2025 BigJimFish Review / Article blog: More 350L, Garmin and Athlon Chronos, Leopold Mark 4HD, BurstFire, Field Optics Research, videos and visits
- By BigJimFish
- The Armory
- 10 Replies
Update 9–12-2025
I did an all day range day at the long-range facility Wednesday. Part of this was slated to be tripod shooting practice with the 350L to get a better handle on what I think is reasonable for ethical deer kill distance all factors, including myself, considered. Since I brought my dad along, I also planned to get a lot of photo and video for upcoming 350 articles including as much through the lens trace video as possible though the Vector X binos. Boy did we get some good video of that. There aren’t many trace videos on YouTube and the ones I have seen are generally so bad that you can’t make anything out. We got some good ones though and I plan on making up a good compilation video. People are always asking me what trace looks like and how to spot it. This should be of help both for that and for seeing the bullet itself as many of the videos show the fat, fairly slow, 350L bullet pretty clearly whereas other show the trace disturbance from a faster, smaller, .223 as well. I also got some video of .223, .308, and 350L on the same targets under the same lighting conditions. It’s pretty interesting to see the trace difference and the huge difference in splash on the target.
Syncing up the Calypso AB mini ultrasonic wind meter and the Vectronix Vector X binos to base the windage calculations in applied ballistics on live wind readings
In a big surprise, when I was setting up software for the range trip, I updated the Vectronix Vector X, the AB Quantum app, and the Calypso AB ultrasonic wind meter and found that the wind meter now pairs with the Vector X binos and works as more than a stand alone wind meter. When paired with the binos the Calypso wind readings are used as the basis for the windage calculation and the output updates each time you range the target. I have had this wind meter for around a year now as I was sent one in beta. It was a while before the first iterations of the supporting software (early april for AB Quantum with that functionality) were released and I did not have luck in getting the AB meter to work at that time with any of my AB binos though I recall it saying it paired with the Sig binos at that time. That pairing didn’t seem to actually work to produce calculations based on active wind readings and the wind meter didn’t even pair with the Vectronix or Leica binos at that time. Every once and a while I have tried it out wind meter again but this was the first time all the software and hardware clicked. Not only did it work, but it was also seamless and easy. The binoculars ever re-acquired the calypso wind meter without issue each time they were awakened from sleep mode. It was pretty exciting. Now I need to dig into the specifics of exactly if/how all of this works with multi-target range cards for competitive shooters. For someone looking to range a target with an AB equipped rangefinder and then shoot it using AB calculated data based a wind reading captured at the time of ranging, the system is very easy and simple to use though.
The view through the Vectronix Vector X binos while connected to the Calypso AB miniultrasonic wind meter. The binoculars display “CLPS” for the wind source.
I did an all day range day at the long-range facility Wednesday. Part of this was slated to be tripod shooting practice with the 350L to get a better handle on what I think is reasonable for ethical deer kill distance all factors, including myself, considered. Since I brought my dad along, I also planned to get a lot of photo and video for upcoming 350 articles including as much through the lens trace video as possible though the Vector X binos. Boy did we get some good video of that. There aren’t many trace videos on YouTube and the ones I have seen are generally so bad that you can’t make anything out. We got some good ones though and I plan on making up a good compilation video. People are always asking me what trace looks like and how to spot it. This should be of help both for that and for seeing the bullet itself as many of the videos show the fat, fairly slow, 350L bullet pretty clearly whereas other show the trace disturbance from a faster, smaller, .223 as well. I also got some video of .223, .308, and 350L on the same targets under the same lighting conditions. It’s pretty interesting to see the trace difference and the huge difference in splash on the target.
Syncing up the Calypso AB mini ultrasonic wind meter and the Vectronix Vector X binos to base the windage calculations in applied ballistics on live wind readings
In a big surprise, when I was setting up software for the range trip, I updated the Vectronix Vector X, the AB Quantum app, and the Calypso AB ultrasonic wind meter and found that the wind meter now pairs with the Vector X binos and works as more than a stand alone wind meter. When paired with the binos the Calypso wind readings are used as the basis for the windage calculation and the output updates each time you range the target. I have had this wind meter for around a year now as I was sent one in beta. It was a while before the first iterations of the supporting software (early april for AB Quantum with that functionality) were released and I did not have luck in getting the AB meter to work at that time with any of my AB binos though I recall it saying it paired with the Sig binos at that time. That pairing didn’t seem to actually work to produce calculations based on active wind readings and the wind meter didn’t even pair with the Vectronix or Leica binos at that time. Every once and a while I have tried it out wind meter again but this was the first time all the software and hardware clicked. Not only did it work, but it was also seamless and easy. The binoculars ever re-acquired the calypso wind meter without issue each time they were awakened from sleep mode. It was pretty exciting. Now I need to dig into the specifics of exactly if/how all of this works with multi-target range cards for competitive shooters. For someone looking to range a target with an AB equipped rangefinder and then shoot it using AB calculated data based a wind reading captured at the time of ranging, the system is very easy and simple to use though.
The view through the Vectronix Vector X binos while connected to the Calypso AB miniultrasonic wind meter. The binoculars display “CLPS” for the wind source.
