Caldwell Precicion Chronograph

[Burat1600]

Looking for opinions on the Caldwell chronograph! Quality, reliability, performance? Also does anyone know if unit can be plugged into a laptop.
New to this end of the reloading world. Will be reloading .35rem, .270win and 25-06rem. and am sure I'll be tapping into the expertise on this forum! AJ B

 

[L1986]

I've got one. Seems to work pretty well. Don't have another chrony to compare against but velosities seem to match up with drop tables in my rifles out to 600 yds(farthest I have shot them). Not sure about laptop but iPhone or iPad hooks up and with the free app it works great! Calculates es sd and average for you. I bought the kit that comes with the led screens and tripod. For the money it works great for my application

 

[Mozella]

Looking for opinions on the Caldwell chronograph! Quality, reliability, performance? Also does anyone know if unit can be plugged into a laptop.
New to this end of the reloading world. Will be reloading .35rem, .270win and 25-06rem. and am sure I'll be tapping into the expertise on this forum! AJ B

Mine works great. There were problems a year or so ago which were fixed by a circuit redesign. Mine has recorded thousands and thousands of rounds with only a few misses or errors. It's very reliable.

As you no doubt know, electronics technology evolves rapidly and the fact that this unit is relatively new and uses a very fast internal clock is a good thing. Plus it has no "brains" because you've already purchased the processing and storage part of the chronograph; your smart phone. Just install the free app and you're good to go. That helps keep the cost down and at the moment they're selling for seventy bucks for the plain version and about a hundred for the full kit which includes a tripod and light kit.

I never use mine indoors, so I don't need the light kit and I had an old photo tripod so I went with the stripped version. I certainly wouldn't trade it for a classic chronograph designed and built 10years ago just because it cost ten times what my Caldwell cost. I remember buying a Tandy III computer with 64K (that's right "K") of memory for well over three thousand bucks.

You can't beat the Caldwell when it comes to "bang-for-the-buck".

Look HERE for information about hooking the Caldwell to a laptop.

 

[Toolbreaker]

I've had one for a pretty good bit now, and it's held up just fine. Shortly after getting it, I ran it in tandem with a buddy's Pro Chrono, and it registered consistently with his. I had a few failures to read initially, but narrowed that down to the poor lighting at the time. Haven't had a glitch since then. I really like the fact that it plugs directly into my phone for recording data. That's a big plus (for me, anyways).

Given the cost of them at the time (I see that they've come down some since then, also), I figured if I put a Berger through it's brainpan, it wouldn't hurt too much in the wallet. So far, it's still ticking away

 

[Killick]

I just used mine today in tandem with a buddy's 1st Gen. Magnetospeed. Attached the Magspeed and shot over my Caldwell. My .284 ammo was old so the neck tension wasn't consistent. The ES was 143!, SD was 61.3! but the Caldwell tracked within 6fps at most and mostly averaged within 2fps. I'm calling that good.

 

[Mozella]

I just used mine today in tandem with a buddy's 1st Gen. Magnetospeed. Attached the Magspeed and shot over my Caldwell. My .284 ammo was old so the neck tension wasn't consistent. The ES was 143!, SD was 61.3! but the Caldwell tracked within 6fps at most and mostly averaged within 2fps. I'm calling that good.

Could you just as well have said, "The Magnetospeed tracked within 6fps of the highly accurate Caldwell at most and mostly averaged within 2fps, which is not bad at all."?

In other words, I'm wondering if you have any evidence that one is more accurate than the other? I couldn't find any accuracy claims for the Magnetospeed, but the tests they publish on their web site show that it's within about a half a percent of the results reported from an Oehler unit. That's not bad, but the Caldwell folks claim their units are calibrated to within a quarter of a percent. Does that make it better? Hard to say.

Of course, manufacturers don't always tell the whole truth, but I certainly wouldn't automatically give the nod to one or the other without seeing something better than what the sellers claim. I think it's fair to say they're both good, but as for which one is more accurate, that's not a slam-dunk, at least for me.

The Magnetospeed is easy to set up but it's a lot more expensive than the Caldwell and I'd expect that it will effect the group size one way or another making it undesirable for load development. Since that's the primary reason I to the trouble of setting up a chronograph, I'm pretty sure the Magnetospeed doesn't make sense for me. It sure looks easy to use though.

 

[DRNewcomb]

..., but the Caldwell folks claim their units are calibrated to within a quarter of a percent. Does that make it better? Hard to say.
...

±0.25% at 2500 fps would be ±6.25 fps. The issue is that there are two criteria: accuracy and repeatability/consistency. If the accuracy is ±0.25% but the repeatability is ±0.1% that could be pretty good. From a ballistics point of view it's not all that important if it's 2493.75 fps or 2506.25 fps, as long as it's consistent. However, I'd be a bit concerned if I thought that my readings could have a >12.5 fps spread induced just by the vagueries of the chronograph.

 

[Killick]

Could you just as well have said, "The Magnetospeed tracked within 6fps of the highly accurate Caldwell at most and mostly averaged within 2fps, which is not bad at all."?

In other words, I'm wondering if you have any evidence that one is more accurate than the other? I couldn't find any accuracy claims for the Magnetospeed, but the tests they publish on their web site show that it's within about a half a percent of the results reported from an Oehler unit. That's not bad, but the Caldwell folks claim their units are calibrated to within a quarter of a percent. Does that make it better? Hard to say.

Of course, manufacturers don't always tell the whole truth, but I certainly wouldn't automatically give the nod to one or the other without seeing something better than what the sellers claim. I think it's fair to say they're both good, but as for which one is more accurate, that's not a slam-dunk, at least for me.

The Magnetospeed is easy to set up but it's a lot more expensive than the Caldwell and I'd expect that it will effect the group size one way or another making it undesirable for load development. Since that's the primary reason I to the trouble of setting up a chronograph, I'm pretty sure the Magnetospeed doesn't make sense for me. It sure looks easy to use though.

Applied Ballistics reviewed available chronographs and now sells the Magnetospeed.
http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/chronograph-perfromance-review.3864782/

 

[DRNewcomb]

Applied Ballistics reviewed available chronographs and now sells the Magnetospeed.
http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/chronograph-perfromance-review.3864782/

A really good article. I'm feeling better about my CED now.