Who here uses a chronograph? Why? When? How?
I have one, but haven't been using it. What am I missing out on?
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Who here uses a chronograph? Why? When? How?
I have one, but haven't been using it. What am I missing out on?
Basically allows you to dial in the speed. Very useful to dial in your drop compensation of a particular grain bullet. If you know the bullet grain, the muzzle velocity and are zero'd at a certain distance you can compensate for bullet drop. You would also need to know the bullets BC.
Very useful for long range shooting. Not so useful from 400 yards or less IMO.
Check out the application "Bullet Flight". You can play with it and see what I mean.
You punch in the info, then the wind angle, the temp and a few other items and can pretty much guarantee shots every time if you are a decent shot. Especially with a scope that has MOA reticle and exposed turrets so you can adjust on the fly.
I only just started using one, mostly because it was given to me as a gift and I just wanted know what a few of my loads where doing. mostly curiosity I guess. I only use it when working up a load.
one exception is when I wanted to develop a high velocity deer load for my 44-40, I wanted to make sure I had at least 1,400ft/lb of energy at the muzzle and data was very limited.
If your a reloader and a long distance shooter, then a chronograph becomes "thee" most important tool in your reloading tool box.
Once youve developed your accurate and consistant loads (if your reloading) then you need to know your speed.
Theres other "exact" inputs (ie: altitude/temp/barometric pressure/type of projectile/distance from center line of scope to center line of barrel etc...)needed in ballistic calculators to give you bullet drop at what ever distance,s but without knowing your "exact speed" is like driving blind.
Theres nothing better than to spend countless hrs behind load development trying to achieve 1/4 moa @ 100 yds, then calculating your bullet drops at different distances via ballistic calculators, going out, setting up steels at exact distance,s , even out to 1K :eagerness:and smacking them 1st shoot because of you knowing your bullet speed for ballistic calculations.
Knowing what your bullet drop is at what ever distance is one thing. Figureing your adjustment on your scope weather it be in mil/moa is another. Its not rocket science. Once youve figured it out?......watch out...its one addictive hobby for sure.
I have one....stopped using it several years ago...was just a general waste of time. I have been reloading for 30+ years and when I started using my chrony I found it really didn't provide any added benefit and was just more crap to carry to the range...and now that I have several ballistic apps on my Ipad....a little math and calculations with my app's does everything i need and is a lot les to carry to the range. Granted...most of my reloading if for hunting loads only out to 500 yards and my current target situation limits me to 600 yards...if I were shooting out to 1000+ there may be some marginal added benefits....
One of the benefits of living in the great southwestern part of Texas.
This is my shooting range. Theres steel targets measuring from 3"x5" up to 16"x16" out to 1200yds. theres permanet steel targets all over the place that we,ve ( shooting buds) placed all over the canyon.
When you have a range like this?.......a chronograph becomes my best friend.
the smaller the target, the longer the range, the more of an addiction. No guess work. the chrono doesnt need to be out all the time. Only when youve established your accurate load. Once thats done, you put it away untill the next venture. (IMHO)
http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x...psc6526320.jpg
+1.......Quote:
Originally Posted by 1983Weatherby
Also to see where the load might be. I tested 243 100gr medium load. Velocity on chrono matched max load velocity using current Hodgdon web data. Without the chono I would have gone to higher loads. Stopped there.. safe.
How accurate is a Velocity correction caculation compared to a chrono. I have one on my ballistic app (Strelok+) that if based on info I've provided gives me say 10.3 MIL for 100yds, but I really only need 10MIL. I just type in the amount of elevation that it actually took and it corrects my velocity input in the app. Basically I was shooting my loads that were calculated to be about 2650FPS and borrowed a buddies handloads and had to make a correction and it revalidated the velocity of the different ammo to be 2700FPS. Is a Chrono going to be that much more accurate than real data corrections made by a computer?
It is used to check the speed difference in the load. A load that ranges 30fps even if it bugholes at 100yds is most likely to have a large amount of vertical at 1000yds. the lower the spread the better.
roger that............Quote:
Originally Posted by shagerott
Yes...without a dought.Quote:
Originally Posted by LoneWolf
different temps/altitude/barometric pressure etc... will give you different speeds.
Reloading is so subjective. Whats works for one may not work for the other. For me?....Id be lost without knowing my actual projectiles speed.
50 fps difference at 1000 yds equates to a miss...i gaurantee it.
Well you do need to know the velocity in order to produce an elevation chart, or more commonly referred to as a click chart.
A chronagraph would be the way most of us would get the velocity number. So now armed with the number we can go to one of
many sites and produce drop information. Then we can go shoot at say 800 yds and add the ammount of clicks the chart tells us we need.
Problem is we miss the target. So seeing where the bullet hit we change the ammount of clicks so we can hit the target. We can now go
back to the program and lie about the velocity/clicks in order to get a chart that matches what the gun wants and not the chronagraph.
That would be known as actual velocity, not what the chronagraph said. So based on that could we have just guessed the original number
or gotten it from a loading manual for the original chart? The answer is yes we could have since the ACTUAL number wasent discovered
untill we shot at a target. Nobody should be so foolish as to take velocity information from any brand chronagraph as gospel.
It should be looked upon as a ball park figure at best.
I disagree yobuck. Ive been using a chronograph for the past 30 yrs to give me correct speeds. No guess work. if my speeds that were derrived from my chronograph were to be inaccurate, then my hits from 100 out to 1200 would be inaccurate as well.
If my speeds are in question, then i proceed to use alternative chronos from all my shooting partners. 9/10 times, my chrono agrees with theres. (10 shot average)
As I mentioned earlier, shooting/reloading is so subjective. What works for one may not work for another. I can absolutely respect that. Always have..always will.
One of my addictions (that I confess to LOLOL) is that once Ive found my accurate/consistant load, I then proceed to do my diligence on ballistic calculations. (knowing my bullets speed thru "my" chronograph) A little math here and there, measuring temp/altitude/barometric pressure etc..... then go out and smack a 6"x8" plate @ 1K 1st shot. It may sound like Im totting my horn abit and if I am?.. I apologize... Im just trying to be honest and most importantly....factual.
Your missing out on nothing. Pack it up and ship it to me. :)
I use strelok drop calculator also. Works very well, doing the drop calculation can be very accurate. There are more variables involved with drop calculation as in pressure, elevation, wind, weapon movement. My old chronograph died and I am waiting for the lab radar to come out before I make another decision on one. I used to shoot through the chronograph during all the load development and enough of the ammo to find the deviation. The chronograph is very useful to see how different environmental conditions effect your loads for match conditions.
couldnt have said it better.....Quote:
Originally Posted by missed
Im curious..how did yor old chrono die?.....did you accidently shoot it as I have. Ive accidently shot 2 of mine all due to impatience.
LOLOLOLOLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... Beat me to the punch LMAO!Quote:
Originally Posted by 1983Weatherby
Yeah mine took a round also. That's the other reason I want the lab radar.....
A chronograph is also good for the ladder method of finding an accurate load. Instead of firing multiple 3 round loads, you start at the minimum load data, and reload 1 round for each up to maximum in .5 grain increments. Example; if my load range was from 42-46 grains of powder, I'd load my first round at 42, my second at 42.5, all the way to maximum. Then you chronograph the loads, and two of them will be real close in velocity. That's your sweet spot. Choose a load between the two, then find the sweet spot for case overall length. So instead of firing 25-50 rounds for load development, you're shooting closer to a dozen. Saves a lot of $$ when you're trying to dial in a long range load.
Toot all you like it dosent affect me at all. Ill just say this, over many years ive known personaly at least 1/3 of the members of the hall of fame club at williamsport.Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiesindian
Ive spent considerable time hunting with some of them also including 2 of the record group holders. I made a special trip to that range years back to wittness a
special event for a very good friend and his young son. The friends name is lowel Amond and he is the only shooter there to ever win the agregate award twice.
This time however his then 18 year old son was tied going into the last match with the world 10 shot record holder Earl Chronister. I knew Earl very well also and
had hunted with him. Young Greg went on to beat Earl that day and win the agregate award for the year. Meaning, he had the best group in at least 6 of the 10
scheduled matches. Earls group that day was over 20 inches. Another of my good friends and every day deer hunting companion is an old camp perry prone shooter
and first member ever inducted into the hall of fame group. He is one of 2 people i know who has killed an elk beyond 2000 yds. My oldest son was with him and
spotting for him in colorado when he did it. Point im making with all this is there are lots of very good shooters out there. Ive been fortunate in knowing and learning
from quite a few of them. None of them would ever make the claim you did about your ability with first round hits. Simple reason being, they know they cant back it up.
Im affraid id have to wittness it, and i wouldnt hesitate to bring cash. Hey with your earnings you could even buy a good chronagraph. lol
You don't need a chrono to do anything mentioned here and IMO it can be a pain. Where you really need it is if you don't have access to a range long enough to get the needed data before you need to shoot at longer distance.
Measuring your actual drop will give you accurate velocity info.
Vertical stringing at distance (+300m), very likely a big ES if you and your rifle don't exhibit that with other loads.
Ladders; ideally shot at +300m 1 shot at a time and individually marked all at the same target. You should end up with two groups out of your ladder. Your high and low accuracy nodes.
Chronos are another tool in the box, not magic.
Good point serve. If you can shoot long enough, accurate enough and measure your drops then you can get just as good info. All of those have to be on par though
Where is this fabulous 'Texas shooting range' located?Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiesindian
I don't shoot long range (mostly cause I have no place to do it) but still use a chrono once I get near my final load. First, I like to see what I'm getting relative to "common knowledge" and second when I get a little on the warm side of things a chrono is handy to show when velocity spikes.Quote:
Originally Posted by yobuck
As for the 1k clang on first shot, well, without taking a side either way; I've learned in life that just because I can't do something or nobody I know can do it--doesn't mean it can't be done. : )
Got my first chrono recently, just after rebarreling the 223 with a primo barrel. Several ladder/OCW workups at 200 yards showed 4064 was better than the old standby Varget that worked so well with the old barrel; the nodes for each were in line with the optimum barrel time (OBT) using Quick Load. But I just wasn't happy that the groups were as good as they should have been, running a little over 1/2MOA at 200yd. So I shot the optimum loads using 69SMK and 75Horn Match with 4064 and crap, the extreme spread (ES) was 75-100fps! Well lets look at the good old Varget, eventhough the OCW and groups were not as good; even worse ES. Since this is a new barrel, tried new Lapua brass vs fire-formed LC; nada for ES. Now enter RL15 and the ES drops to 25! Moral of the story is you can use actual drops to calculate velocity, OCW/ladder tests, etc to find the load that gives you the most uniform bullet launch from the muzzle, but if the velocity is variable you will suffer the consequences at longer range. After using this 6 weeks I feel like the load optimization process has started over again with much more knowledge and insight.
Why do you need a chrono, because certain forum members think your full of it, that's why.LOL this is done on a regular basis I might add. amateurs
[IMG]http://i1290.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3ac49161.jpg[/IMG]
Spanky
Just because you're full of it doesn't mean you aren't fast! LOL
You know this all started in my yooth when I discovered that, squirting WD40 into a break barrel pellet gun nearly doubled the FPS, and made the difference between the squirrel running away and expiring on the spot, plus it sounds like a rimfire going off.
Dean
I'm surprised you haven't made it a goal in life to max out a chrono machine!Quote:
Originally Posted by scope eye
He going for the chronograph to say holy......Quote:
Originally Posted by LoneWolf
I heard he's looking for a chrono that registers in warp factor because FPS is off the scale...Quote:
Originally Posted by LoneWolf
Thanks, guys, I think I "get it". I see everyone's points, and you're all obviously correct. Because I have limited access to anything other than 100 yards, I guess I better start using the dang thing before I get false hopes of being able to expect any kind of long range accuracy with loads that produce / exhibit high ES.
Sorry, Eddie and Weatherby, but I will keep you in mind. :)
Haha! He is waiting for the fast scanning radar to be available to the general publicQuote:
Originally Posted by fgw_in_fla
You have all got it wrong, I am just waiting for the 5 digit display model to come out.LOL
Dean
Try squirting some WD-40 on it and see what happens!Quote:
Originally Posted by scope eye
Rumor has it you're not satisfied with surpassing the speed of light and are now pushing the edges of time/space continuum. I was wondering how you managed to look younger after each range session.Quote:
Originally Posted by scope eye
I did, my wife said she did not see any difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by foxx
Dean
Hmmmm...
I wonder if that WD40 thing will work in my 30.06...
Now, if only I had a chrono.
As stated the chronograph is just one tool in the range bag. It can be useful, illuminating, frustrating (the Shooting Chrony), confusing, and pleasing all in one range session!
Speed data is fun to collect, useful for bragging rights and for bagging on your slow tubed friends. Great for shutting up the guy claiming his newest whizbang travels just below escape velocity and is utterly flat to the horizon.
As mentioned, one of the most important things we can do with a chronograph is pay attention to it. When the numbers show we've reached the max expected velocity then you're pretty likely to also be at max pressure.
The chronograph becomes a much more powerful development tool when we add actual realized chamber pressures to the mix.
With the addition of the Pressure Trace System to your data collection arsenal, each range session now gathers enough information to fully exploit the unique characteristics of each gun equipped with a strain gage.
The Pressure Trace can be maddening at times.
Even scary.
BUT, adding the actual chamber pressure measurements to the speed data from the chronograph and grouping data from the target gives the reloader a much more powerful data set. Loads can be optimized with regard to speed and pressure for each individual firearm.
As far as suggestions I'll unhesitatingly endorse the Competition Dynamics Pro Chrono Digital in the inexpensive category. SO much better than anything else in this price range . It's not even close really.
At the high end you can't lose with a Oehler 35 but the Necos (the QuickLoad folks) PVM-08 is highly regarded as well. I'd like to try one.
If you can find (and afford) one of the coveted and elusive Oehler 43PBL (Personal Ballistics Laboratory) systems you'll have your speed and your pressure data all gathered by one unit.
I have three main reasons I use a chronograph.
1. The average speed of my load gives me an idea of what my drops should be. But it is by far not the only number you need. It needs to be confirmed on the target at distance. Chronographs have a tolerance just like any other machine and so do the B.C.'s of the bullets. Both can greatly affect your drop charts.
2. Once I have found the speed my barrel likes the best a chronograph is easy way of keeping a check on the speed when going from one lot of powder to the next lot. Just changing lot numbers can change your load by a 0.1 of grain or more.
3. As the barrel wears your velocity drops so again it's an easy way to keep an eye on your velocity, to keep it in the node for your barrel.