During the first decade of this century, I've done a lot of load development. For several rifle and handgun calibers, and worked up loads for a dozen or more individual rifles and handguns. In this sort of work, you need a chronograph to know your numbers out of your barrel. For all of this load development, I used a Shooting Chrony, a neat little device that we would put o a tripod and fire the bullets over the seceens.
Doing that gives invaluable data, but it also violates Jeff Cooper's Rule 2: Never point your gun at anything you are not willing to destroy. Or, maybe I was willing to destory it. I knew the risk and the risk was worth taking.
Having said all that, Second Son borrowed the chrony to do some load development for a new rifle he recently bought in 6.5 Creedmoor. And Rule 2 snuck up on us.
It was inevitable, I guess. The shot took out both screens. It may have been a blessing. Technology has advanced and there are better chronographs on the market. So, I went over to MidwayUSA and ordered this one. It used doppler radar to measure the speed of the bullet, and will bluetooth to your phone. It sits beside the rifle rather than downrange of it, and shooting it will be a whole lot more difficult.
We made the upgrade. It will be here in a week or so, and load development can proceed apace.
4 comments:
Congrats on the Labradar. I got one myself, but haven't yet used it. It's older tech though, the "Cool Kids" are flocking to the new https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1026417171?pid=973474 Nice thing is, you don't have to go down range to set up either one. I enjoy your blog Sir. Nice to hear from another Tanker. Gus
Pretty cool unit.
I saw one at the range when I was working up a load on 5.56NATO loads. The guy in the next bay INSISTED that I use it.
Looking back, if you know that Sum Randomdude will not destroy it, it is pretty easy to be generous.
BTW, the 5.56N loads were shooting MUCH slower than expected.
In 50 years I have only blown up one chronograph. I consider myself very lucky, not skillful.
Ouch! But it lasted a long time, good luck with the new one!!
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