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Recommend a good chronograph

garandman

Bad Advice for Free
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Minuteman
Nov 17, 2009
2,688
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Huntington WV
I've used several before. Typically I had the chrono within 5 feet of the muzzle. Often enuf, I'd get failure to read errors. I also had my range set up in the woods, so I'm guessing I wasn't getting enuf sunlight.

Your recommendations appreciated.
 
Magnetospeed hands down for me as well. I use this to calibrate my rifles shooting groups to 1000 yards and have not noticed it make a difference for group size for any of my rifles. No more having to worry about overcast weather, chrono placement, etc.

-Kyle ~ XLR
 
Magnetospeeds is the shit. I also though it would mess with the harmonics but it doesn't. It will read dead nuts on regardless of conditions.
 
Personally I think cronos are a waste of time. I've shot over Oehlers, and CED's but all I do anymore is guess about how fast my load is then put all the ballistic load data into shooter and shoot at 600yrds and 1k. Then I simply adjust my fps to line up my groups at those ranges. Once I've done this I shoot another group to make sure the numbers line up and then push it out to 1200 or so to verify.
 
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Magneto speed, not having to go down range to set it up and its small size fits in my range bag. Great piece of equipment.
 
Magneto speed v2 for me too. It makes load development so easy. I did not notice any change on group size but all my barrels are heavy contour.
 
I use a CED M2. I also shoot a bow so I can chrono arrows too. Can't do that with the magnathing.
 
Almost 200 Magneto's sold to date, not one complaint yet. These are fantastic units! We stock the V2 Versions, $350 shipped for SH members!

+1 on this. I bought one from MH as part of their GB - couldn't be happier.
 
Personally I think cronos are a waste of time. I've shot over Oehlers, and CED's but all I do anymore is guess about how fast my load is then put all the ballistic load data into shooter and shoot at 600yrds and 1k. Then I simply adjust my fps to line up my groups at those ranges. Once I've done this I shoot another group to make sure the numbers line up and then push it out to 1200 or so to verify.

If you're loading without a chrono you're loading blind. Velocity aside (becuase most shoot thrus don't read perfectly accurate) your ES is a very important thing to know when loading. You can have a load that groups great at short distance but have 18"+ of vertical spread at 1000 yards because of a shitty ES. A chrono will save you a lot of time and head scratching.

I trust the velocity readout on a shoot thru on the same day to see what a load is doing but I don't trust it to give an accurate velocity to run my dope from.
 
I don't have any experience shooting over a Magneto but I remember shooting over an Oehler and it was giving me readings of a rather large ES. After shooting a rather small group at 1K I decided to not bother with the numbers that were coming from the high end Oehler. If you have a custom barrel and you know how to reload for consistent long range shooting you really don't need one, but that's just my opinion. I've seen guys that develop loads for rich guys that want custom ammo for their rifles, and I've seen them get really frustrated with the numbers coming out of their chronographs so I guess it can go both ways. Here is a video of Mike Davidson of Gunwerks working with the real numbers and having success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFt_RGYTcao
 
I just bought an oehler 35P, I hope it's a good unit, from what I hear it has been for most people.
 
I asked a friend of mine who runs an ammo company this questions. His reply was none of them! He says he has shot through every commercial and even some high end industrial. He claims that they all lie.

Reverse engineering your actual hits at multiple distances using a ballistic calculator is the way to go. I use Shooter. Its the poo.

Hope this helps,
Ty