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Paul Leverman

At the reloading bench, prepping brass as per the usual. All the same tools, dies, methods, etc. Basically, nothing new. I was using my electronic verniers to measure neck wall thickness. On one case, the reading was way out of whack, so I cleaned the verniers, reset to zero, and remeasured. Still a very strange number - 0.003". Now, we all know that this is impossible. So I grabbed another different case and measured it - 0.0095". OK, so the verniers still work, good. I go back to the odd case, and have a look down the inside of the neck. Nothing unusual, but I run a brush down it anyway. Try the verniers again and yes, 0.001" - 0.0035". What the hell? Now I get real close so I can see what's going on in the neck while the calipers are still inside the case. The read-out starts going wild. From zero to 6.777" or some other bizarre number. First thought was to change the battery. I laid the calipers down on the bench to find another battery, and it re-zeroed itself. On a whim (I thought the battery cover may be loose) I picked them back up and they went nuts again. But as I went to lay them down, they settled down. So I shook the shit out of them, thinking something was loose inside. Nothing. Really bizarre. As I am handling them, I notice that the erratic numbers change whenever I move to the right and left, not up and down. To make a very long story (this is the Reader's Digest version, believe me) it turns out that the closer the calipers get to the fluorescent bulb over my bench, the more bizarre the read-outs become. I tested this with various lights and lamps throughout the house and sure enough, it was the fluorescents that caused it.

Ran the same scenario with a second set of electronics that I had, and the same thing. I haven't tried it with my shop set, as they are out in the garage and it's snowing, and I don't feel like going outside.