Lab Radar Chrony

[Geeman]

http://mylabradar.com/

I've been on a waiting list for 6 months.  I just received notice that it should ship within 30 Days.  It will be interesting.

Greg

[The_Shadow]

Glad for you!  You have been waiting for a while.  It will be interesting to see how it works out for you! 

[Geeman]

I have a couple of others, but I always found them to be enough of a hassle that I rarely set them up and used them.  I shoot mostly at ranges, and having to set up the screens in front of the firing line was infringing on other shooters.  This one just sets off to the side on a tripod.

For the standard handgun calibers, the Lab Radar is supposed to track velocity from the barrel to about 130 yards.  It stores data on a SD card, which seems like a nice feature.  I hope its user friendly enough that I use it most of the time when at the range.

Greg

[Ramjet]

what if others are shooting along side of you? Can it or will pick up there bullet speed?

[Geeman]

what if others are shooting along side of you? Can it or will pick up there bullet speed?

From the frequently asked questions on the above site.

Will LabRdar pick up shot from other shooters?
LabRadar accuracy will not be affected by other shots being fired into your radar beam. Part of the technology built into the system allows it to determine if the shot came from very near the radar unit or if it came in from another location. Since the radar tracking is only active for a fraction of a second it is nearly impossible for you to receive a velocity from another shooter nearby. Your unit also has an adjustment in it to "turn off" most gunshots that are nearby, yet allow your shot to operate the unit. In rare cases your unit may trigger on another shooters muzzle blast. If this occurs you can easily delete that shot from your data.

Greg

[my_old_glock]

I can't wait to here how well it works. One nice thing is that it can calculate a bullet's ballistic coefficient, or it gives enought info so you can do the calculations.


.

[PCFlorida]

Interesting, will be following this thread.

[Geeman]

My new toy arrived Thursday, and had to work until today.  I stuffed it with 6 AA batteries, took my Encore 9" 10mm barrel, and the 416 Rigby pistol just in case I needed to see if I stll had a pulse.

The LabRadar is sensitive to alignment and position relative to the barrel.  It took a few rounds of PPU 180g before I got it reading the velocities.  V(yards)
V(0)
1170
1132
1203
1210
1213
1239
1227
1201

V(10)
1169
1132
1176
1186
1191
1212
1200
1174

V(20)
1170
1132
1149
1159
1167
1176
1172
1150

V(30)
1170
1132
1121
1133
1143
1142
1144
1123

V(40)
0
0
0
1110
1123
1116
1124
1115

V(50)
0
0
1121
1100
0
1098
1119
1101

I then went from low power Privi stuff to Double Tap 135g.  This stuff smiled some cases when shooting in the G20, and I was wondering how fast it would clock from a 9" closed breach.  I couldn't get it to read at all except for a few rreadings that made no sense....

V(0)
936
924
868

I gave up after burned up half a box, I gave up...

I then grabbed the 416 Rigby and touched off a couple....  350g Speer in front of 95g of RE17.

V(0)
2340
2343

V(10)
2315
2314

V(20)
2291
2287

V(30)
2268
2263

V(40)
2246
2240

V(50)
2224
2223

Comments follow...

Greg

[Geeman]

First, the problem with the Double Tap was user error   The LabRadar has three ranges of use..  Rifle, Pistol, and Arrow.

I had it in "Pistol" for the Privi and the Double Tap.  That setting has an upper limit of 1800 fps, and it would seem certain I was above that from a 9" barrel.  I was expecting some issues with the user on the first trip out.  I learn by being a dumb ass, rather than excessive reading and understanding.

I think I'm going to like this thing.  I ran the thing on a tripod, and for bench I think I'll invent something that can set on the bench.  I'm thinking of an old fry pan and a 1/4-20 bolt with a couple of nuts might make a perfect solution.

It was interesting to see the unit not record at one range and try to record a reading farther down range.  The reading was all wrong, but interesting none the less.

Greg

[The_Shadow]

Geeman, Thanks for your report and sharing the LabRadar data.  It was my understanding that the unit would basically track the bullet from muzzle to the target.  So I was thinking the Lab Radar would be that of a graph where the starting velocity with dropping velocity out to distance.
So that is why you show the yardages of 0 yards, 10 yards, 20 yards, 30 yards, 40 yards and 50 yards,  It seems to have lost a few at the longer distances.  It tracked well on the PPU stuff.

I have to wonder if the DT was in the 1869 - 1936 fps range as recorded, just a guesstimation. Based on that it was out of the normal range of velocity.   

[Geeman]

I'm still not an expert, but you choose 5 ranges to record in the setup menu.  I choose those because I was shooting at the 50 yard range because of low use compared to the 100. 

It seems like a nicely made piece of equipment.  It seems I saw some graphing somewhere, but that may have been a compilation of data too.  Now that I have it, I'll have to re-read what others have written and learned.  In reality it wouldn't be hard to curve fit a graph.

Greg

[The_Shadow]

Looking forward to you getting the best info from you new technical toy!   

[Geeman]

Well, I have had this for awhile now, and this radar unit is GREAT. 

For me and my use, I hated messing around in front of the bench setting up the chrony screens and interrupting the others shooting that day.  Light always seemed to be an issue, as was all the wires.  It certainly made the trip less enjoyable and I often would just leave the thing home, in spite of the desire to know some numbers for what I cooked up in the reloading room.  Hassle is the word that came to mind.

Now I can set up while the range is hot.  Everything is beside the bench. No wires, no fear of shooting the instrument, and no missing shots due to lighting issues.

On the plus side, I have read bullets down to .204 caliber.  It doesn't miss shots if set up correctly and it takes a couple of minutes to get it up and running.  LabRadar records the speeds as the round proceeds down range and instantly gives read outs of speeds at five ranges that you determine.  All this and it stores all of that on an SD card that can be popped out and plugged into a computer and opened in Excel format.  Way too cool!!!!

The bad side is it eats batteries, but it also can get its power from a USB cable.  It requires a fair muzzle blast to trigger it, but attachments can be purchased for air guns, bows, and rim fire firearms. 

Velocity readings from my 20 Vartarg string

V0   V10   V20   V30   V40   V50
3229   3178   3125   3074   3022   2969
3240   3188   3135   3084   3033   2981
3250   3197   3144   3093   3040   2986
3259   3207   3154   3103   3052   3000
3290   3239   3187   3135   3083   3029

Here is the data from the first shot in the string.

Time (s)   Vel (fps)   Dist (yd)   SNR
0   3229.2   0   -
0.012021   3163.31   12.8   28.06
0.013021   3156.7   13.86   30.05
0.014021   3151.69   14.91   27.36
0.015021   3147.22   15.96   25.39
0.016021   3142.51   17.01   23.85
0.017021   3135.78   18.05   24.39
0.018021   3129.61   19.1   23.11
0.019021   3127.07   20.14   18.13
0.020021   3120.25   21.18   17.72
0.021021   3112.61   22.22   19.3
0.022021   3105.88   23.26   21.38
0.023021   3106.13   24.29   20.36
0.024021   3093.67   25.32   22.59
0.025021   3092.16   26.36   18.59
0.026021   3085.75   27.38   22.29
0.027021   3081.85   28.41   18.32
0.028021   3076.01   29.44   21.01
0.029021   3070.45   30.46   19.95
0.030021   3065.7   31.49   16.43
0.031021   3060.63   32.51   14.44
0.032021   3057.54   33.53   14.4
0.033021   3050.92   34.54   13.95
0.034021   3046.27   35.56   13.91
0.035021   3039.14   36.58   13.73
0.036021   3034.53   37.59   15.18
0.037021   3028.52   38.6   19.1
0.038021   3025.77   39.61   15.29
0.039021   3013.3   40.61   17.92
0.040021   3014.84   41.62   16.96
0.041021   3008.52   42.62   14.88
0.042021   3001.51   43.62   17.8
0.043021   2998.13   44.62   18.56
0.044021   2992.81   45.62   13.36
0.046021   2980.67   47.61   12.22
0.047021   2977.43   48.61   11.45
0.048021   2971.06   49.6   10.17


I'm love'n this toy!!!

Greg

[The_Shadow]

Geeman, Glad to see you using, working with and appreciating the results of the Lab Radar unit.   I thought they were cool when I first read about them.  I may just invest in one someday, as the data yield supersedes the regular CHRONY.

Who knows what the future holds for these units, as they maybe even more compact and efficient. 

[Geeman]

Geeman have you tested your labradar using any rifles with muzzle devices on them?  I've done some testing with mine. So far, it has worked with pistols and rifles but I am having problems with my AR pistol that has a flash hider on it. I am getting the low readings like you experienced in one string you posted.

I have fired with a 416 Rigby in an Encore pistol that has a brake on it, and it read it without a problem.  If you have a brake, try moving the muzzle 6-12 inches ahead of the Labradar.

There are three velocity ranges that they call arrow (66-738fps), pistol (246-1722fps), and rifle (982-3900fps).  If you are in the wrong range you will get bad readings or errors.  If you have a small caliber pushing small slugs at 4000+ fps , LabRadar won't work.

The final thing I heard about issues was bullet related.  The radar needs a flat bullet base to reflect the microwaves back to the unit.  Concave bases don't work well and give bad readings.  Some FMJ bullets have bullet bases shaped like this and I've heard they cause issues.

Greg