Setting a tracking arm heavy will not hurt your records - it may wear out your cart slightly faster. I have tried this on mine and a friend's decks:
Set to twice the recommended weight. 5g, man, really? Yes. Really. Now do it. And btw, are you sure you are using the Shure stylus gauge you bought off needledoctor (you did right? You aren't using a postal scale or something?) and reading it right? Queue and wait to see if it mistracks. If it does, is there something visually off at this point? Noticeable wobble, etc? If so, figure out what's up with the wobble. Is the sound clear or harsh or really just funky or a little dull (the most probable outcome if everything is going well). If it still jumps but looks fine try a different difficult track. I like The Kills 45 EP "Rooster", you probably will not. Does it track ok, and the other one not? Sound a little dull but basically ok? You are in luck at this point or: if not, call Harry and Sheila and chew their ear off until they help you. If there's no wobble you may actually have a problem. There is one classic VPI scenario that has to do with the motor being bad and generating too much torque but I have only heard of this happening to two people, which is not many when you consider how popular the Scout is, and for good reason. Of course, you could keep increasing the force, or it may be those two pressings. If you don't have a wobble I recommend calling VPI anyway and saying: Hey, was that really a good idea the no counterweight thing? Not that it is actually ever a real issue - I basically believe the VPI press on this although I do hear the occasional story here on 'gon, but it always gets worked out ok.
This will probably fix it, so start dialing the force down to normal afterwards, in half g increments or rotations or however your setup works. On my spacearm a half turn of the allen wrench is about half a gram as well. You would be surprised, but often a cart works fine after that, on all the bad jumpy tracks in the collection, so it can't be because the record got ruined or "dug out". And most people who have been around a while will tell you a little heavy is better than a little light, because setting it light means it bangs around if it jumps out, but more importantly it bangs around in the grooves making dents in the groove wall and therefore distortion. I actually think the cantilever support and the tonearm just never quite get into alignment and "dance right" if they don't push on each other a little first - this is doubly important in a good unipivot like your VPI.
