I use a chrono when I’m working on a load that’s “off the books”, like this winter when it was VV N568 w/147’s in my 6.5 GAP, or RS Mag with 140’s, or RS Mag in the 7 WSM, just because there’s little or no published data and blowing up a good rifle would suck. But they were close enough on the burn chart to powders with published data, to rate a try, and they were available (the N568 rocks FYI). But that’s about where it starts and ends with the chrono for me.
From there I go to one of my spots; my new one this winter got me to 1k yards and has lots of patches of bare dirt to shoot at, which are very useful, but are in very short supply in my part of the Coast Range. Even though I slum SFP I can see my impacts if I turn the scopes to 1/2 power, and quickly correct my Ballistic AE dope to match my actual results with just slightly more head scratching than FFP.
(I correct it by changing the input velocity until it matches my observed POI, but I’ve always wondered if that was the “best” parameter to mess with? )
I will say, you want to do this many times (aka: burn primers) even if just at the same spot, but ideally at many spots, because up- and down-drafts are a thing. POI will be a little different from day to day, at least in my experience. You have to kind of average it out. As far as a Kestrel, the wind is all over the place across a Coast Range canyon, it’s sometimes blowing the opposite direction at the target compared to where I’m at... so I don’t see much point.
My truck got broken into last time I was at my new spot, and [bleep] Weyerhouser just posted near the shooting position for my other spot, so until some Good Samaritan rips that sign down I’m fishin’, lol. Ocean coho is on...... plus it’s too damn hot to shoot anyway.
