VTF gauge

Eking, I wouldn’t worry about a few thousandths of a gram. Ideally it shouldn’t matter where you make the measurements. But I wouldn’t blame your scale for the tiny deviation.

Should have said few “hundredths” not thousandths. Outside say 1.75, inside about 1.72?

Before people knock the River Stone gage maybe try one first......

I have verified it's total accuracy repeatedly with known calibrated weights similar to a jeweler uses.

Oh and it's still on same battery it came with.

Good for you nandric. Many people do not. They assume their new gauge is accurate. Uberwaltz also checks his gauge. As for whether or not you have to check the VTF at exactly platter height dependson the geometry of the arm particularly what plane the vertical bearings are in. Ideally they should be at the level of the record. 

I own a number of digital scales. For me, the Shure (which I remember using as far back as the 70s) is easily the worst.
Then there is a very common stylus force gauge made in China and rebranded by everyone from Acoustech ($79 at Acoustic Sounds), Audio Additives ($49 at Music Direct ) to, well you name it, which is pretty bad providing wildly differing results within seconds of each other (Issues with magnets in lomcs?). I purchased a few different versions of that model. They were all unreliable.
Unhappy with the above, I purchased a Clearaudio Weight Watcher which was better but awkward to use in my set up and also did not measure the stylus force at the level of a record on the turntable. (The new version appears to have been improved with a measuring spot.) Finally, I purchased an Ortofon DS-3 which does everything right at what appears to be the average thickness of a record on the table. Expensive--but worth it.