LabRadar Chrono

[avvidclif]

I've been holding off on buying one until the Bluetooth link was finished. I e-mailed the US Distributor last night and received a reply this morning from Tom Mouser. The hardware is already there it's a software upgrade to enable it and will be available to owners. That made up my mind so I ordered one abt 8:30. E-Mailed back to Tom the ball was in his court, ship it. I received a ship notification from UPS at 10:30 that it would be delivered tomorrow afternoon.

WOW is all I can say. Kudos to Tom and the entire crew. Let the fun begin.....

 

[benenglish]

Congrats. Let us know how you like it.

 

[avvidclif]

Will do. Back in the day the Oehler 35P was the cat's meow and supposedly this is a lot louder meow.

 

[benenglish]

I've got a 35P and decided to stick with it after doing lots of LabRadar research. However, if all my shooting was pistols, indoors, the LabRadar would definitely be the bee's knees.

 

[robertc1024]

They sure are handy though. One of our members has one that I got to use for a bit - throw it up on the bench next to your rifle and fire away. It was outside and I had the lanes next to me either open, or at least not shooting and it worked great.

 

[benenglish]

... it worked great.

So I've heard. Part of the setup is telling the unit which side you'll be shooting from. The test results I've seen indicate it does a good job of measuring the correct shots and not the ones from the benchrests on either side.

 

[avvidclif]

Ben when I got back into reloading and decided I wanted a good chrony I looked and the 35P had been discontinued. Looking around they were going to make a limited run for the same money as the LabRadar. Didn't take me long to decide but I was waiting on the Bluetooth and when that was resolved I bought. No sky screens for me. It may have been a mistake but I don't think so. Now if I had a 35P I wouldn't have been looking. I don't necessarily think it's better that the " gold standard" but it sure seems a lot easier to use.

 

[benenglish]

It may have been a mistake but I don't think so.

I don't think so, either. I didn't mean to imply that.

Ultimately, I went with the Oehler because LabRadar had put such a bad taste in my mouth. I saw their SHOT display, told them to "shut up and take my money" and pestered them for a unit for a long, long time. They showed at two SHOT shows and were approaching the third before they shipped just a few units to people who could give them publicity. I have years of emails from them repeatedly promising they were shipping "real soon now" with multiple shipping dates quoted, then pushed back, then quoted again, then pushed back again, etc., ad nauseum.

Eventually I decided they were never going to ship to anyone in any quantity so I bought the Oehler. Fairly soon after that, they actually managed to start shipping to people other than magazine writers and youtube gun channels.

That's the way my luck runs.

 

[avvidclif]

I

I don't think so, either. I didn't mean to imply that.

Ultimately, I went with the Oehler because LabRadar had put such a bad taste in my mouth. I saw their SHOT display, told them to "shut up and take my money" and pestered them for a unit for a long, long time. They showed at two SHOT shows and were approaching the third before they shipped just a few units to people who could give them publicity. I have years of emails from them repeatedly promising they were shipping "real soon now" with multiple shipping dates quoted, then pushed back, then quoted again, then pushed back again, etc., ad nauseum.

Eventually I decided they were never going to ship to anyone in any quantity so I bought the Oehler. Fairly soon after that, they actually managed to start shipping to people other than magazine writers and youtube gun channels.

That's the way my luck runs.

I didn't take it wrong if it sounded that way. Oehler is the "Gold Standard" and has been for over 40 years. That was the first thing I went looking for but found they were discontinued and started looking around and found LabRadar. Kinda interesting story about their promises, sounds like the Bluetooth line I'm getting. What's even more interesting is going to the mfg's website. All kinds of commercial stuff and absolutely no mention anywhere of LabRadar. Now if you want to track a 155 rnd out to 8600m, gotcha covered.

 

[avvidclif]

Alright I took it out to the range today. Never could get it to trigger on 22 LR. Moved on to the 223, no problem. Same for 6.5CM. I didn't have an SD card in so couldn't download the data, my fault, it's in the manual. So I went home and installed an SD card for tomorrow and it dumped all of my data from today...GRRRR. Another "gotcha". I didn't write it down before installing the card.... I do remember Hornady American Hunter 6.5CM 140gr BTHP had a standard deviation of 9fps. Also was the most accurate. I had a problem with my handloads. GRRR I'm fairly sure I know what it is and will find out for certain tomorrow.

On the positive side. It worked great, it's not intuitive so there were multiple trips to the manual, slow learner on my end. It impressed other shooters at the range. Two of which said they would be ordering one. Another expressed a desire but don't know how serious he was. I chrono'ed loads for the two and being impressed is an understatement. Walk it over to their bench, set up a new series for them, point it at the target, arm it , and watch the grins and smiles.. No sky screens, just point and shoot. Both were looking for different numbers on velocity according to ammo box and reloading charts. Their reloading charts and data on the factory boxes didn't match. I pointed out the accuracy of the unit and it was showing actual data on their rifle and weather conditions. That it showed the velocity at muzzle, 10, 25,50, 75, and 100 yds was the icing on the cake. From that they can calculate Ballistic Coefficient and generate range cards for that rifle and that load/ammo. They were shooting 7mm Mag, 338 Win Mag and 375. Tracked no problem. It tracked the 6.5 to 100yds with no problem also.

 

[avvidclif]

Alright I took it out to the range today. Never could get it to trigger on 22 LR. Moved on to the 223, no problem. Same for 6.5CM. I didn't have an SD card in so couldn't download the data, my fault, it's in the manual. So I went home and installed an SD card for tomorrow and it dumped all of my data from today...GRRRR. Another "gotcha". I didn't write it down before installing the card.... I do remember Hornady American Hunter 6.5CM 140gr BTHP had a standard deviation of 9fps. Also was the most accurate. I had a problem with my handloads. GRRR I'm fairly sure I know what it is and will find out for certain tomorrow.

On the positive side. It worked great, it's not intuitive so there were multiple trips to the manual, slow learner on my end. It impressed other shooters at the range. Two of which said they would be ordering one. Another expressed a desire but don't know how serious he was. I chrono'ed loads for the two and being impressed is an understatement. Walk it over to their bench, set up a new series for them, point it at the target, arm it , and watch the grins and smiles.. No sky screens, just point and shoot. Both were looking for different numbers on velocity according to ammo box and reloading charts. Their reloading charts and data on the factory boxes didn't match. I pointed out the accuracy of the unit and it was showing actual data on their rifle and weather conditions. That it showed the velocity at muzzle, 10, 25,50, 75, and 100 yds was the icing on the cake. From that they can calculate Ballistic Coefficient and generate range cards for that rifle and that load/ammo. They were shooting 7mm Mag, 338 Win Mag and 375. Tracked no problem. It tracked the 6.5 to 100yds with no problem also.

Followup. When I removed the SD card my data was still there from today, now copying to paper. Evidently when an SD card is present it reads from it and when not there goes back to internal memory...

 

[lonestardiver]

Ahhh, good info to know.

 

[Dred]

Avvidclif,

Glad you are having a good experience with the Labradar. I'm almost a year in so I figured I'd offer a couple observations for you.

1. Just ignore the rifle mode v. pistol mode. Well, don't ignore the labels, but do understand ... it ain't looking at the firearm. Rather, select pistol for rounds moving up to about 1500 fps, then swap to rifle for the faster moving stuff. I've got 10mm and 22TCM loads that it can't see from pistol mode 'cause the rounds are hauling butt, and I've got some PCC loads that I have to read in pistol mode 'cause they're too slow for the rifle picture setting. If you think in terms of expected velocity - you will limit your confused head scratching. Just FYI - this is a likely look as you try to get it to trigger on 22lr - I haven't tried suppressed yet, but I have succeeded with clocking everything I've tried: 22 caliber at 2k+ fps to about 1k fps through 45 caliber at about 800 fps through 1700 fps (460 Rowland, 16" barrel). Just FWIW, it actually outperforms the promised sensitivity - I've clocked 40gr, 22cal speedsters (2k+ muzzle) out to 130 yards (they promise 60 or 70 yards for projectiles this small - I was pleased.

2. Your muzzle location relative to the Labradar is important for accurate triggering as well. You'll get that worked out in short order.

3. Proper alignment of the unit is MUCH easier if you tape a drinking straw into the alignment notch on the top of the unit.

ETA: 4. Also regarding alignment ... I found that a pistol grip, ball head tripod is definitely worth the investment. I also use this adapter mounted to a flat board when benchresting: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JC5DAG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.

I am looking forward to a phone app that will allow annotation and editing of onboard data on the fly. Also, I look forward to the ability to set up strings using a phone keyboard - setting up all 5 measurement distances and inputting projectile weight can get cumbersome using the on unit buttons. But, all-in-all, my 35P hasn't been out of my hall closet since the Labradar landed. I've been meaning to take the 35P out and set it up for a farewell photo shoot, but ... evidently the Oehler setup is NOW cumbersome - I've been planning the photo shoot I need to post a for sale ad for almost a year now.

 

[benenglish]

Thanks for the report.

I suppose there's nothing preventing me from owning both the Oehler and the LabRadar. Hmmm....

 

[avvidclif]

Thanks for the report.

I suppose there's nothing preventing me from owning both the Oehler and the LabRadar. Hmmm....

Now that's a proper and correct thought.

I went back out today and checked some more reloads. There was 1 round out of 20 it's didn't pick up. Today I had an SD card in it and noticed it went back to the default settings for it???? I figured that out when I noticed the downrange readings had changed. I had it set for 10, 25, 50, 75, 100yds and it went back to the max at 85. I haven't looked at the other defaults. Strange.

I appreciate all the tips, I'll have to work on getting it to read 22LR's. I know it's the triggering because it tracked a 223 rnd without a problem, all the way to 100yds. Not exactly a high priority item anyway, just a side note. It had no problems with false triggering even with loudenboomers on each side. I had it on a tripod today and it was abt 12" to the left side from the muzzle and abt 4 inches lower than the muzzle. Yesterday it was on the other side. Missed one shot and that was because someone forgot to arm it. DUH. Now if Bluetooth will control arming it, etc. that would be great.

It has proved that I'm not as good of a reloader as I thought I was. I'm just trying to equal factory ammo now. BUT I'm having fun...