Early Christmas

[stimpylu32]

Walked in from work yesterday and there was a Midway box on the table , it was my new Beta Master Chrony  , high of 28 today and a 30 mph wind and had to work till past dark 

Now I know how the kid that gets the new bike for Christmas and lives in Alaska feels . 

stimpy

By the way , any tricks I should know about this unit other than Don't shoot it . 

[Siskiyou]

I can think of three tricks:

1.   I marked two of the wire rods with red tape to insure that I do not aim to low and hit the Chrony.
2.   I cut a couple of to length wire rods in case I happen to hit one by accident.  My brother did a dummy move and hit one of his originals.
3.   The Poly-Diffusers become brittle after a while and might break.  After one broke an application of duct tape did the fix.

# Two came about because he decided to shoot off hand.  Recommend shooting from a rest.

In many light situations the diffusers are not needed, but the wires provide a good aiming point for centering your shots.

[Troyboy]

Since we are talking about chronographs......... How about a discussion about how they work why we need to use them and which ones are the ones that work the best. Whats a diffuser etc. Would be good for those of us that are still learning to walk

[Troyboy]

Sorry not trying to jack this thread. Stimpy glad to hear about your way cool christmas gift

[GameHauler]

Stimpy,
Nice gift and hope you know how to aim a gun

It will look real nice in your new cave (OUT OF THE BOX)
on the new shelves you are getting (building)

Maybe front and center above the bench,
at least for a while till you get a new gift

Mike

[Old Syko]

Only one suggestion from me and I think Quick is the one that I heard it from here, is to replace the steel rods with wood dowels of the same size.  In case of an accidental strike from a bullet or stray gas check you are less likely to damage the photo eyes.

I guess I lied.   The second is to mount a piece of clear plexiglass in front of the screen.

[Curtis]

This may not be applicable in your situation, but when I first got mine I set it up in the house and shot some .22 rimfire Colibri (primer powered only, about 300 fps or so) loads across it in order to learn the functions until the most commonly used ones were engrained in my memory.  That saved a lot of aggrivation once I got to my local public shooting range and started using it for real.

It will remember six ten shot strings, even with power turned off but I still write down my data.  The machine has never lost data but I've goofed a couple of times.  Also if you are going to use the data stored in memory after you get home, make sure you read how to turn the display on without the sensors or your data can get scrambled by flourescent lights.  That happened to me the first time I powered it up at home to look at the data.  Luckily I had it all written down.

I shot pretty late into the evening last time I was out.  As the sun got lower the chrono would fail to register a shot or two and was getting worse.  Luckily my tripod head has a "tilt" feature so at the next cease fire I tilted the diffusers toward the setting sun and it bought me another 30 minutes or so of useful shooting.

That's all I can think of so far.  BTW mine is also a Beta Master Chrony.

Curtis

[victorcharlie]

I've got a Beta Master myself.  I don't use mine enough and have to "re-learn" every time I take it out.

[LaOtto222]

I also have a beta Master. I shot my original one because the bench was too low. With the tri-pod all the way down, I would just barely shoot over the photo eyes. I was shooting one gun and switched to a different gun. The stock was a little different and I thought it was OK. I loaded up and sighted down to the target and was a little high. With out looking at the Chronograph I started to adjust the gun in the bags. While I was adjusting the gun into the bags the gun went off (had my hand on the stock grip with a 2oz trigger) and shot right through the thing. Lesson learned the hard way again. I have since added 5" to my bench and got a new Beta Master. I record each shot in a small spiral bound note book. Even though I can get the information from the Beta Master, I like to write it on paper.

[victorcharlie]

I have just the opposite problem.  At the range I shoot at, the benches are to high, or, the range has a depression in front of the benches.  I have to set the tripod on milk crates to get the chrony high enough.

It's a very useful tool and I've been surprised by some of the velocities I've seen.  For the most part, I chony a  hundred feet per second less than published velocities on most loads.  Some times it's several hundred feet per second.

I'd love to have a way to check the accuracy of the device its self.