To hell with the chrono, Fjold where did you find that little blue babe swinging under your user name? Sorry, I can't keep quiet anymore.

In an old Gun Digest, I read a quote that "if you shoot long enough over a chronograph, you're going to hit one." How true is this? Who has or hasn't (accidentally) wiped out their screens with a misplaced bullet? I speak from experience, as my first cheapie chrono only lasted two years before I pegged it with a .45.

It is easy to avoid this if you do two simple things - 1. Set your scope on the lowest power and look through it for screen clearance 2. Pull the bolt and bore sight to check what you are seeing through the scope.

I have a funny chronograph story which happened several Christmases ago:

January 7th, 2002 - I ran out to the range yesterday to make some noise with my .338 and .416. I guess I needed a little knocking around after Christmas. Fortunately, our private range was not crowded and only a few folks had braved the weather. I proceeded to set up my rests, spotting scope, and target. The line was declared �hot� and I shot my first group with my .338. I was pleased with the results.

About this time, a new�ish member drives up with his son and begins to unload his car - I will refer to them as Dad and Junior. I was mildly disgruntled to see a new Oehler chronograph being pulled out of the trunk. Realizing that this was going to take hours to set up for the first time, I offered to help. My offer was met with a cold stare and a �no I got it under control� response.

After quite a lot of fumbling Dad assembles the sky screens and jumps across the firing line to set up his tripods. I was literally two pounds into my three pound trigger on my .416., after all, the line was �hot�. Realizing that Dad and junior were 15 feet over the firing line, I yelled at the other two shooters for �Line Clear�. I unloaded my gun, and casually walked over to explain what the yellow line was for and why we used commands like �Line Hot� and �Line Clear�. Again, my input was not well received. No wanting to get into a pizzin match, I decided to back off and give this guy a wide berth. I exchanged several �Oh Shit� looks with the other shooters and shrugged my shoulders.

After 15 minutes of careful maneuvering and alignment, Dad deemed the chrono calibrated and ready. While the line was still clear, dad throws sand bags down, pulls out his rifle, and chambers a round. Seeing this, one of the other shooters yells for �Line Hot� I acknowledged the call and got ready for my next string. It seems that Dad was not pleased with the chrono alignment and again crosses the firing line for one final nudge. Of course his gun is still loaded! One of the other shooters immediately yells for �Line Clear�.

Figuring that I would not be able to concentrate, I decided to pay another visit to Dad. I explained that his gun should not be loaded with a Line Clear command and he certainly should not walk in front of a loaded gun. As I turned to go pack the car and leave, I noted to Dad that the chrono appeared to be set up quite high. Dad looks through scope (at high power) and declares my comment null and void. I figured this would be great fun to watch so I hung around for the crowning moment.

After much grunting, the sand bags are in place and the shot is pending. Dad is holding his breath and appears to be turning blue attempting to bring himself to pull the trigger. I am in total concentration and focus on the chrono as are the other shooters. The long anticipated moment arrives and the chrono is shattered to pieces. Sky screens are raining down all over the range, the chronograph and printer are a good 20 ft down range, tripods are askew, and Dad is now very confused because he cannot seem to locate the chronograph. Looking up and realizing what he has done, the cussing ensues. Junior is crying and making tracks to the car in anticipation of the ass beating he will soon be subjected to.

Dad is now throwing anything within his reach and goes stomping out to his new chronograph - the line is still �hot�. One of the other shooters is brave enough to help pick up a few pieces in front of his bench. Meanwhile Dad locates the printer and decides to spike it into the dirt with great force. Again chronograph pieces rain down across the range. Realizing Dad is very pissed, I decide to hold my comment that �at least his gun seemed to work well and that his load achieved impressive penetration�.

The rest of the chronograph is collected and thrown into one of the range garbage cans. At least Dad was thoughtful enough to pick up after his show. After Dad leaves the range in a hail of gravel, the rest of us run to the garbage can to fight over the spoils like starving hyena. One of the guys grabs the chrono printer, the other grabs the rail, and I get my hands on several sky screens just in case I decide to shoot through mine one day. All in all, it was a most profitable and entertaining day. I just feel sorry for Junior...

I hate to admit it, but I've done it.

A 375 H&H 300 gr Hornady really did a job on it.

I killed my gunsmiths with a sabot from my 50 cal ML,,,,,,,,,,he told me to do it!

yes...

no details...

jeffe

ditto

A few years ago I was with my dad and it was the first time I was shooting over the Chrony.. Well we had the rifles setup and everything was goin good.. Time to check the speed of my snub nosed 357.. Well I got all setup and started looking adn just didnt fell confertable to shoot through the Chrony so I asked my dad since it was his chrony to shoot through it.. He said you do it you cant hit the chrony.. Well with that said I lined it up and crack stuck one right through the digital screen of the chrony!!!! I couldnt belive it happened but when you get a feeling something is going to go wrong it usually does.. After the few choice words he spat at me.. I just looked at him and said Dont EVER tell me I cant hit something !!! Needless to say Dad got a new Chrony for xmas that year!!

The first time I hit one, the bullet didn't hit it, but the blast did!
I didn't know anything about chrony's, so I stuck the muzzle of my 7mm-08 about a foot in front of the first screen (I didn't want to hit it) and pinched the trigger! Well, pieces of the screens went everywhere!

The second time was with my Encore 221 Fire-Ball!
At about 20 feet, I lined up through the screens and took out the right rear screen support rod!
Guess I should have sighted it in first!

Zero Drift,

I saw something very similar at the gun range in my former state of residence. This guy had ALL THE TOYS, and expensive ones. Custom 7 MM JDJ, Ohlers Chrono, SWARO optics traget scope and spotting scope, reloading at the bench with forester dies. Class act.

However, that thing was magna ported and LOUD. All that denero wrapped up in the equipment and a CHEAP camera tripod. You know the ones with the thin telescoping legs and don't weight nothing? Well, he is MUCH safer than your "DAD" friend (BTW, you were way to corterous) but kept fiddling with it and he didn't want to make the line wait on him, so he hurried the set up and the thing just wouldn't stabalize, it would rotate in the slight wind, on and on.

Finally after waiting and fiddling more on it actually gets to shoot, and dead squares it. I could only assume this as I was looking in my scope preparing to fire when his magnaport report told me that he had fired and the chrono and tripod end over end in my scope FOV told me that he had fired on off and had hit it pretty solid too.

Nothing was said. The man with the expensive equipment got very red, and quietly packed up his gear put it carefully in the truck, and drove off with out all the fit throwing you witnessed.

I felt bad for the guy. But he showed character and class. Next time I saw him at the range about 2 months later and talked with him about it, and he realized the mistake, he now had a very nice and sturdy tripod that the wind will have no ill effect on.

Spend your money wisely

Chrony's are not the only beaste to be killed sooner or later by shooting over'm. 1978 GMC 4x4 Pickups also fall into this category. Yep shore nuff did.

Yup, got one in '94....didn't taste worth a damn either.

If you send in the "corpse" to chrony, you can get a replacement at a low price.

Oh yeah,
Count me in on this one. Shot my chrony the 2nd week I had it

SImdow

Not yet for me, I've been shooting over the same PACT for 20+ years now. But I now I will one day and it will be in front of a big crowd when it happens.

I've said this before and it's still true. There are two types of shooters who have chronographs.....those who have shot one....and those who will. Trust me on this one.

I've been lucky so far, had a pro Chrony for a long time its still alive.

But I've seen one shot, guy a Amerian Shooting Center, Houston Texas, one of the largest ranges in the country. Watched a guy plop down is credit card for the $275 deposit or whatever it was, set it up and first shot right through the display in front of a hundred shooters, I felt sorry for the guy. He didnt even get to take it home and eat it.

Shot mine a few years back. I had shot through it with numerous pistols many times and even with a couple of my centerfire rifles. Then one day while working up a load in my father's new muzzleloader we put a plastic sabot right through the digital screen.

Ummm, twice, kind of. First was with my Schmidt-Weston chrono. Setting up that old chrono usually entailed a half hour of fiddling. The sky screens were aluminum boxes 4x4x5" bolted to a rail, then put on a tripod. I usually checked it out with a .22 rimfire, yup hit the top edge of the start screen. Being of heavy guage aluminum, it didn't penetrate the innards, only bent it up pretty bad. I was able to straighten the main box, and send for another top where the slot for the "EYE" is.

Second time was with an oehler, just barely grazed the plastic above the lense for the eye. IIRC it was with a .280. Neither case resulted in much of a cost, but ruined that day of shooting.

So far so good with my present pact. Now that I've said that, LOOKOUT!

.416 Rigby will definitely stop a charging chronograph.

Yep. I drilled my first Chrony in short order, right through the center with a .300 Weatherby. As it slowly toppled over I hoped it was the muzzle blast that did it. Nope. I'd made the basic newbie error of lining up the scope through the rods but forgetting how much lower the bore line is.

You don't need the bullet passing very low over the sensors, anyway. It seems to work better when the bullet's going about through the middle of the lower rods. (Certainly the Chrony lasts longer that way.)

Not yet........but I have creased a COUPLE of truck hoods.

When I first started reloading a good friend volunteered to be my mentor. He listed all the things I needed and on this list was a F1 chrony. I�d never seen one before and asked what it did. He said come down to the public range on Saturday and I�ll show you.



So down we went, the place was packed, we waited 30 minutes for a bench (there�s 30 benches). He set it all up and fired the first shot out of his .35 Whelen through it. Nothing came up on the display. He says �I�m shooting too high over the sensors�. You guessed it next shot hit the display and threw the crony down range about 30 feet. There were a few catcalls from down the line, my mate doesn�t say anything, he chambers another round and shoots the chrony again. This brought a hush over the line.



The RO called a cease fire soon after, my mate picked up a stick and walked down range, all eyes were on him. When he got to the shattered chrony, he poked it with a stick, looked up and said so that everyone could hear him �You wanna make sure these things are down when you hit them, don�t want one getting up when you�re this close�. The whole range erupted with laughter.



I kept the chrony and mounted it on a shield for him. He�s the only bloke I know who has a �trophy� chrony on his wall.

Kind of

I've always been careful to check where the barrel's bore falls over the chrono, and like to figure on having a good 6" of clearance. Then one day I decided to try and see how fast I could push my 310 gr cast bullets out of my 480 revolver. Trouble is I expected the plainbase to lead badly at the 1500 fps I was looking for. No problem I figure, I'll just seat inverted gas checks in the case over the bullet.

Then I have the foresight of thinking since the gas checks aren't attached to the bullet base, they will fly wild. So, I take a piece of 1/8" lexan to place in front of the shooting chronies brain and lcd. All good and fine at this point.

When I get to the range and setup, for some reason I'm too impatient to put the lexan piece in front of the screen, it was a lunch time shooting session which are always pressed for time.

The first string of 5 shots are fine, and running around 1400 fps, First shot of the next string is fine, but on that dreaded seventh shot, I see the LCD go blank, and something fly off the chrony. Sure enough, the errant gas check at 1400 fps and change was able to impact the chrony case just hard enough to leave a .475" dia 1/8" deep impression, which was enough to kill the electronics.

I have yet to replace the chrony, one of these days!

Thanks for the great story. Unfortunately, every range has at least one Mr. know-it-all. Lou

Ya know it's pretty impressive when a 320 gr LBT from a 44mag. tags both skyscreen sensors in my PACT system. Oops, I shot just a wee bit low. The sunshades went flying and pieces of plastic rained down. I like systems with remote sensors. If you hit them, your whole system isn't destroyed.

I will admit, I had never hit a chrono/Chrony with a rifle bullet--then again I never shot sabots or gas check bullets through them either. When I hit that little red Chrony Alpha, I was checking out some 185gr JHP's in my .45. Was in a little bit of a hurry (first mistake), and wasn't using a rest (second mistake). After the third rather quick shot, I noticed the chrony slowly topple over and hit the dirt. Like someone here said about trade-ins, I sent the murdered Chrony to the manuf and they gave me a deal on a new Beta Master.

Mine took a 22-250 55grain pill going 3700fps




Poor penetration, should have used a FMJ instead of a Ballistic Tip

Have been using chronographs since around 1960 - haven't shot one yet. If you use a rest of the correct height, put the target at the right elevation, and check everything out with the rifle scope before you load the rifle, you never will..... However, I did manage t chop the corner out of my truck windshield once with an '06 when using the hood for a benchrest. The Insurance Company only said "OH MY!!" when they asked me what had hit my truck and I said "a bullet"!!

Zero!! How did you all keep from busting out in gales of unrestrained laugher?? You have the restraint of a saint!!

A good story! (After years of setting up an Oehler, I bought a Chrony! Takes perhaps 5 minutes to set up.)

eldeguello - In retrospect it was one of the more humorous days at the range. However, at the time, I was concerned he was going to either shoot himself, his child, or one of us. At the end of the day, I have a 2 sets of Oehler skyscreens just in case and a memorable day of how not to set up your chronograph. Some folks only live to serve as an object lesson to others.



The trick to setting up the Oehler is to use two tripods and not one. It takes longer to align one tripod than it does with two, and two tripods make the rail much more stable against wind and muzzle blast.



All the guy had to do was ask for a little help and advice and everyone would have gladly jumped in. As it stands, he ignored assistance and learned an expensive lesson - shoot factory ammo...

I have. I have 2 or 3 old Oehler skyscreen with bullet holes in them that still work fine.

I have an Oehler and a chrony, doesn't take any longer with either one. The secret is to set up your target and then prop your gun in the rest so it is centered on the target, then take either chrono and center it on the barrel of the gun by looking through the skyscreens from the downrange side. Take one last look from the gun and you are ready. Takes no more than 2 or 3 minutes to set up the chrono after the gun and target are in place.