Never used one,but feel it's time to add one to my gear closet. I have no exacts on what the spread is of my reload velocities.

Please enlighten, me as to what to look for and what models have the "best bang for the buck".

We are very satisfied with our ProChrono PAL - like it much better than our Shooting Chrony, which seemed much fussier as to light conditions.

FWIW, I have been using a PACT for twenty years or so, but if I was buying today I think that I would try a Magnetospeed Sporter.

Prochrono. Made in USA. <$100 delivered. Check amazon. Several threads from the last month or so espouse similarly.

I have an older Oehler Mod.35P that has been refurbished by Oehler, its been great.

I have an Oehler 35P, a ProChrono Pal (actually two), and a Magnetospeed Sporter. All three work fine, but the Oehler is the one I depend on when I absolutely require precise results.

The other two are good choices for somebody who doesn't want to spend as much money, and I'd recommend them over the other relatively inexpensive chronographs I've used over the years. The Magnetospeed does affect point of impact and accuracy when mounted on the rifle's muzzle, but a bench-top mount can also be rigged.

I ordered the labradar yesterday, unfortunately backordered until June. I'll slum the PACT until then.

I'd consider the Oehler Model 35 to be the gold standard in small, affordable chronographs.

http://www.oehler-research.com/custom/model35.php

For $595 I'd be looking long and hard at the LabRadar. The LabRadar consists of far fewer pieces, amounting to increased portability and ease of setup. I have yet to see the accuracy of Ohler's Chronographs compared to LabRadar. The one complaint I've read about the Doppler unit is battery life.

I've also heard the Labradar doesn't do well with small-diameter bullets, so am waiting to hear about upgrades until buying one.

Oehler chronographs have been not just the amateur but the professional standard for many years now. Don't think I've ever visited a pro lab (and have been in more than a few) that didn't have an Oehler. Their accuracy is well-proven.

I have a Labradar and a Oehler 35P that I have had for a long time

It seems to me that the verification standard of most chronographs is:

"Have you ever compared it to an Oehler?"

I don't recall ever hearing "I know my Oehler is accurate because I compared it to....".

Hopefully there's more to the story.

What's the scoop?

Just played with a little bit so far I really like it

CBB

I have only had the O 33 which is not available any longer except possibly PreOwned (grin)

I'd only recommend that you buy the best you can afford. You won't regret it.

Jerry

I put this in the Labradar thread as well but my 1st range session with the radar was 4/17. I chrono'd 13 rifles and everything was more or less where I expected it to be based on ~10yrs of using the little green Chrony and picking the right lighting. My 257Wby was the lone question mark, it was running ~150fps faster than I expected, I'll have to make a couple more range sessions with it before deciding just what's what.

Everything .243, .257, .277, .284, .308, and .375 was flawless, picked up every shot.

I had 2 failures to pick up .224 75n A-max's out of 25 shots, 1 via 22-250, the other via 223AI. A buddy showed up and we picked up 9:10 .20cal v-max's as well.

It's simple to set up and there's no diddling about getting the bore lined up over anything, just point the big orange box at the target and turn it on. It'll calculate ES/SD and avg velocity of every shot string for you and displays the info on the screen as well as allows you to store up to 99 strings of 99 shots in internal memory. I guess there's some export to Excel stuff that can be done via SD card but I honestly don't keep that level of detail.

6 AA batteries were @ 50% after the 3hr range session after which I ordered their rechargeable battery for $25 as a guy could go through $25 worth of AA's pretty quickly.

I had 5 targets set up @ 200yds and didn't move the orange box at all once aimed at the middle target. Just swap different rifles into the rest/sandbag arrangement.

Mirrors my experience from yesterday after playing around with the LabRadar from .243 up to .308.

The battery concern is easily remedied by grabbing a $20-$30 rechargeable pack having 16000 mAh or so (5V/1A). After having it on for 6 hrs or so it didn't make a dent in the battery status (20 sec screensaver / 40 sec trigger / trip at "trigger" / sensitivity: 1 / standard power)

While I have owned chronographs I don't use one now. What matters more to me now is where the bullet hits.

The 'velocity' is just a number and any reasonable speed works.

It was fun at the time.

The absolute velocity is not as important as the round to round variation, and for that you need a chronograph. We all care about where the bullet hits, but there are many causes of large groups, and chronographing lets you confirm or eliminate velocity variation as a cause.