Chronograph!

[oldbillthundercheif]

I own a lot of firearms with non-standard length barrels and am sick of guessing about velocity. I need a chrony.

Are there any brands that rule the field? Are there any I should stay away from?

Cost is a factor but I am notoriously unwilling to sacrifice precision for dollars.

[hodaka]

If you can find one is really good. I understand that they are no longer producing consumer models, but I could be mistaken. I've owned mine for about 10 years with zero problems. I've even managed to not shoot the screens.

[cloudcroft]

The "Shooting Chrony Alpha Master Chronograph" at www.midwayusa.com has gotten pretty good customer-reviews:


http://www.midwayusa.com/esearch.exe...in+Search.y=16


-- John D.

[RERICK]

I have the Gamma master chrony.It has more features than I will ever use.It works well and it is easy to set up.The only complaint is that you really need to read the directions a few times to really understand how to use all the features that it has.Or maybe I'm just a little slow.Either way it works just fine and it appears to be accurate.Having a printer with it saves all the writing down on paper each time you shoot off a round.It is very compact so it is easy to carry to and from the range.And like I said it is easy to set up.If I had to do it again I would have no problem with purchasing it again.

[Voyager AL]

I bought the economy model Chrony brand at Sportsmans Warehouse for 69 dollars. Nothing fancy, and they dont work at indoor ranges unless ya get the overhead light module. Its all i need for outdoor range shooting. I found out, by comparing 22lr bulets, that WWB was far superior to all the others,and the cheapest. If ya dont need the memory feature, or printout, its a fine one.

[arkie2]

I got a Chrony F-1 on sale at Midway for less than $70. It's not fancy but works great. You'll have to pick up a tripod. Got mine (a camera tripod) at Wally world for $27. Then there's the battery! I'm up and running for less than $100. You do have to record your results manually unless you want to spend a lot more money on a printer.

[ZeroJunk]

I have the cheap Chrony.When I work up a new load I'll go in the back yard and fire a couple through it into the ground.Tells me what I need to know.

[Unclenick]

I have the now-discontinued Oehler 35P and a CED Millenium, both. My dad has one of the Shooting Chrony models. In afternoon sun, the SC produces results that are consistently about 200 fps higher than the Oehler or the CED. I don't know if dad's SC is a fluke? I don't mean to single out the company, given the popularity of their products, but as an electrical engineer it bothers me that their web site gives an accuracy specification that equals the oscillator clock precision. That fails to consider screen trigger sensitivity variation or delays. It just isn't possible to achieve that precision with real world lighting conditions. I'm sure this specification is the doing of their marketers rather than their design engineer, but I have to take all their technical expertise and claims with a grain of salt because of it, not knowing who was responsible for the numbers?

This year I added the CED Millenium chronograph to my gear. It agrees extremely well with the Oehler, typically to within 5 or 6 fps. I use one chronograph near and one at the target to get velocity loss data for calculating ballistic coefficients. The RSI website (one CED retailer) describes a German military ballistics lab evaluation of chronometers, done to determine whether these devices would be useful to add to military armorer's equipment or not? They used doppler radar to measure the bullet's speed from the muzzle forward. The Oehler and the CED Millenium were the only two units found to agree with the radar well under the artificial light conditions used. Within 0.3%, if I recall correctly? That doesn't mean they will be the only accurate ones under other conditions, but given my dad's experience, I am inclined to expect it could be so under more than one lighting condition.

My guess is the Kurzzeit unit is very good, too, and probably wasn't yet available when the German lab tests were done. Their PV-21 is constructed to be a lab-grade instrument itself, but at $730.00 a copy, isn't inside everyone's budget.

Nick

[amamnn]

A "friend" shot my oheler and I ended up with a Shooting Chrony Beta Master that I can connect to my computer. I can't really say the Oheler was better except that the chrony folks need to learn something about ergonomics and human nature as concerns the "intuitive use" of controls. Once I rewrote their instructions into american english after attempting to memorize them, the Chrony works just fine for me.

[rem33]

Unclenick has a informed post as always, but for me it created more questions than answered.
I am concidering a chronograph, Shooting Chrony's are everywhere at quite reasonable prices but now I am leary. Looking at Midway's web site I see there are others in the same price range as the Shooting Chrony;s but how does a guy know if they are accurate and will not be 200 fps off in the sun also?
Maybe the extra cost of a CED is money well spent.
I want/need to purchase one, giving me years or service without wondering if it is accurate.
So far I have been unable to find any good reviews online.

[Ken O]

The Oehler is the standard, but they quit making them for us. On one of these forums (I thought it was this one) the guys got together with different chronographs and lined them up with a Oehler so the bullet was shot over both at the same time. They were all about the same as far as accuracy goes, just varying a few FPS, even the cheap Chrony.
The crony manufactures probably buy the chips and timing mechanisms from the same outfits (this is MHO).

[Centennial]

I have the same challenge in addition to shooting older guns. I have had a PACT for about 12 years. It’s been phenomenal. Don’t overlook these guys! http://www.pact.com/chronohigh.html
Centennial

[Peter M. Eick]

I love my Oehler 35P. There is nothing like having that ticker tape of data to look over. I am very sad to see they are not making them any more. I have been using mine maybe 4 years and only nicked the top screen once.

Great chrono.

[rwilson452]

I bought the Chrony Alpha Master Then bought the printer. Last year upgraded to the Gamma Master. I would have settled for the Beta upgrade but the price difference wasn't that much. I just bought the software package but I haven't tried it out yet. the idea of being able to bring it home and dump the data into my pc just seemed like a good idea. I'm happy with the Chrony. I did modify it to replace the metal rods with wood doweling just in case I hit one. I haven't yet but there is a first time.

[RickB]

I have the F1, and while I haven't used it much, it has worked perfectly. I got it used, and it didn't have diffusers, but my range has a lot of shade, so that hasn't been a problem. Compared with the readings I've gotten from friends' chronos, it seems to be pretty accurate and consistent.

[amamnn]

All things considered, if I were going to buy a chronograph as a present for my son, I would get him the model of Shooting Chrony that fit his use best, insuring that it was the "master" version of the model. The masters have the brains and readout sit on the bench, and are also capable of being connected to a printer or computer. The difference between the models is how many and how big a string they will record. I do quite a bit of experimentation with loads, but cannot sit at a bench for half a day to do it, so the Beta Master does fine for me. It records six strings of ten shots each. Ten shots is the minimum group or string size accepted to be statistically significant.
Of course, everyone has different ideas and that's why there are different models and brands. I recently read some correspondence to and from Ken Oehler, but for the life of me, I can't find it again to see whether he was going to resume building chronos or not.

[rwilson452]

amamnn

I think you made a good choice for your needs. Be sure you read the directions especially those dealing with clearing memory.

[amamnn]

good point RW--I rewrote them about 3 years ago so I could remember them or at least understand them quickly