Chronograph Reccomendations

[woods89]

Another happy Magnetospeed Sporter user here, but I've never had anything else, so who knows. It is good to check the tension on the strap every 10 rounds or so, as it can loosen.
It usually moves my groups up a couple inches at 100 yds. I think it opens them up slightly also but it's a little hard to say for sure....

 

[6mm Remington]

Competition Electronics ProChrono Digital Chronograph

The ProChrono Digital accurately measures the velocity of almost anything that shoots with its large shooting area, simple setup, popular features, and...

www.midwayusa.com

Nothing fancy but it works and it's accurate. I like mine and have had it for quite a few years now. Pro Chrono gets my vote.
I even used it on a pellet rifle, and have shot arrows through it with my recurve, and it worked fine.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I’ve been using a MS sporter as well, it’s very convieinient but eventually I’ll get a labradar.

 

[Harvey_NW]

Does the mangento speed change the group size or just point of impact? Typically how far off are they?

I've gotten anywhere from 2-10" POI shift at 100yds It will throw groups off too on standard or sporter barrels at least. At this point I've accepted the fact that I have to waste ammo to get velocity, and I will be purchasing the ProChrono mentioned above because even if it doesn't work every time at least it's not messing up your harmonics and giving you false data.

 

[Rieckman]

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1020438152?pid=988434

I have this and it's worked great for me. App stores data on my phone and I can email a spreadsheet to myself.

 

[briscoetab]

There are only two chronograph that I would consider and that is magnetospeed and Labradar. They cost quite a bit but to me the other chronograph just don’t cut it. All the other chronographs are a pain to set up and are finicky. Bryan Litz tested most of the popular chronographs and many of them had accuracy variations up to 25-50 FPS, although some of those had decent precision which is more important for me but magnetospeed was the most precise and accurate. The labradar wasn’t out at the time but was later tested and was similar to the magnetospeed.

I had an optical chronograph in the past and it was extremely frustrating at times and I never completely trusted the readings which was my biggest issue.

For me personally I would either wait and get magnetospeed or labradar or go without a chronograph and get my velocity from shooting and figuring actual drops, which you still need to do to verify chronograph readings anyways.

I have the labradar and love it and have used magnetospeed and liked it as well. I’ve compared them side by side on reading a couple times and they were within 3fps of each other.

 

[DBuck]

Thanks for all the info, was just thinking to myself I need a chronograph and low and behold I hop on here and here it is. Great site. Gonna try out the low end Magnetospeed for what its worth. Thanks

 

[tdhanses]

Another happy magnetospeed user here.

 

[briscoetab]

Wanted to add (for some who may be reading this thread without a chronograph) for me the major benefit of a chronograph is for load development or possibly troubleshooting an issue like bad fouling or something similar. I really don’t see much benefit past that, it is nice to have a starting point on velocity when verifying drop data but honestly with the ballistic programs out there you really only waste a few bullets without a chronograph in my opinion.
If I wasn’t heavily into reloading I wouldn’t spend the money on a chronograph unless I just had money laying around but that is just me. For troubleshooting barrel issues the new cheaper bore scopes are more valuable than the chronograph in my opinion and for like 60 dollars or something (can’t remember what I paid).

 

[DAOutfitters208]

There are only two chronograph that I would consider and that is magnetospeed and Labradar. They cost quite a bit but to me the other chronograph just don’t cut it. All the other chronographs are a pain to set up and are finicky. Bryan Litz tested most of the popular chronographs and many of them had accuracy variations up to 25-50 FPS, although some of those had decent precision which is more important for me but magnetospeed was the most precise and accurate. The labradar wasn’t out at the time but was later tested and was similar to the magnetospeed.

I had an optical chronograph in the past and it was extremely frustrating at times and I never completely trusted the readings which was my biggest issue.

For me personally I would either wait and get magnetospeed or labradar or go without a chronograph and get my velocity from shooting and figuring actual drops, which you still need to do to verify chronograph readings anyways.

I have the labradar and love it and have used magnetospeed and liked it as well. I’ve compared them side by side on reading a couple times and they were within 3fps of each other.

Can you elaborate on calculating actual drops? The range around here will only let you hang a target at 100 and 200yds. Everything past that is steel. What do you do?

 

[rayporter]

one neat thing about the LR is you can get a muzzle velocity and a 100yd velocity. this will tell you if your BC is correct or if the data on your drop table from your ballistics program is correct.

 

[Ram94]

one neat thing about the LR is you can get a muzzle velocity and a 100yd velocity. this will tell you if your BC is correct or if the data on your drop table from your ballistics program is correct.

To be fair, you can also do this with an optical chronograph depending on how confident a shooter you are haha

 

[briscoetab]

one neat thing about the LR is you can get a muzzle velocity and a 100yd velocity. this will tell you if your BC is correct or if the data on your drop table from your ballistics program is correct.

No you can’t. Velocity out to 100yards will give you a bc at 100 yds which isn’t what manufacturers give you, it’s an average across a wide velocity range or an average from short range and some longer ranges. More and more manufacturers I believe are getting BC number from doppler radar. BC’s inside 100 yards by itself is pretty useless for long range shooting data. As velocity drops BC changes/drops as well, if you used a BC at 100 yards to calculate a BC your drops will be completely off.

The ability to record velocity out to 100 yards is pretty useless really for center fire bullets, it might be useful for rimfire (bullets that are slowing down significantly at 100yds), pellets or bows. As far as checking velocity at 100 yards you can do that but really all that is going to do is verify something you should be able to verify regardless.

All you really need is an accurate muzzle velocity. After that the only thing you can do really is verify ballistic program data with actual drop data. Which the majority of time you are going to have to do some tweaking of BC or velocity.

That’s the reason the custom bullets drops curves that applied ballistics put out are pretty cool because Bryan Litz has shot/tested and gotten actual velocities at different yardages out pretty far for many popular bullets.

 

[briscoetab]

Can you elaborate on calculating actual drops? The range around here will only let you hang a target at 100 and 200yds. Everything past that is steel. What do you do?

Can you see impacts on the steel, tell exactly where the bullet hit or good berms behind targets? Are you using factory ammo?

If you are using factory ammo just start out with the velocity stated by the manufacturer and plug that into a ballistic calculator. I use shooter and ABMobile but jbm ballistics works too. In your situation I would say chronograph would definitely be beneficial.

I forget I’m lucky and have all the space to shoot that I want and have not been to any kind of public-range in over 20yrs. If I was in your shoes and I was shooting factory ammo without a chronograph I would get my zero perfectly set at 100yrds. The factory ammo should give you a starting point for velocity, in my experience that number could be off as far as +- 100fps but it can still give you a starting point.

Use the factory velocity and use that number in a ballistics program to get a drop estimates. If you have decent rifle and can shoot decent (shoot MOA, preferably a little smaller) you could then shoot at 200 yards and get really good 4-5 shot group and use the center of that group for the drop and compare it to what the ballistics app gave you if it is off adjust the velocity up or down to get it to match you 200yrd drop. You shouldn’t have to adjust it more than that 100fps up or down, if it’s more than that likely something is wrong. The problem with doing this is at 200 yards is 100fps is only going to equate to 1/2” or so, your group needs to be good. Normally I wouldn’t do this but since it’s a public range they may frown upon just throwing rounds down range, if not then I would skip the 200 yard group because honestly it might be useless, maybe just shoot one shot to verify it’s close to the drop the program gives you.

I would then go to 400 yds and use the drop from the ballistics app to get close and then shoot and adjust to get your drop but you need to adjust until your actually hitting exactly where your aiming, record your drop in MOA/MILs that you had to adjust up from you 100 yard zero. Do this again at 600 and then again at 800-1000. The more points you have, the further you can shoot, the more accurate you are on exact adjustments the better. You will then enter the adjustments you made and the distance into a velocity calibration in the ballistics app and it will give you a velocity based off your actual drop data. Make sure the distance you use to the target are accurate too.

What’s the purpose? If you got good drop data then the velocity you got should be accurate and now you can use that velocity in the app to get drop data in different weather conditions and elevations. The drop data you gathered by shooting is only good for the specific weather and air pressure that you gathered the data in.

A chronograph definitely make the process a little simpler but you still have to shoot several shots at a few different ranges to make sure the ballistics app information matches real world drops and many times it won’t and you will have to adjust the velocity or BC some.

I made it seem very complicated but it’s actually very simple. Don’t know if I explained that very well and perhaps I explained something you weren’t even asking. Sorry, if that didn’t help.

 

[dla]

Brig your 22lr rifle with you when setting up your optical.

I use an old crony alpha master. I only use it when developing a load and I'm so amazing that it works for me (I think I read the instructions or something).
My crony only comes out 1 or twice a year. It remembers a 20 shot string, and calculates high/low/average/extreme spread/standard deviation. Remote display. $120.

Turn it upside down looking at a white tote lid when the lighting just wont cooperate.

 

[Middleofnowhere]

Where are the magnetospeed and labradar made?
I see the Competition Electronics ProChrono Is made in USA.
I’m in the market and would purchase the “older/lesser” technology to save sending a few bucks to

 

[briscoetab]

Brig your 22lr rifle with you when setting up your optical.

I use an old crony alpha master. I only use it when developing a load and I'm so amazing that it works for me (I think I read the instructions or something).
My crony only comes out 1 or twice a year. It remembers a 20 shot string, and calculates high/low/average/extreme spread/standard deviation. Remote display. $120.

Turn it upside down looking at a white tote lid when the lighting just wont cooperate.

Its not a matter of not working. I have an optical chronograph too and as far as showing a number on the screen that is close to what it should be, it does that. Ive also ran it back to back with another optical chronograph and the numbers were off, cannot remember how much but it was enough to make me question the readings. That was when I read Bryan Litz book modern advancement in long range shooting. He didn’t test every chronograph but all the big name ones at the time and a few of the popular cheaper ones.

Basically his findings were is the SD for the some of the cheaper chronographs were acceptable but the accuracy was pretty bad. In my opinion I want something that has the best SD with the accuracy within an acceptable range and that the problem, many of the cheaper chronographs are close to 50fps off from the true velocity.

The other issue is in order to get those low SD on the cheaper chronograph the lighting and bullet path through the chronograph has to be the same every time, which can be difficult.

When I was using my optical chronograph I had two major issue that drove me nuts. I primarily use my chronograph for load development. I would go out to where I would shoot and the weather would be perfect clear skies. Typically if I was going to test loads it would probably take me an hour because I would have probably 20-30 rounds and would let my barrel cool some between strings/shots. Several times I had clouds roll in and the chronograph start giving readings that were definitely off or it would not read at all. So at that point any velocity data that I had gathered was trash because I could not compare it across all the loads. The other issue is with the large screens they catch wind like crazy and here in West Texas there is a good chance of wind, it will cause similar issues the wind would start blowing and shaking the chronograph and throw off readings. Sometimes could go with out the screens but a lot of time I couldn’t.

Overall the optical chronographs are finicky like I said earlier and introduce lots of variables. If you just want to shoot through one to get a velocity the cheap one will work but for me using it to gather velocities for load work ups they do not work. If I didn’t need info for load development I wouldn’t own one, I would just calculate velocity from actual drops because basically that’s what I do now. I start with a chronograph reading but typically the velocity still needs small tweaks to get everything to match up perfectly, it’s easier with the initial starting velocity being very close but can be accomplished with relative ease without a starting velocity.


Those issues are what originally lead me to looking at magnetospeed and labradar. I have not had any issues with my labradar. Setup is way easier/faster, information is much more reliable and don’t have to worry about weather other than a rainstorm blowing in. Even if that happens you can pack it up and continue where you left off. With an optical chronograph when you pack it up then start again the bullet path and setup are going to be off slightly which gives you slightly different readings. That does not happen with labradar or the magnetospeed from what I have seen. I have compared my labradar with my optical chronograph , a magnetospeed and one other optical chronograph and the most consistent readings were by far the magnetospeed and labradar.

 

[marshland_max]

I've been using a Magnetospeed as well for a couple of years. Has worked great for me so far, but it does miss a lot on my 7mm rem mag. Only rifle I have that it does that with. I m happy with it, but Id also like to upgrade at some point.

 

[Cornholeo]

Magnetospeed is hard to beat and the price for the sporter @ around 160.00 is well worth it. Being able to mount on suppressor is a plus for me and I like it saving string info to pull back up later.

 

[charliehorse27]

I’ve gone from a Chrony Beta to a Magnetospeed to finally a Labradar. I got tired of the POI shift with a Magnetospeed and no easy ability to use it with a suppressor, or large brake. Only downside thus far to the Labradar was a little difficulty getting it to pick up some shots. Bought a recoil trigger for it, and problem solved.