Hey Mark, great review! I have an old school optical chrono that I only used a few time because it was a pain to set up and its rare that I'm alone at the range. About 3 months ago I purchased the Garmin and I'm very happy with it, I use it every time I'm at the range (weekly) Its been a great unit and really helped me verify the consistency of my loads. Turns out some of them were slower / faster than I thought, but over all I'm pretty happy with the ES and SD of most of them. My old Winchester M70 in 222 has an ES of 9.0 and an SD of 3.0!! Pushing 50 gr Vmax at 3375 fps and shoots .5 moa.
I ran out and bought one... I LOVE IT! You can set it up blindfolded and when light conditions are fading, it's not bothered in the least. The advantages over the old chronographs are incredible.
Santa brought one in my Christmas Stocking. It is brilliant. Used on rifles,and handguns. If you are OCD this is the device for you. Good review, thanks. Battery last a long time between charges.
I have had mine for a couple months now and love it. I shoot more handgun that rifle and it works perfectly. It never misses a shot and saves all the data to my phone for later review.
It has also reached the European continent here in Denmark. As you are saying a nice little piece of chronograph equipment that does the job with an easy set-up and a little footprint. Has not missed a single shot. Seems to have enough gain and beam width to catch them all.
Picked one up a couple months ago, tested it in kids basement w/a 7gr .22 pellet and a 1 gr pc of foil rolled up through a straw. While it wouldn't get a reading on speed, it picked up 5 of 5 of both samples. That's pretty good considering propelled w/my 72 yr old lungs!
Late to the party, but finally picked one up for myself. I've used quite a few Xero's borrowing them from friends the past year and they've all worked great! Now that my Magnetospeed died, I'm finally joining the cool kids
I purchased one of these, and I can say going from an optical chronograph that would error out and give problem after problem. This thing is awesome! It is easy to use. I don't have to worry about a dumb 9v battery, and it just flat out reads what every you throw at it.
Been using one of these for a couple months now and just love it. The app UI could be better for those that want to annotate and export the data for analysis but they can enhance that over time. The unit simple works great.
6 out of 10 people at our PRS club in Qld hqve one and they seem to work very well. If your just getting speeds and not the sd 3 people and use it at once if you don't link it to a phone
Besides not missing shots, the unit can operate without a Bluetooth connection and phone app. The unit has a 54 session limit and over writes the earlier files. I just download the internal .fit files every time I finish for the day, and convert the .fit file to .csv using a converter one of the members of Gordons Reloading Tool (GRT) Discord made up. You can just use the phone app to generate .csv files, but can only send one at a time. The phone app will download from the unit only one time. The unit will run for about 6 hours on one charge, no external batteries needed.
Its funny how technology moves. Had my Amarok tuned the other day and the dyno was the size of the garmin xero! Bolts to one of the wheel bolts and uses an accelerometer and the cars weight/wheel size and bugger me if it wasnt accurate. It was called DynoRoad I think.
Definitely worth the money in my opinion. I've had mine since last Nov. have NO Regrets buying it. Sure, there are cheaper options out there (none radar though) that work pretty well but they just aren't nearly as user friendly as the Garmin in my opinion and are much more problem prone with things like missed shots (something I absolutely HATE). I've shot probably upwards of 500 rounds for various load developments since having it and it has not missed a single shot, though in all fairness, there was one shot that I think it read wrong because the velocity reading was significantly low but the discharged felt fine and at 200 yards, there was no discernable elevation difference with that round so I'm pretty sure that shot was in the ES of the other 9 for that powder charge and the Garmin just read it wrong for some reason.... I'll take a 1 in 500 error any day of the week.
I bought one. so far I am simply amazed! I could not believe that it did not come with a case tho! I have bought dremel tools for $10 that came with padded case sooo... wtf? I have been handloading for half a century and this was extremely welcome... seem that when me and a buddy go out shooting we spend half an hour just loading up the truck lol This fits i one of my Haliburton cases along with... well... who knows what else? Soooo for me.. mostly shoot handguns with cast slugs. At this point I have to applaud you folks down under. Seems someone down their invented HT coatings for cast bullets. been using it for 5 years? It is also a major game changer. I heard you guys came up with it cause in your games you can't shoot bare lead?
Finicky to aim even with aftermarket peep sight. Muzzlebreak tips it and it won’t stay aligned. Missed shots. Bought an aftermarket recoil sensing trigger that helped.
Good review Sam. I came across someone saying on the web that if one attached to a rail the warranty was void. I never asked Garmin so here say. It may not or may still be covered. I know they offer up all sorts of bike mounted gps devices and they are covered so who knows. Have a fenix sapphire 6 which went funky in about 4 months, they sent me a new one, licky split, no questions.
Great video & yup...smart n simple unit. Every thing you need, nothing you don't. Wasnt chasing one but you got me thinking maybe I should get a garmin.
Well i just shot my magnetospeed v3 bayonet and cant find a replacement, so i started looking at these and have heard nothing but good things, so i will be getting one.
@@markandsamafterwork Most showing LabRadar vs Xero. Basically comparing two different kinds of apples. Some compare against the Magnetospeed. Would love to see one which compares against an old-school Chronograph which measures the bullet passing between two points like the Crony or the Caldwell Precision.
I love it. My only reservation is the battery is not user replaceable. My understanding is that when the battery will no longer hold a charge, the unit will need to be exchanged. Some say it can use an external power source. I'm not sure if that's true but even if it is, that takes away from the simplicity of the otherwise amazing chronograph. With the Garmin, everything else is a hassle to set up.
Great little device, up till the match i shot last Saturday i had really found no faults with it. During the match when i was shooting my first card it decided it needed an update which resulted in only the first shot being recorded, the other 29 shots were ignored. Fixed between relays but the garmin should have waited till it wasn’t in a session to announce the update so you don’t miss recording the shots.
Thanks, A really interesting review. I currently use a Magnito speed which works well for me from everything from .22LR to 50 BMG. Only disadvantage is the fiddle in fitting to to the rifles. Certainly looked with interest at the Mac 4 think it was called but put off with the price given I already have a working system. The Garmin brand I respect having a lot of experience with their GPS Chart Plotters so look with interest with this product. Questions are does it use the 120Ghz chip system that the Mac 4 uses. How does it work and what problems / disadvantages could it have. RRP ??? Brenton of Tassie.
It has a 12-degree acquisition arc so no need to attach it to the gun and picks up, up to 1M either side. Half your luck getting a free radar from Garmin.
For $1,100 it better clean my rifle afterwards, and furnish the ammunition, unbelievable. For that kind of money I'll buy another rifle. I guess Garmin thanks people are damn fools.
maybe this summer do a comparison with the LabRadar LX and the Garmin Xero not just on price but also quality of product. that would be a good heads up comparison for sure. send them an email and show them all your RU-vid videos and you may get one delivered for free :)
