I HAVE gone through several chronographs over the years and one of them is a very expensive one with all the bells and whistles. IF you want ALL the possible information it will compile it, calculate it doing all the math, print it out if you so desire,

I use my Chrony the most. It is just so damn handy compared to the rest of them.

I have fired rounds through both simultaneously with them set up end to end, and the difference between them is a couple of feet per second, either way.

now I only drag out the BIG one if I want to create some lenghty shooting record that I can replay and document on the round string. Otherwise if I am just working up loads for speed readings, I throw the chrony downrange and shoot through it, write down on a sheet of paper the speeds recorded and log them into my loading log.



like I said it is just handier and for all intent and purposes it will do "well enough for government work."



THINGS to look out for...and the following are applicable to ALL chronographs used outside, not just the Chrony in my experience...well,,, maybe the first one is FOR the Chrony..





Number 1- don't shoot it. I know it sounds dumb, but I have seen 3 of them become victims of "too much scope to know where you are in the shot window" 2 belonged to friends and one belonged to me I loaned to a friend. the nice thing is if you blow one up you can find them for under $100 vs destroying one that cost several hundreds of $$$$$$



Numer 2- if you have never used one before do NOT have the muzzle any closer then 10' to the first "screen" and make it farther if it is a serious magnum/boomer. The muzzle blast can damage the electronics and also give you weird readings.



number3-IF you are shooting one of the super whizzbang speed guns(7 mags, Lazzeroni or Wbys with small bullets going REEEAAALLLYYYY fast, and it is a REALLY bright day, you will want to magic marker your bullets, The dark bullets are easier for it to read.



number 4- IF you are getting weird inconsistent or very slow readings off of your WHIZZBANG, you may want to take plain old saran wrap and wrap the legs of the first screen legs with the wrap to keep the muzzle blast/shock from hitting the first screen reader which is proabably causing your screen reading troubles.



number5- you really should avoid perfectly bright noonday sun overhead becasue it just causes problems for the screens to read the bullet as it crosses them.



Chronos are fun, just need to deal with their anomolies and the Chrony seems to take more abuse then I would ever subject my "good" one to.

I just ordered my Dad a Chrony Master F1 Standard chronograph as a Christmas present. He's not as sophistacated as some shooters are, but does love his long range shooting and basically just wants to measure velocity to generate range cards.

Is there anything particularly bad about these? Anything we'll have to watch out for? Any experience with these? I can return it fairly easily I guess, but for $90 (on sale) I figured I couldn't pass it up.