Good morning. I am enjoying all the topics but have not posted lately. I have been reloading for a while but now really starting to dive into it. Mostly has been 223 and pistol rounds.
Been working on 308 and 243. Been having really good success on the hunting loads. 308 load -168 Hornaday A-max with 42.4 grns of ccf223. I have other powders and will be exploring.
The one component I am needing some help on is a Chronograph. What are some brand recommendations
Now I am not lush with cash. 6 kids and restoring a 72 Chevelle. So need some scales of economy here.
Tried the Cardwell, $150 from Bass Pro. Never got it to reliably give data and with a clumsy setup on my part, ended up putting a bullet through it.
Magnetospeed, $250-450, gave great data. Still need to pay attention to setup to avoid damage and get reliable data. Downside is by strapping it to your barrel, you can affect accuracy of your load. Most people recommend shooting some # of rounds through it to get velocity data and ignore group size/shape, then remove and shoot for accuracy.
Labradar, $650, is a doppler system, so no mounting to gun. So can get accuracy and velocity data at same time. A bit quirky with interface, batteries, and missing shots. FX is the new kid which reportedly solves some of those issues, but now at $1000.
I am in a similar position, having recently gotten into handloading. I also started with 9mm and 223/5.56, but am expanding to 308 Win and 270 Win and soon adding 300 WSM. I am an RSO at my local range and one day was talking to a local competition 3 gun shooter who was tuning his new AR (he had an adjustable gas block) and testing some loads. He was using a Caldwell chronograph. I asked him about it and he said he got acceptable numbers and couldn’t see spending the money on a radar system. So I guess my question is what were the reliability issues with the Caldwell?
Carter gave good info here. These are my recommendations in order of quality, and unfortunately I haven’t seen any cheap options that are “just as good.”
Magneto speed
LabRadar (very picky to get this to work)
Fx outdoors (way too pricey, but reliable)
I started with a pro chrono chronograph and just couldn’t get reliable results. Picked up a magneto speed and love it in comparison. I modeled and 3d printed my own mount that holds the magnetospeed off of the barrel, so no problem with point of impact shift.
