About a decade ago I bought a Chrony Beta Master even though I didn't "need" one. 95% or more of what I do is all handgun loading and I also don't need to make any particular power factor or velocity minimum. I bought the chronograph because I thought it would be interesting to see some velocities.
Since purchasing that Chrony, I quickly became a genuine hater. I called it "the fun sucker." This unit almost always measured the bullet speed, which was what I had asked it to do, but beyond the fact that it was fairly skilled at grabbing a velocity for me, the only other thing I liked was that it was able to pack away fairly small.
My list of complaints were long... mostly, I was annoyed at being limited to 10-shot strings maximum and I also found it truly obnoxious that I had as much computing power as the lunar excursion module from Apollo 11 but all of it was accessed through three clicky buttons on the face of the units and a cheap LCD display.
I spent every session with a pen and paper in hand until I eventually typed results in to a text file on my phone. It was aggravating and the antithesis of fun, smooth, easy, flexible and handy.
I always say that I only dabble in rifles but I've been doing a trip out west to hunt prairie dogs now for 10 years. And learning about bullet drop, advanced MOA reticles on a quality first focal plane scope, ballistic coefficients and all those associated goodies gave me much more appreciation for being able to accurately check the velocity of some loads. I was able to still use the Chrony Beta Master for that. Thankfully, I only needed a speed check and a few shots to confirm consistency and then buried back in to the basement with that evil unit.
Well, last fall we finally put a bullet in to that obnoxious unit. It felt like FREEDOM perhaps for the first time since it's maiden voyage. I recently replaced that Chrony Master Beta (heh, that's what I called it...) and as a dyed-in-the-wool chronograph hater, I certainly wasn't going to throw many hundreds at a LabRadar or any of the cutting edge options. Even a Magentospeed was not an option for me as most of my trappings will be handgun.
I bought the Competition Electronics ProChrono DLX and yesterday was my first session with it and after all these years, and just one single trip with this unit, I'm ready to repent, reform and stop hating the chronograph.
This sucker didn't miss a beat and I chronographed eighteen different loads, never missed even one shot and it sent every string directly to the app on my phone that's a free download with the unit, the app has all of my work logged, every shot, all the highs, lows, the average, the ES and the SD, even computes power factor and energy.
It was effortless, simple to use, intuitive, the definition of easy, fast and accurate.
Before the first trip with this chrono, I only asked to not LOATHE it, but by the time I was headed home, I frickin' loved it and my phone is bursting with (mostly, somewhat) valuable data.
Sorry that this love story ran to an excessive length. Before yesterday, I think you would be hard pressed to find a more rabid chronograph hater than me. I will tell you that I still firmly believe that folks are wrong when they tell new handloaders that a chronograph is a "must own", I loaded for 20 years of complete wonderful success without a chronograph and I'm certain it is not necessary for safety and for enjoyment of handloading.
It's certainly necessary if you need to make a velocity floor or a power factor and in this day and age, you are cheating yourself if you are a distance rifle guy and you aren't taking advantage of ballistic applications to help you easily smoke long range targets. With the help of ballistic software and a decent scope on my rifle, I can smoke golf balls at 300 yards and water bottles at 500 yards. I understand that the benchmark is a LOT higher for serious rifle folks, but this is a handgun guy talking, I shoot rifles probably 3 or 4 times each year if that.
Thanks for the read and any comments you have.
Since purchasing that Chrony, I quickly became a genuine hater. I called it "the fun sucker." This unit almost always measured the bullet speed, which was what I had asked it to do, but beyond the fact that it was fairly skilled at grabbing a velocity for me, the only other thing I liked was that it was able to pack away fairly small.
My list of complaints were long... mostly, I was annoyed at being limited to 10-shot strings maximum and I also found it truly obnoxious that I had as much computing power as the lunar excursion module from Apollo 11 but all of it was accessed through three clicky buttons on the face of the units and a cheap LCD display.
I spent every session with a pen and paper in hand until I eventually typed results in to a text file on my phone. It was aggravating and the antithesis of fun, smooth, easy, flexible and handy.
I always say that I only dabble in rifles but I've been doing a trip out west to hunt prairie dogs now for 10 years. And learning about bullet drop, advanced MOA reticles on a quality first focal plane scope, ballistic coefficients and all those associated goodies gave me much more appreciation for being able to accurately check the velocity of some loads. I was able to still use the Chrony Beta Master for that. Thankfully, I only needed a speed check and a few shots to confirm consistency and then buried back in to the basement with that evil unit.
Well, last fall we finally put a bullet in to that obnoxious unit. It felt like FREEDOM perhaps for the first time since it's maiden voyage. I recently replaced that Chrony Master Beta (heh, that's what I called it...) and as a dyed-in-the-wool chronograph hater, I certainly wasn't going to throw many hundreds at a LabRadar or any of the cutting edge options. Even a Magentospeed was not an option for me as most of my trappings will be handgun.
I bought the Competition Electronics ProChrono DLX and yesterday was my first session with it and after all these years, and just one single trip with this unit, I'm ready to repent, reform and stop hating the chronograph.
This sucker didn't miss a beat and I chronographed eighteen different loads, never missed even one shot and it sent every string directly to the app on my phone that's a free download with the unit, the app has all of my work logged, every shot, all the highs, lows, the average, the ES and the SD, even computes power factor and energy.
It was effortless, simple to use, intuitive, the definition of easy, fast and accurate.
Before the first trip with this chrono, I only asked to not LOATHE it, but by the time I was headed home, I frickin' loved it and my phone is bursting with (mostly, somewhat) valuable data.
Sorry that this love story ran to an excessive length. Before yesterday, I think you would be hard pressed to find a more rabid chronograph hater than me. I will tell you that I still firmly believe that folks are wrong when they tell new handloaders that a chronograph is a "must own", I loaded for 20 years of complete wonderful success without a chronograph and I'm certain it is not necessary for safety and for enjoyment of handloading.
It's certainly necessary if you need to make a velocity floor or a power factor and in this day and age, you are cheating yourself if you are a distance rifle guy and you aren't taking advantage of ballistic applications to help you easily smoke long range targets. With the help of ballistic software and a decent scope on my rifle, I can smoke golf balls at 300 yards and water bottles at 500 yards. I understand that the benchmark is a LOT higher for serious rifle folks, but this is a handgun guy talking, I shoot rifles probably 3 or 4 times each year if that.
Thanks for the read and any comments you have.
