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Old February 28, 2013, 02:36 PM   #26
Jammer Six
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Luxury.
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Old February 28, 2013, 07:11 PM   #27
zeke
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Wouldn't consider it an absolute neccessity if only reloading low pressure practice rounds. But you may be tempted to handload near the top pressure rounds, and doing so without a chrono would be foolish.

The only way i found out about bullet setback was because i was using a chronograph and getting unexpectly very high velocitys. The higher than expected velocitys is the best indicator us mere mortals have of higher pressure.
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Old February 28, 2013, 07:35 PM   #28
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Necessity or luxury? I've been reloading since '65. Affordable chronographs with sky screens appeared about 30 years after that and in '97 I got one. Always wondered why my bullets always disintergrated before hitting a 100 yard target - they just vanished into thin air! Now I know it's necessary to run them over a chronograph first!
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Old February 28, 2013, 10:11 PM   #29
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If I bullets were disentegrating into air before making it 100 yards I believe the first thing I would have done was back off alittle first.
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Old March 1, 2013, 03:23 PM   #30
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Its a nice thing to have. Not a necessity. I like to chronograph my loads to see what powders deliver a consistent velocity and to see if my FPS matches up with the reloading data. At 100 dollars they don't exactly break the bank.
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Old March 1, 2013, 04:23 PM   #31
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I desperately needed a chronograph

I desperately needed a chronograph. Bought one 3 or 4 years ago. Guess what it is sitting on the shelf in the garage still unopened.... So much for desperately needing it. I hope one day before I die to try it out.

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Old March 1, 2013, 08:28 PM   #32
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I have some loads I would really like to know what their bringing, but nothing in the velocity range, anywhere near gets my heart pumping like precision. And I know it has a lot to do with precision but I don't Jones on how fast my pill is hitting that target, I just want to know where it will hit that target, and with what kind of precision can I glean from it.
I'm kinda in that school with Dan, if my OCW is workin precision, then I'm sure it has the required velocity.
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Old March 1, 2013, 09:44 PM   #33
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Niether. It's just another tool that some choose to have.
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Old March 1, 2013, 11:47 PM   #34
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+1 Sport45. If I didn't have one I'd get one, just can't recall last time I used it. It's a good diagnostic tool when a simple paper target fails in that role. I don't shoot long distances or worry about power factors but sometimes it's good to know actual velocities and variations in velocities.
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Old March 2, 2013, 12:14 AM   #35
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I would not be with out one. With out one your loads are an educated guess. Educated by published information and yours and others experiences. but until you know for sure how a load performs in your guns. its still just a guess.

I have found in my Guns Lymans published loads are the most accurate. Hornady's published loads are at least 100 fps less than I get.

Are they mandatory????? no. But real nice to know what is really happening.
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Old March 2, 2013, 12:41 AM   #36
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Chronographs are a good stop-gap until home pressure measuring equipment becomes available and affordable.
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Old March 2, 2013, 04:54 AM   #37
trapper300RUM
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Chronograph

I can't wait untill i can save up & get me a Chronograph IMHO anything that can make your loads more accurate is something i would consider very useful I am going for the RCBS Model
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Old March 2, 2013, 11:27 AM   #38
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I would call it a last item to buy.

As many other did, I reloaded for decades on and off (back on again) and did fine without it.

Use and start with safe powder levels and work up slowly.

The only time its critical is if you are pushing the envelope (and you should not be at this point) going for that max boogey round.

I only had one of those and that was a bear load in a pistol. Hard on the gun and only a gain for that very specific need.

My use is just to see what I have on the first loading and I don't use it if I increase it as I am working in safe areas.

It does shock you a bit as the listings in the books tend to be high vs what you get but then like my last 41 magnum, I look and they used a 10 inch barrel when most are 4 or 6.5, hmmm

I only got one because it was fairly low cost (though accurate enough for my use) and easy to use. If you ever do, at least get the one that holds the count up to 10 or so, avoids the pain of having to write each one down and you want the remote head that sits on your bench (Chony Master)
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Old March 3, 2013, 01:06 PM   #39
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Good Feedback

I'm fairly new to reloading. I enjoy keeping data (I'm weird in that way), so that's really why I bought a chronograph. I would venture to say that it may be even more important for someone new to reloading to have a chronograph. No, you don't really need one. But the feedback it gives you teaches you about how much variation you're getting in your loads.

I also found it interesting that after shooting a few rounds and noticing the correlation with recoil and velocity readings, I can guess pretty closely what the fps is going to read before it actually appears on the screen, just based on the recoil I feel.

Chronograph is not necessary. But it is a very useful tool.
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Old March 3, 2013, 01:36 PM   #40
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If you are a serious reloader and shooter you must have a chrono,
imagine working up a load without knowing the velocity? How are you going to understand your ballistic data without velocity?
you can get a basic chrony for $125 or better used, go for it
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Old March 3, 2013, 02:18 PM   #41
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I feel like if you reload just for cheap plinking ammo like I do than it's not necessary. If you're going for accuracy than I could see the use.
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Old March 3, 2013, 03:21 PM   #42
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I ran some loads over someone else's once. Minimum load by the book, no possibility of wrong powder (only had the one kind) and carefully weighed on a beam balance, and I got an experienced reloader familiar with the calibre to double check for pressure signs (there weren't any). Two factory rounds over the chrony first as a reference, and then the handloads (my first ever) went over. Way over published velocity; in fact, higher than the published velocity for the maximum load.

It was the only time I ever used a chronograph, alas, and although I didn't repeat the experience, I'm convinced that I had a rifle which ran "fast".

Well down the track, I had to sell that rifle. I wish I'd never known how fast those bullets were going; it made parting all the harder.

Of course it's not just a matter of how fast, but also how tight - you might want to work on your loading technique to reduce shot-to-shot variation. But on a practical level this will be reflected in your group size, so once more, you might be able to do without it. Of course if you've got the money and you're curious, go for it. I cheerfully admit to buying weights and types of bullets I was likely not to need, simply to have a play around...
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Old March 3, 2013, 09:05 PM   #43
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Quote:
If you are a serious reloader and shooter you must have a chrono,
The rest of us are flippant about the hobby.
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Old March 3, 2013, 09:52 PM   #44
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Of course you don't need a chrony to work up a load, but you are partially blind, and you don't really know if you're potentially pushing your pressure limit
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Old March 4, 2013, 12:20 AM   #45
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That's why we need home pressure measuring equipment. The chrono doesn't tell us pressure, only velocity.

It is a good tool to give us another check on the consistency of our process and our selected loads. It's just not a "must", even for serious reloaders IMHO.

And yes, I have used one. Thought it was more trouble than it was worth...
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Old March 4, 2013, 03:43 AM   #46
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Not just for maximum loads, either

If you are loading casual plinking ammo, going too slow is dangerous, too. If you bullets are showing erratic velocities not only will accuracy suffer, but a little bit less may wind up with a bullet stuck in your barrel.

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Old March 4, 2013, 07:10 AM   #47
zeke
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Chronograph has little to do with accuracy evaluation, except feeding a common misconception that a low deviation will equate to a more accurate load.

While there are exceptions, if your velocitys are rising, so is your pressure. If you are depending on "pressure" signs when reloading for a pistol or revolver, you're asking for trouble. If you are seeing signs of overpressure in rife load, you likely have gone to far already.
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Old March 4, 2013, 07:13 AM   #48
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I've never owned a chronograph in some 40 years of handloading rifle ammo to shoot rifle matches. Used a friends once in a while some years go just to see what the velocity did as the barrel fouled and compare a given load's velocity from different barrel lengths. As far as load development, just used what others did that shot very well except for one new bullet that came out.

And yes, I have never got concerned about the "exact" muzzle velocity of a load. Any given load will shoot bullets out of a given rifle with up to about 100 fps spread in average muzzle velocity spread across several humans testing it from a bench anyway. So which human is the standard for establishing that load's muzzle velocity? That same load can also have a 100 fps average velocity spread across a dozen or more barrels of the same length. So which barrel is the standard for establishing that load's muzzle velocity?

I often think this "speed" thing is way overblown. And 99.99% of the time it's measured with a rubber ruler.
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Old March 4, 2013, 07:56 AM   #49
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Quote:
And 99.99% of the time it's measured with a rubber ruler.
I've often thought the same thing but couldn't come up with as colorful a way to say it.

If the screens on a chronograph are 24" apart, the timing mechanism would have to be accurate to +/-0.000025 seconds to see a 100fps difference at 2900 ft/sec.

Olympic timers aren't that accurate, but we expect a $100 chronograph to do it?

edited to add:

I'm not diss'n anyone's chrono or their use of one. I just don't see how they could be accurate enough to determine spreads to the degree of accuracy they claim. Has anyone put several end-to-end to see how close they are?

I'm wondering if it may be the case of always knowing the time if you have one watch and never knowing it if you have two.
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Last edited by Sport45; March 4, 2013 at 08:12 AM.
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Old March 4, 2013, 09:36 AM   #50
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Sport45, the biggest variable in the way most folks use chronographs is themselves. Us humans don't hold a rifle to our shoulder with exactly the same force from shot to shot. Nor is our body positioned behind the rifle exactly the same for each shot.

Clamping a rifle in a free recoiling return-to-battery machine rest is best for rifles. Barreled actions clamped in a solid mount is what SAAMI uses. Arsenals use a barreled action in a Mann rest; a long V block holding the barrel's fitment rings. Such devices have the same resistance to recoil during barrel time for every shot. Velocities are very accurately measured.
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