Review: Labradar chrono' (& use tips)

Reviews & Opinions
1

LabRadar review

So the LabRadar arrived sooner than expected. I saw a notice on their website that stated they couldn’t ship for 3-4 weeks. OK, so I don’t know when they posted that or if it was still posted when I ordered but it shipped immediately. I’m not complaining. It was a Christmas gift partially from the wife, but the majority of the $ from myself. I had controlling interest so I was able to build for it and use it before the fat man showed up with it.

I ordered the unit itself, the carry/storage case, and the SD card and that was it. I already have a photo tripod for when it’s needed to be freestanding, and for shooting from the bench I figured I’d buy a ball mount and build a base out of sheet aluminum. There is a tripod available for it on the website for those so inclined. I almost ordered the external battery for it, but I have plenty of rechargeable NiMh cells and if it becomes an issue I can still order it or another one. It’s not like it’s a special battery.

The unit itself has 2 large flat sides, actually front and back, one side is featureless and if you’re at the range and see the featureless side you know you’re in deep kimchee if someone hollars, “All clear, commence firing!”. It’s the side that “sees” the bullet. It’s the other side that interests us and that side has the buttons and the info’ screen.

I’m not going to go into how to operate it. There are plenty of videos on line about it and people with varying degrees of knowledge making those videos, typical Youtube, right? “I just unboxed it and here it is. I couldn’t get it to work, so it sucks.”. Then there are the folks who actually know about the unit making videos. The manual for it is also online, so pretty much I knew before it arrived how to operate it. All I was lacking was actually having the unit in my hands and pushing the buttons.

So after putting batteries inside it (remember, I didn’t buy the USB power cell) I layed it in my lap and started to go through the screens changing the preferences to what better suited me. Easy! I armed it and sent the message to emit radar to look for my bullet. Since it was in my lap my groin started to heat up and I’ll never be able to have children anymore. OK, I just made that up. The unit is ridiculously easy to use.

The other day I had some shotgun ammo to test and I’m not sure why, distance or aiming error(?), the unit triggered but couldn’t find the shot column and told me so. Let me back up. The unit has notches in it that allow the radar beam to be aimed, and it must be aimed since the projectile needs to be in the radar beam to be “seen”. So after the failures I aimed at a target 40 yards away and it worked better there. My velocities told me that my ammo experiment was a failure, but the LabRadar unit worked fine with a very small learning curve. It is so much simpler to set up than a traditional sky screen unit.

Taking the unit inside I used the supplied USB cable to transfer the data from the unit to my computer. Of course the SD card can also be removed and the data retrieved that way. But if you don’t have an SD card in it you can’t do that. I think I ran into information somewhere that states you can’t download data if there is no SD card. They’re inexpensive, just buy one and put it in the slot. It doesn’t need to be huge. The 32 mb card I bought from the LR people holds far more data than I’ll ever put into it. And it can be erased, just like a drive in your computer, so 32 mb is plenty big enough.

The first use completed, I removed my internal cells for storage of the unit. I really like it. It’s easy to use and easy and fast to set up, and gives all the data that anyone would need, to include power factor for competition. You need to input projectile information to get that. But adding data just isn’t difficult at all.

The plate I made for a base for using it while shooting from a bench is simplicity itself. I had a scrap piece of rectangular 1/4" alum’ plate, 16"x9" so I used that. I see no reason 1/8" plate wouldn’t work. One inch in from each corner I drilled and tapped 1/4-20 threads for rubber feet. In the very center I drilled and tapped another hole for the ball mount (about $25 from Amazon). I think the ball mount I bought can hold something like 18# and the unit weighs much less than that. I deburred all of the edges to make sure they don’t cut anything. In use the long axis of the plate points downrange as does the plain flat face of the LabRadar. It would take one heck of a breeze to blow it over, one I wouldn’t be out shooting in. There is so little cross section from the side that the narrow plate isn’t an issue.

So for storage what do I do with the plate? The back side of the LabRadar case has 2 wide velcro straps. I put the bottom of the plate against the back of the case. The rubber feet are on each side of the case and the ball mount is between the straps. The plate can go nowhere fastened to the case in this manner. I have no idea if the case was made to do that but right now it works fine for holding the base.

In the case there is a pocket with a velcroed flap for the documentation and outside there is a pocket with another velcroed flap for spare batteries, the USB cable and whatever else you want to lug along.

OK, pluses and minuses…

There are two potential issues with it. One could be the velocity that it will measure. According to the specs it only measures up to 3900 fps. I know of cartridges that go higher than that. But for the vast majority of cartridges it’ll work just fine. It has 3 velocity ranges symbolized by a bow, a handgun, and a rifle. I’m working from memory, but I think they correspond to 60-600fps, 600-1600fps, and 1600-3900fps. There are 2 ways to trigger the unit. One is by using the internal mic’s that use the sound of the shot. But an arrow makes no noise, so there is a trigger that uses the radar beam itself.

Since it uses radar it works on cloudy days or even in the dark; but you’d need light to read the data since the data screen isn’t lit.
(edit: Correction: the data screen is lit.)
My old CED chrono’ would also work in the dark using the IR sky screens, and I would use it in the shop. I doubt that the LabRadar will work at such close range (issue #2). But that didn’t bother the CED. Concussion wave from certain cartridges would affect the velocity measured by the CED (5000+ fps is sort of an unbelievable velocity). That is a thing of the past with radar.

Since nothing is beyond the radar unit itself there are no more issues with sabots or wads hitting skyscreens and taking them out.

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One note and an update…

Don’t even try to use the unit with a firearm that isn’t sighted in :rofl: . I tried to do that the other day and it’s just an exercise in frustration. The beam is narrow and to put the bullet into the beam when one doesn’t know where the bullet is going is fruitless. It makes sense but I had to learn the hard way. How hard can it be, right? Don’t try it.

My initial plan was to put AA cells into the back of the unit and run it that way. I still will if I run it off of a tripod or in light rain when it’s covered by a poly bag. But after doing the AA cells a few times it’s really a PITA. LabRadar sells an external power pak if you want to oder one at the same time as the unit. But a few days ago I got to looking on Amazon since I didn’t want to pay for shipping. I bought this power pack (there are dozens so I’m not pushing this one model):

Ordinarily I don’t trust the Chinese and Li-Ion cells (which this has inside) since in my experience they lie about capacity. But the reviews claimed the capacity was as claimed. It arrived yesterday and had a 22% charge. It charged at 2.4a for 8 hours so I think the claimed capacity is genuine. It’s stated purpose is to recharge tablets, phones, and such, but it will also run the LabRadar for a VERY long time. No more fiddling with 6 AAs when running it from the bench, just plug a cable into both units. Easy!

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Yesterday I ran the LabRadar (LR) for an hour or so with the power bank (PB) and at the end it had been drained down to 95%. To make things easy I’m going to set all of the power save functions to maximum now that I have power to spare.

I recharged the PB and today took my tablet down to 79%, then plugged it into the power bank to recharge it. It’s almost fully charged and the PB is down to 88%. I also ran the tablet from the PB for at least an hour as it was charging. OK, so it didn’t charge as it was running but it also didn’t discharge.

edit: Yesterday the handgun also was sighted in and the correct velocity range was selected for the LabRadar. It works much better when the LR knows what velocity it’s looking for and the bullet gets into the path of the radar.

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I contacted the LabRadar people to ask if the unit was watertight. Why? I don’t normally shoot in the rain, I find it to be less than enjoyable. But there might be times when I set it up then go indoors to load experimental rounds for testing. I would leave it set up unattended while loading. There is a chance that it could get rained on. Their answer was don’t get it wet. But they also gave a solution. Cover it with a clear plastic bag. It doesn’t hinder the radar beam and the controls can be operated from outside the bag.

These bags fit perfectly without being overly large. Since I don’t plan on setting it up in a hurricane the thickness isn’t an issue.

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Just a heads up on using the unit. I learned the hard way.

I loaded some copper plated 180 grain bullets and the unit told me they were traveling at just under 3000 fps. This out of a 10" barrel. Impossible. The 300BLK doesn’t hold enough powder for that. Plus my shoulder told me that they weren’t traveling that fast. The next time I tested them I got results more in line for the powder used, 1400ish FPS. So what happened the first time? I had it in “rifle velocity” and not in “pistol velocity”. 100% operator error. What a surprise.

The time before I had used it with the same firearm but in rifle velocity (2300ish fps) and I never thought same gun, but much lower velocity.

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Again @BrianK great review and follow ups.

We have two of the Caldwell with light bars on the bottom. Plan on getting a Labradar too. Curious about using both to determine actual BC, so

Question: how far from the rifle bullet will it work? If we set it on the 100 yard line with a rifle that shoots a 1/4"@ 100 group (no wind) how close to the path would it need to be?

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Well, you might not need to do that. depending on how it’s set up it will give a velocity reading every set point out to 100 yards.

If you plan to set it up at 100 yards and shoot past it I don’t have an answer for you. It would be best to ask a Labradar person. They’re fairly prompt in answering questions. But the beam is fairly wide. Of course it tightest right at the unit and like a flashlight the beam gets wider from there. It would give me the willies to shoot at it without a piece of steel in front of it for protection. Nothing ever goes wrong until it does and then it can be an “Oh SHIT!” moment.

I try to put my firearm within 6" to the side and slightly beyond the unit and use the internal mic’ to trigger the unit. But out at 100 yards you need to tell it to look for something showing up in the beam. Unless you keep someone out there to push buttons, get a power unit as I did. That way the Labradar can be set up and it’ll run until it’s out of juice in a week or so. If it’s powered from the internal AAs I saw my rechargeables noticeably run down in an hours use. But with the charging unit I bought I’ve used 4x since the last charge (i think it’s been 4x) and it still hasn’t come off of a full 100% charge. At least 2 of those times has been many hours. I no longer shut it down to conserve juice. I just let it run. It’s much easier than putting AAs in the thing. I just put the power unit in a nylon bag and hang it from a cable tie on the unit. Connect the USB cable and the power connection is made. The other way to power it is with 6 or 8 AAs. That’s a PITA. It got old for me doing it just twice.

edit: Labradar does sell a power unit, but you can get a larger cap’ unit for less $ online. If you’re going to get one you might as well get one that will recharge a laptop, kindle, phones and still not run out of juice. At least that’s how I looked at the issue.

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Thanks Brian I was thinking about the 2 Caldwell units in front of the bench and the Labradar at 100. I need to check with them I guess.

We’ve got battery packs and some plate steel that should work as a shield.

Pretty sure we’ll get one after the first of the year.

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