Garmin Chrono.....first thoughts

[bchannell]

I'm looking for a new chrono and tried the Garmin first.
The good:
*easily picks up even the quietest, almost silent.177 pellets with ease. Doesn't seem to trigger on sound as it can even pick up a rubber band flipped off your finger.

*simple setup, very, very forgiving of position relative to gun and relative to target. Setup takes literally seconds.

*tiny and easy to carry and store.

*accuracy is as good or better than ANY chrono available. Right on with two other "light beam"
chrono tested.

*good app. As soon as you end a string it's automatically on the app and everything can be edited.

THE BAD:

*screen is monochrome and can be hard to see in low light. From reading online, it's better than the LR LX.

*app doest control the chrono.


Notes:
After reading up on the LR LX and Velociradar, neither seems suited to airguns as they are triggered differently and need at least minimal sound. The LX will pick up subsonic.22lr but nothing quieter from online reviews. The Velociradar seems to be in the exact same category as the LX.

FINAL:
The Garmin works like magic for airguns. I normally chrono from the back of my garage for protection from weather and have a 35 yd range out my driveway. The Garmin had zero problems with the enclosed garage, deck posts and a car in the driveway and the shot path was deliberately close to the car.
I'm pretty amazed with the first tests of the Garmin. I also have a Competition Electronics DLX and I can shoot a fairly long string, with the Garmin, in the time it takes to get the CE chrono up and running.

Is it worth $600?.......I dunno, but I'm keeping it and passing on the LX and Velociradar.

 

[bchannell]

I just did a 20 shot comparison with my ProChrono, and I have no idea which chrono is correct, but the Garmin was pretty consistently 4 fps faster than the ProChrono, which seems pretty insignificant to me. The error between the two averaged 0.6% or just over a half a percent, which is well within my comfort zone and statistical mind. There were considerable obstructions in front of the Garmin, ... a car, the walls of the garage, the prochrono, a light in front of the prochrono, so I could see the display, etc and no problem at all for the Garmin.

It's a pretty darn nice chrono, and a keeper.

 

[bchannell]

Before I bought the Garmin, I had looked at the Labradar LX and the Caldwell Velociradar, both of which use varying types of triggers which can include sound, making a moderated air rifle challenging. I emailed Caldwell and asked about airguns, specifically suppressed airguns. I real all the literature I could find on the LX too and it looks like it is not a great fit for airguns either.

Well, today I received a response from Caldwell, and they state that airguns , and I quote "They will work but they can be more challenging to record compared to higher calibers or bigger projectiles." end quote. So it looks like the Velociradar also is not at it's finest looking for pellets. So, that makes me even more grateful that I bought the Garmin, which quite simply "WORKS"

 

[steve123]

A guy I know ordered two Garmin Pro C1's by accident and offered the other to me for $525 so sounds like I'll go for it because my Oehler P35 won't pick up 17 cal pellets and also takes 20 minutes altogether of set and take down. I end up calculating FPE for FT by how my dope ends up which might or might not pass when tested at a match so it'd be nice to know for sure within a few minutes.

Is $525 a decent deal?

 

[bchannell]

Yes, I gave $550 ish for mine, so I'd do it. That's the cheapest I've seen it.
Just used it again today, not a single missed shot since I bought it. I made the little magnetic stand for my shooting bench and I just slap it on it, turn it on and go thru the prompts and start shooting, and all but the last session has been .177 rifles. Pretty impressive I must say. Nothing seems to stop it.
It is the easiest setup and use of a chrony I've ever had by faaaaarrrrrr!

 

[bustachip]

Yes, I gave $550 ish for mine, so I'd do it. That's the cheapest I've seen it.
Just used it again today, not a single missed shot since I bought it. I made the little magnetic stand for my shooting bench and I just slap it on it, turn it on and go thru the prompts and start shooting, and all but the last session has been .177 rifles. Pretty impressive I must say. Nothing seems to stop it.
It is the easiest setup and use of a chrony I've ever had by faaaaarrrrrr!

I bought mine on ebay for $529, the guy had sold a lot of them. I love it, works like a champ. I've even used it in the garage at like 10' under florescent lights at night with all the doors shut, it never missed. The only time it has missed was at the range doing rapid fire, you can out shoot it, but that's to be expected. It's never missed with normal slow fire. To me this is the one to buy. LR is dropping the price every time I check..lol, the FX is over priced IMO. Oh, and buy ya a $13 indestructible case at Harbor Freight for transport and storing.

It's a no brainer.

 

[steve123]

I like my new Garmin Xero a lot. What a fruitful and painless experience today and partly because it picks up 17 cal pellets at 5.5 fpe no problem! Also it takes less than a minute to set up and get velocities.

I was on a roll so I checked and adjusted velocities as needed on most of my airguns. Two of which I hadn't checked in years and found out they were going slower than I thought so I changed speeds while shooting groups to make sure they shot well. My Uragan King 25 cal definitely shoots even better than before and is 80 fps faster now.

A new match format will be taking place at our UFT match in the near future. It requires sub 50 fpe for a certain division. I tuned my Thomas HPX for 49.5 fpe with slugs last week when using my Oehler P35 chrono then checked with the Xero today. Velocity was the same using both, well 49.42 fpe, lol.

A story = Between 25 and 13 years ago I had bought 3 different cheap chronos of two different brands and found out that velocities did not coincide with them which was extremly frustrating. A friend shot the first one with an arrow so that was that. The other two were the same brand with one being a upgraded version. The earlier basic version had been finicky to use and broke after a few years. A friend bought the same upgraded version which I had /the 3rd one and these two didn't coincide. We were long range competitors at the time and were having a heck of a time getting our dope to work and neither chrono provided velocities that worked in our ballistic apps. That was the last straw for both of us so we went in together on the afformentioned P35. The first time we used it we found actual corrrect velocities and then I started winning matches and he was now in the top 5 even though he had just started out 6 months before. Needless to say that having your dope perfect is paramount for long range steel matches, right?!

The Xero is expensive but worth every penny. Yes for sure I highly recommend this product and suggest buying once and crying once vs doing what I did way back then in my story.

 

[tahoeacr]

This is great to read. I just ordered one today. All my crying has been every time I try to use my Caldwell.

 

[GeneT]

I've had mine since before the LR LX came out. I've done a lot of airgun chrono'ing in a much more cluttered shop, shooting down a 'lane' that I cleared out for the purpose. From 15 to 65 ft, I've still not had a failure to trigger, nor a reading that was inexplicably bad.

When I compared mine to other chronos, I found that it was virtually identical to my Oehler (which I consider the gold standard),which also matches my Labradar (the original unit). I have tested 3 Pact chronographs and they are always ~10fps faster than the others, but consistent with each other.

GsT

 

[AlanMcD]

I picked up a Lab Radar off the classifieds recently, and have been thoroughly impressed with it. It does have the external microphone trigger, and it has not missed a shot yet.

So far all I've tested with it are .22 cal guns, but it has been flawless on those tracking out to 50 yards with no issue. I'm very happy with it. I specifically wanted it for multiple reports on velocity downrange on the same pellet - I plan to do some testing on BC variability with it, which I think is an important but pretty much ignored factor in long range accuracy. As I understand it the Garmin can't do that, but it does seem like a real nice unit for "traditional" chrony use.

 

[rscottar]

As I mentioned elsewhere a retired mechanical engineer shoots with a Bench-rest group I shoot with. He is OCD +++ and bought two Garmen chrono's so that he could compare. He shot 1000 rounds with mixed center-fire and .22 and had agreement between the units within 0.02% If I have the details straight. I will see him at another match in 2 weeks and confirm if anyone is interested.