Master Gamma Chrony with Infrared Light
Mandy Estira from Shooting Chrony http://www.chrony.ca graciously sent me some new upgrades to our test range facilities this week. You see them in all the magazines those FPS (Feet per Second) numbers that always seem to go with the articles. We have taken a more common sense approach to this type of testing over the years. First when you announce the FPS numbers on a gun only some tell you what kind of ammo they used. Second you have to have a standard deviation pattern for the ammo your using in order for those numbers to make sense. If Federal ammo in a given caliber can deviate 40fps out of the box then a 40 fps difference between guns matters. Also If I tested one 45 caliber when it 75 degrees outside I should EXPECT lower FPS numbers than the pistol I tested when it was 105 outside.
A Ballistic Chronograph is a precision instrument and a very valuable tool for anyone who intends to take their shooting seriously. With the rise of combat style shooting events like IPSC, 3 Gun Shooting events, and wide spread trap shoots and skeet shooting events. All of these things require you to know exactly what is happening with your firearm and your ammo. What I am trying to get across is the difference of why we don’t always publish FPS numbers (Because we don’t have proper comparison charts for ammo deviation as they don’t exist) and why you should concern yourself with the Ballistic certainty of your firearm.
So what can you learn from having your own Chronograph? Most would jump at how precise you could get a reload. Right? True. You could spend endless hours tweaking a reload to get a perfect and known result both at the point of release from the barrel and 100 yards down range in order to give you the exact ballistic characteristics of your round for long range precision shoots. As it stands with shotguns knowing your standard deviation and having Shotgun shells with the lowest possible deviation and a know FPS rate so you can know what your brain has timed your shots for is a HUGE advantage. Remember that in that event your training your brain to just shoot where you look, there is a lot of internal timing that comes into that hidden calculation and consistency of your firearm means higher scores.
So when is it not important to concern ourselves with overall speed? Every time. Its not important that your firearm shoots 100fps faster than the next one of the same caliber. What is important is during a load work up to know at what speed YOUR gun shoots best and every gun is different. When shooting IPSC reduction in recoil is a common goal and that organization has a “ Power Factor” which is based off your grain weight of your bullets and the speed that bullet travels and your weapon must meet a minimum. This is done for safety reasons as well as real world realism. So the goal there would be to work up a load that tries different powders and bullet weights to reduce recoil, get faster time back on target, meet the minimum standard, and still be consistent. You can’t do this without a Ballistic Chrony.
Indoor gun ranges should be doing two things to support shooters in our opinion. First Call Dillon RB550 and get a 550 body and mount it on the range, Setup a Master Chrony in the lane next to this station. This is a full support unit for those who don’t have a few thousand acres to shoot from outside my reloading room. The point would be to have them bring in their complete quick-change head and work the load up and move it back to the house to reload (Just double check your results). A load work up station is probably one the best investments you could make in your indoor/outdoor range.
So why the Master Gamma Chrony? First the digital read out can be permanently remote located right next to the shooter. The actual light sensors can be protected and if shot the damage is actually fairly cheap at that point since the readout and printer are separated. Remote mounting the Printer and Readout next to the reloading station and not the shooting station means that your shooters only can focus on shooting and not a number next to their head. I don’t want to say there are idiots out there, but hey there are idiots out there and if its down range it will eventually get shot. You can minimize the damage to this by replacing the steel rods with wooden ones. That way when a rod gets grazed or shot it doesn’t damage the light sensors. 13-cent wooden or plastic straw is much cheaper than light sensor. Chrony has also come out with a Infrared light upgrade. The flicker of Fluorescent lights tends to give false reading, yet you need light to make a Chrony work, (Actually you used to) and this new upgrade means that you can turn off the light above a load work up station and actually improve accuracy. Also Bright lights of sunny days would eliminate shadow needed for the Chrony to work properly and this upgrade overcomes that as well. What’s more is the Infrared upgrade can be added to existing Chrony models as well.
So when your talking about the need for a Chrony its really not a nicety but more of a necessity, we just hope that you have a better understanding of why you either need your own or get access to one at your local range. Doing so will allow you to ask better and more intelligent questions when your trying to work out a problem or load with your firearm. F1 Chrony starts at the price of couple boxes of 300WSM.
