not indicate what weight it is??? So I put on he copper colored tray per instructions and have both slides on zero. Now this should read zero on flat ground unless I'm missing something? WEll it doesn't? Now what I can say is I think the scale might be ok because if I weight out the copper tray plus a 55gr winchester 223 bullet and subtract the tray weight it is dead nuts on 55gr? So can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Also how much of a difference in grains can I expect to see between bullets in a batch? Say I have 1000 winchester 9mm 115gr what is the range in grains? Thanks
 
Re: Need help zeroing my lyman 500 beam scale

You probably have a tare screw on it and a level screw, also my old RCBS beam balance has lead shot in it that's in a little enclosure in the pan hangar.

1) Level surface, level the balance body
2) Use shot or lead dust or something to get pretty close to set
3) Use tare nut or screw to fine tune it to 0.00 grains

This should be about all you have to do.
 
Re: Need help zeroing my lyman 500 beam scale

I have never used that scale but I dont think it would be much different than my RCBS 10-10 scale. And as such you need to set the scale on a level surface set the scale counterweights to zero and set the powder pan on the holder and adjust the level screw until the scale reads zero. Hopefully that makes scence much easier to do than explain. Also on my 10-10 the check weight weighs 250 grains.

Mike