Caldwell chronograph?

[A5BLASTER]

I have the Caldwell with the light kit on top. It's so much more reliable than my Crony from 16 or 17 years ago it's not even funny. And that app for your phone works well and is really handy for looking over your data later. Of course I shoot at the house so have 110 volt to plug the lights in. Although I think there is a battery adapter also.

If you bought it as the whole kit the battery pack should have been in the package.

I bought the package kit with lights/shades, tripod, phone app cord the whole kit. Reason I bought it i couldn't afford anouther magneto speed when mine feel and the lil bayonet part snapped in half, so bought the Caldwell kit while it was on sale.

True it's a pain in the butt to set up compared to the magneto speed or the Labrador bit since the ranges I shoot at are setup so you don't have to shut the range down to setup or take down a chronagrah it isn't that much of a issue for me.

No matter what the task always pick the best tool for the job that fits your usage.

[Labrat198]

Has anyone used the Magnetospeed with a pistol here? If it doesn't work well with a pistol, I'll need to go with a typical shoot through type.

[towerofpower93]

Has anyone used the Magnetospeed with a pistol here? If it doesn't work well with a pistol, I'll need to go with a typical shoot through type.

Traditional shoot through style not required. Get a LabRadar and live life without having to align screens or mess with a harmonic disturbance inducer on the end of your rifles.

Costly? Yes.

Awesome? Yes.

Had a shoot through style and missed just as many, if not more, shots with that damn thing as I do the LR, and if I miss a shot with the LR I can easily figure out why and correct the situation (generally having the unit pointed one direction too far compared to the targets I'm shooting at).

The LR can also give downrange velocity data, helping to true BC predictions from ballistic software. It's not giving data from 600yds away, like Hornady and others get from a legit 'cook your face if you stand in front' RADAR-equipped range, but I've used data from a 150yd velocity reading to reduce the claimed BC of Sierra bullets which lead to more successful (read: more accurate) elevation adjustments for my SVD slinging the 174gr .311 SMK.

And the LR will work with anything you can put past it. From arrows to 4000fps varmint grenades, it tracks them all.

[maxxmojo]

I used the Caldwell for a while. I'd say it worked maybe 90% of the time for getting readings, but in fairness if I remember right most of the 10% of the time it didn't was during the winter when the sun was low. If you want to get velocity readings and you're starting out and/or you're on a limited budget I'd say go for it. Like others, it ended up getting shot, twice actually. The first time I nailed it with M855. The bullet went straight through like a laser, didn't even damage anything. The second time my buddy nailed it with M193. The bullet tumbled and fragmented and pretty much shut it down. One of the sensors and the battery took most of the brunt. Tried putting the sensor back together but would never work after that.

I ended up going with the Magnetospeed and haven't looked back.

How bad is the POI shift with the Magnetospeed? I was looking at the Sporter version but I see the V3 has an available pic rail adapter for free-float handguards. Kinda spendy for me though.

On my 18" it opens up the groups a bit, but on my buddies 24" it like it's not even there. What I do for reloading is I'll make 10 rounds of whatever load I'm testing. I do 3 for a group without it, then the last 7 I check the velocity. I went with the Sporter version due to the cost, and this procedure works pretty good for me.

[MarkS]

...I ended up going with the Magnetospeed and haven't looked back...

Same. I shoot exclusively with a suppressor, so attaching the Magnetospeed doesn't induce any noticeable POI shift, but I always test for velocity nodes first, then test for accuracy without the chrono.

I like being able to upload my data into MSExcel and populate my handload database. It is amazing to me how much data I have collected over the past few years.