Is a chronograph necessary?

[Janeau]

Its really nice having one if you care about accuracy. It sounds like you don't care about accuracy much though. Those manuals are always extremely conservative, you can put in more powder.

Very unsafe..velocity does not give you any data on pressure.. the companies and balisticians who develop those books and reloading charts know better that you do.

 

[Fuj]

It's a tool in the tool box if needed. As a wild catter in new development,
it's on my bench more often then not. It's not bothersome to set up or
use. Yes, the target is the final word but, I need to log what got me there.

 

[TC260]

It's a tool in the tool box if needed. As a wild catter in new development,
it's on my bench more often then not. It's not bothersome to set up or
use. Yes, the target is the final word but, I need to log what got me there.

When I was shooting Contenders and other lower pressure platforms a lot I really liked having the chrono running during load development. Those aren't the kind of firearms one wants to wait until they're hard to open or have other outward pressure signs before deciding to change course. Yes shooters used to do it that way and survived but there were also the occasional blowups as well. Seeing higher than expected velocities early on lets the shooter know something isn't right well before there's outward signs of a problem.

 

[Paddyd]

The furthest i can shoot on my range is 300 yds and I've managed to do load workups without a chronograph. That said, at 300 yds SDs arent super important. Now if I was looking for consistent vertical any further than that, Id definitely invest in one. At 100 yds those SD #s dont mean anything to me because 10 or 20 fps difference won't show up on paper. If a load that worked last week still works today, Im good and dont care what velocities are.

 

[Ccrider]

No. Not necessary to tune or develop a load. You can consistently develop the perfect load without one.

I say this and I would not be comfortable at the bench developing a load without one.

You can learn things from using one. Among other things, accuracy nodes seem to fall into certain speed ranges for a particular load in a particular barrel. Get above or below that range and it shows on paper. Ladder test prove this out.

All brass is not equal. The target proves this out. A chronograph may glue you in.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the message. There is no good reason for not using one.

 

[KMW 1954]

Obviously, it’s not an exact science

Cause it really is no science at all. Just and educated guess.

 

[Stugots]

WRONG - my chronograph only tells me a velocity number. I have to use excel to get SD, ES, all that other shit. WRONG WRONG WRONG SO WRONG!~!~!!

Buy a better (more up to date) chronograph that will provide the additional features...

 

[Straightshooter1]

IMHO . . . a chronograph is NOT really "necessary". . . depends on what kind of shooting being done. But it can make things easier when putting together useful ballistics dope and when changing up components.

I think few people are as anal as I am about reloading where I'm tracking and record just about every piece of data I can on each load I put together (e.g. powder moisture content at time of loading, primer pocket depths, primer seating depths, primer manufacturer "neck tension", ambient temperature when fired, density altitude, and more recently . . . neck hardness . . . etc.). Doing all this is certainly not "necessary", but with a spreadsheet of such data over a long period of time, it helps determine what things work a little better that other things. Even so, it all still comes down to what the target shows.

Having acquired a new scope with a head up display (a nice gift last December), for it to calculate a firing solution (after being zeroed), it needs velocity information in addition to things like bullet weight, BC, and environmentals. If you can't enter a reliable velocity, I'm not going to get a good firing solution. In this case, yeah . . . chrono is "necessary" for velocity info.

The scope is pretty cool for once the data is entered, I just dial the yardage in the HUD and adjusting for windage the rounds land spot on at various distances.

 

[kelbro]

Not necessary but they are fun and informative. Helpful. Along the same lines as a borescope.

 

[Shooter13]

WRONG - my chronograph only tells me a velocity number. I have to use excel to get SD, ES, all that other shit. WRONG WRONG WRONG SO WRONG!~!~!!

My chrono gives me ES, SD velocity and I can group different weight bullets together so maybe you should look at what they do before posting.

 

[Jager]

velocity does not give you any data on pressure.. t

Of course it does. There is a direct correlation between velocity and pressure. And using a good chronograph with a good modeling program like QuickLoad allows you to very quickly understand how much pressure a load is producing.

I shot a benchrest match today and several of the competitors were running Garmin's. They are certainly not necessary. But they absolutely are very helpful.

 

[Janeau]

Of course it does. There is a direct correlation between velocity and pressure. And using a good chronograph with a good modeling program like QuickLoad allows you to very quickly understand how much pressure a load is producing.

I shot a benchrest match today and several of the competitors were running Garmin's. They are certainly not necessary. But they absolutely are very helpful.

Better to concentrate on reading wind and concentrate on shooting. Competition is not the place to test loads. Just a useless distraction when there is better ways to spend the time allowed…many shooters to weird things with no benefit. Chono loads at a match is one of those in my book. Completely useless.

 

[Big_Daddy]

Nope not at all...Waste of time and money....Kid toy....Totally useless!

BTW....I own 4....
2 Garmins, 1 Athlon and 1 Oehler 35P
And I use 1 of them most all of the time.
I just like seeing the #'s.
Bottom line is that the target tells the story.

 

[Janeau]

We all own toys and tools that when purchased looked like the best things to satisfy a need..and most see little or no use, or proven themselves not doing for us,what we though at time of purchase..

We also all try to justify our purchase when the expense is done.. with ourselves and the wife !

 

[RabbitSlayer]

The new ones are so awesome and easy. I bet you can find a used magneto speed or lab radar for almost nothing. I sold my magneto for a whopping 15 bucks. Even that took a while to sell. Its good to at least know the speed across an initial charge test cuz it could be way off from the book. It can easily be 150 fps off or more.

 

[searcher]

I shoot benchrest and I care very much for accuracy. No a chrono is not necessary. Have you ever been at a State or National Bencrest match ? Shooters reload on site - adjust powder charge - specially 6 PPC shooters and none use a chrono or have the possibility to do so. I had Many Chrono over the years and end up seeing very little use..mostly used to make loads meet IPSC handgun power factor.

This being said - it’s a tool for those shooting long range to make droop charts and make load adjustment to obtain consistency.

But necessary - no.

In short range benchrest, while the guys load onsite and don't have chronographs present - you can be sure most of the serious shooters know very closely the speed they are running - and what each load adjustment does to their speed. But a chrono is not needed to find the upper 'shootable' range before pressure levels exceed safe limits. Most PPC's are shot right at, or close to, max safe velocity.

 

[209jones]

Iuse my chrono to test out my new guns to see what I am really getting out of them, often first with a box of factory ammo, then with a ladder load, and maybe 2-3 different powders worth of ladder loads. Once I have that initial data, I seldom bother with it til I'm satisfied with a load on paper, and then I'll run a few to get a baseline for doping with, even though I pretty much knew what it would be doing. I've used it for temp experiments with a few powders over the years, I'll use it with a new powder or bullet weight, which will be in a ladder load.
Other than that, it can stay home, target will tell me if the load is working or not, often with that first ladder load.
I've had factory ammo that was right on the money, and up to 200fps under the stated box velocity, and many times somewhere in between. Had handloads that pressured out well under, and some that went a fair bit over max. Also had powder that was considerably faster than it was supposed to be, bolt told me that, but, chrono confirmed it. Had loads in a falling block where the guns wouldn't say squat, but, velocity sure did have something to say. And some told me the gun was just not going to work as I wanted, with the 2-3 powders or bullet I selected.
It's a nice, reassuring and convenient tool to have, but, not 100% necessary, I wouldn't bother living by it the way some folk do.

 

[mic2377]

We all own toys and tools that when purchased looked like the best things to satisfy a need..and most see little or no use, or proven themselves not doing for us,what we though at time of purchase..

We also all try to justify our purchase when the expense is done..

I don't think it hard to justify it when it is objectively extremely useful.

I can completely understand the limited utility for BR, especially given that many BR matches are shot in the 100-300 yard range, and generally shooters are tweaking a previously known and highly developed load for conditions. Furthermore the majority of BR matches occur in the months of fairer weather between April and October. Correct me if I am wrong but there I don't see a large number of matches occurring between Nov-Feb in cold climates.

Now contrast that to a someone shooting a long range match, or out on a hunt out West with highly variable weather where the temps can drop 50-60 degrees in a day. A chrono is really, really helpful for understanding how your loads change with these conditions and adjusting data accordingly. This could be done with old-fashioned DOPE collection but that doesn't work so well when good loads start falling apart, IE a load that was awesome when 20 degrees out is blowing primers when hot, or vice versa where accuracy and ES/SD goes to crap in the extreme cold. This can happen even with "temperature-insensitive" powders.

Now this is coming from a guy who spent at least 10 years shooting long range WITHOUT a chrono, and who wouldn't go back.

 

[danny]

I went for 30 years without a chronograph and did fine. Then about 10-15 yrs ago, I finally got a Shooting Chrony, and it helped, some, but was such a pain to set up and use that I rarely used it, which kinda defeated the purpose.

Then last year I bought a Garmin Xero C1 and WOW, what a difference. Super easy to use, fast, simple, etc. One of the best $500 investments I've made in shooting, very handy for doing load development, particularly for finding a charge "area" where MV stays almost the same across different charge weights ("finding charge weight nodes")...now I use it for most of my range CF rifle shooting (except matches)...

That said, I also agree with @spencercoc74 in post 14 above, using a chrono can create a rabbit hole and cause you to start paying too much attention to the wrong things, so use it judiciously ...

I also bought a Shooting Chrony many years ago and found the same thing, so to this day, I have only used it about a handful of times. I only used it when I absolutely had to, which was when I needed velocity information on loads because I shoot at 1000 yards, but that's also exactly why I bought it. What I found to be even worse than the setup was the cryptic display messages and the unfriendly, largely convoluted and clumsy user interface and procedures for use. My description of a range session with a Chrony was a long pain in the a$$ setup and use session punctuated by very brief and informative shooting strings.

Danny

 

[209jones]

I got frustrated with the Chrony many years ago, had a good number of different days I went out, set it up, tested it with the .22, all's well, went to shoot a small centerfire sample load, lost 4-5 shots out of 10, to errors or whacky readings. It caught a bullet dead center, on purpose. Bought an Oehler 35P about 1989-90, one happened to be in a local store, 340.00 Cdn at that time, it was about 98% better, it was a good buy, but, that was a fair chunk of change back then, see they are around 7-800.00 now. Bought an Athlon last year, it does what I need, seems to work very well, no missed shots or errors or whacky results yet, that I've noticed.