Garmin Xero Review

I am going to preface this post by saying that I have owned a chronograph in the past. It was a Chrony and gave good service for quite a while. When it gave up the ghost, I didn’t run out and buy a new one right away but depended on the kindness of my shooting buddies to let me use theirs. Because of this, I was able to get some range time with a couple of different brands. Namely, an older Oehler and a Caldwell. They worked fine and did what they were supposed to do but it is a pain to deal with sky screens or units that have to be placed in front of your firing position. Mostly I used them when I was working up new loads or going off script with old ones and because of the amount of hassle, I tried not to use them too often. Then a buddy bought a LabRadar. It was a game changer. It is easy to set up and sits on the bench next to your gun. It was also nice to not have to play around trying to get the screens to line up with your target. It has a couple of drawbacks, mostly expense and it is a bit sensitive about how it is set up when it’s trying to clock your shots but it was a world more convenient than the others. I decided to stop being a dead beat to my friends and buy my own unit. This was at the beginning of COVID and we all know what that did to the electronics supply chain. Needless to say, I never was able to find one that wasn’t twice the MSRP so I waited. It worked out. Garmin came out with the Xero C1 Pro. Reading the on line reviews, it caught my attention and around Christmas time, I decided to buy one as soon as it came available. What I ended up doing is back ordering from MidwayUSA. One showed up a couple of days ago and in the chronograph world, it is a HUGE game changer. Start with the size. It is about the size of a small bar of soap and probably weighs less. That’s it. The LabRadar is huge by comparison. Like the LabRadar, it uses Doppler radar to measure the bullet speed. With it’s included tripod, the Garmin fits into one of the small pockets on my range bag. It is something that I can have at every range session and takes up little space. The unit comes the small tripod and a USB cable. It is crazy simple to use. You place it on the bench about 15 inches back from the muzzle and about 15 inches to the side. It has a diagram that it will display to show you where it wants to be placed but I think there is a lot of leeway. The setup menu is very simple and I didn’t have to change anything from how it came out of the box. The usage menu is just as simple. Once you turn the unit on, it asks if you want to start a new session. It then asks a couple of questions about what you are shooting, handgun or rifle, and your velocity range. There is the ability to enter the weight of the bullet and if you elect to do that, it will calculate the energy and the power factor. Then you start shooting. It is truly that simple. The unit will save up to 50 sessions with 100 shots. There is an app (Of course there’s an app!) that you can use on your smart phone or tablet. I installed it on my iPad mostly because I have enough stuff going on with my phone. The chrno syncs with the iPad via Bluetooth. Once I got mine out of the box, I went to the Garmin website to update it. That is also an easy process. You establish an account and then plug in your chronograph. It will then update with the latest software. It took about 5 minuets for mine. I made a little plan to break it in and teach myself about the operation. I took a Marlin 1894 44 magnum carbine, a S&W, 629 with 6 ½ inch barrel, a 629 with a 3 inch barrel and 30 rounds of a handload that consisted of 24.8 grains of H110 and a 240 grain Magnus JSP. My goal was to chronograph the same load out of the three different barrel lengths in three different "sessions". No earth shattering ballistic new ground to cover here but it would give me enough data to figure out how to manipulate it. It is a beautiful winter day here in the Bay State but a bit cold at 17 degrees. I set up at the bench and started in. Did I mention how easy this unit is to use? Turn it on, tell it what you are doing and set it on the bench. That’s it. I fired 10 rounds with each gun in three sessions, one for each gun. It registered every shot without any kind of burp whatsoever.
Here are the average results:
1894 Marlin: 1739fps average. SD 25.2
S&W 629 6.5” barrel: 1215fps SD 27.6
S&W 629 3” barrel: 1066fps SD 42.5

I started with 100% charge and after an hour of being on in 17 degrees, the power bar had not moved. The display can be customized to show three data fields in addition to the velocity of the shot just fired. Mine is set up to show high, average and low but you also have the ability to use SD, power factor, deviation from average and extreme spread. It keeps track of all of these things and the app will display them after you sync the unit to your mobile device. So who is this chronograph for? If you’re an occasional shooter and don’t do performance based reloading, it’s probably a waste of money. If you depend on factory loads for hunting, it won’t be of much use. If you reload strictly for volume shooting, I don’t think it will add much to what you are doing. If you are asking yourself “What do I do with this?” then you probably don’t need it. This is a tool for shooters who reload and want to know what their loading process is producing, be it rifle or pistol. It is really not necessary for someone who loads or shoots casually. You can get everything you need from a good reloading manual. If you have a LabRadar and it’s working well, I wouldn’t go selling it off at a loss to get into one of these. But if you’ve been thinking about upgrading an old unit or dumping your sky screens, this is the way to go and I think is well worth the investment.

Pros:
Did I mention how easy it is to use? Set up is simple and the instructions are intuitive.

Very convenient. Easy to keep in your range bag for those times when you need it but didn’t think you would.

It’s a Garmin. They make great stuff and have very good support. I’ve used and abused a few of their GPS’ and the Xero seems to be of the same solid construction.

Cons:
The price. I paid $599 from MidwayUSA. Maybe they will drop in price down the road but we all know how that works. I’m still waiting for $50 primers.

The app is a bit lame. It’s easy to navigate but it doesn’t give much beyond the raw data. If you need more, you will have to find a good ballistics program. (There’s lots of free ones out there. I like the Hornady program.)

Outside of updates, there is little or no PC compatibility. The app is built around mobile devices. There is an option to save sessions as CSV files so that you can build a spread sheet but I had to e mail the data to myself so that I could use Excell on my Windows laptop.

Good write up!
My experience is similar, I absolutely love mine, and stumbled over myself selling my sky-screen setup.
I use Apple products for personal use, and the csv just AirDrops right onto the computer for spreadsheet work, it's really pretty nice I thought. Not sure what to do to make it easier for PC, but emailing isn't terrible.
I can't say enough good about it. It'll even pick up my little 300fps BB gun! Definitely my last chronograph. I was "just about" to spring for a Lab Radar, and am just really glad this came along.
The range-variant readings you can get from Lab Radar might be very valuable to some shooters, so I'd still recommend a lot of research before spending this big. But for me, the Garmin offers everything I need in. ridiculously intuitive, compact, and efficient package.

oneoff said:

Good write up!
My experience is similar, I absolutely love mine, and stumbled over myself selling my sky-screen setup.
I use Apple products for personal use, and the csv just AirDrops right onto the computer for spreadsheet work, it's really pretty nice I thought. Not sure what to do to make it easier for PC, but emailing isn't terrible.
I can't say enough good about it. It'll even pick up my little 300fps BB gun! Definitely my last chronograph. I was "just about" to spring for a Lab Radar, and am just really glad this came along.
The range-variant readings you can get from Lab Radar might be very valuable to some shooters, so I'd still recommend a lot of research before spending this big. But for me, the Garmin offers everything I need in. ridiculously intuitive, compact, and efficient package.

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What are range variant readings?

rockquarry said:

What are range variant readings?

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The LabRadar gives velocity for all the points out to the target. Garmin only gives the velocity at the muzzle or thereabouts.

It's possible that I'm wrong making that statement, so let me preface my explanation with the qualifier that I only spent a short day playing with it!
The LabRadar is capable of measurements in intervals all the way to target. In other words, it reads fps at various ranges, so you can know your bullet speed at muzzle, 50 yards, 100 yards, etc. I suspect that's a fairly nice feature for some, but I do not need it, and do not see that the Xero does it. Again, I could be wrong and am happy to be corrected.
It certainly does all that I need it to!

Thanks CMJ, you type faster, and are better with words!

I also have one, bought in December thru Skeels. Sold my Caldwell unit as soon as I used this Garmin the first time. Has it been mentioned how easy it is to set up? Always in my range bag and ready to use, rifle or pistol, indoors or outdoors.
My previous experience with Garmin GPS units convinced me no to wait, bought the first one I found in stock.

Electraclyde said:

I also have one, bought in December thru Skeels. Sold my Caldwell unit as soon as I used this Garmin the first time. Has it been mentioned how easy it is to set up? Always in my range bag and ready to use, rifle or pistol, indoors or outdoors.
My previous experience with Garmin GPS units convinced me no to wait, bought the first one I found in stock.

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I don't know if I pointed it out but it is VERY easy to use.

cmj8591 said:

The LabRadar gives velocity for all the points out to the target. Garmin only gives the velocity at the muzzle or thereabouts.

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Thank you for the explanation. Perhaps I read about this in the manual but don't recall. I've used my LabRadar regularly for six or eight years. The velocity at the muzzle is the only one I need.

Nice write-up cmj8591. Your experience matches mine. The Garmin just plain works!

You can turn off the prompts showing setup info and requesting bullet weight if you wish. I did, and it's really just a few steps to get it going. Turn it on, start a new session and set it on the bench by your gun. Mine hasn't missed a shot in about 300 rounds now. It has worked with 22LR, rifles, pistols, even suppressed rifles. A buddy tried his with a shotgun and it picked up the shot cloud even though Garmin says it's not good for shotguns.

My buddies have been buying them too. Last count is 7 of 'em. Seems people see them in operation and have to have their own. It's that good. We had 3 Garmins on the line last Wednesday and they each picked up the right shots without getting confused or causing interference. Multiple Labradars need to have separate channels selected. Garmins automatically negotiate channel selection to avoid interference.

I don't think I've ever seen a shooting product released that 1) was readily available and 2) so well done. It's common in the shooting world to hear of a new product being released and not available for a year or two, then it has hatching problems. Not so with this Garmin. Call me delighted!

rockquarry said:

Thank you for the explanation. Perhaps I read about this in the manual but don't recall. I've used my LabRadar regularly for six or eight years. The velocity at the muzzle is the only one I need.

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If you shoot long range precision, it can come in handy to give you a ballistic coefficient for your bullet in real time for the conditions you are shooting in. When I say long range, I'm talking like F class shooting where the range can be out to 1200 yards. That is a feature that I will never need. Like I said, if I were using a LabRadar, I wouldn't rush out and spend money to replace it with the Garmin. LabRadar is a very good unit and but for the fact that I couldn't find one when I was looking, I would be using one. But if I had to replace one, it would be with the Garmin.

This is the kind of data string you can get from a LabRadar.
This is automatically deposited on the SD card you put in the machine.
It's written as a .csv but can be converted to a .pdf as I have done with this one.
The gun: a 17" .445 Supermag 1/25" twist PacNor/Bullberry Encore (with S&W serial #)
The load: 305 grain Oregon Trail Trueshot WFNGC over 30 grains IMR4227
Note that this is just one shot in the string.
Long range shooters and hunters can use this information to more precisely calculate the true ballistic coefficient of their load in that gun.
(I am not really either one of those).
This was shot at an indoor range.
Notice that the SNR dropped off to almost nothing as the bullet reached the end of the range.

The Garmin looks like a neat rig and I'd get one if I could afford it but I am now fully retired and not shooting as much as I used to.
They are at the opposite ends of the microwave radar energy field.
The LabRadar uses the maximum legal power to try and bounce signal off the butt of a bullet 100 yards away while the Garmin uses the least power necessary to get a close muzzle reading.
Brute force vs. finesse.

cmj8591 said:

If you shoot long range precision, it can come in handy to give you a ballistic coefficient for your bullet in real time for the conditions you are shooting in. When I say long range, I'm talking like F class shooting where the range can be out to 1200 yards. That is a feature that I will never need. Like I said, if I were using a LabRadar, I wouldn't rush out and spend money to replace it with the Garmin. LabRadar is a very good unit and but for the fact that I couldn't find one when I was looking, I would be using one. But if I had to replace one, it would be with the Garmin.

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I don't shoot at long range, never past 500 yards and that's seldom. With one exception that I can recall, I've found book figures of ballistic coeffcients and bullet drop are very close if not the same as what I have actually measured at varying distances based on chronographed velocities.

I realize there are serious long range shooters, but it appears there are many more who merely talk about long range shooting.

And it works at the indoor rang i belong to. This is a huge advantage when ya live in NW Wi.

cmj8591 said:

The LabRadar gives velocity for all the points out to the target. Garmin only gives the velocity at the muzzle or thereabouts.

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Thanks for taking the time to give us your take on the Garmin, it sounds interesting. Its size, battery life & easy of operation sounds good.

I've had my LabRadar for about a year now & while I'd like to see them make some improvements to it I guess I'll be sticking with it until it breaks, considering its investment.

The LabRadar's SDHC card probably seems old school but I find it handy to just plug it in my desktop PC, save its CSV files to the PC & then import them into Excel to a format of my choosing, with or without graphs (see below).

Being able to readily visualize & compare data means everything to me in having such a device.

Hopefully Garmin will see fit to add better PC compatibility to the Xero in the future but I realize that's not for everybody.

One question, do you have any idea what is the closest distance at which the Garmin will track & record the velocity at?

The LabRadar has a file, which I only look at occasionally, that shows at what distance it started tracking the bullet. Typically it's ~11yds.

I mainly test at a 25yd indoor range so its not a problem unless I want to check grouping at 10yds while checking velocity.

Not a biggie, just curious.

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BLUEDOT37 said:

One question, do you have any idea what is the closest distance at which the Garmin will track & record the velocity at?

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Garmin says, The Xero® C1 Pro Chronograph requires approximately 20 yards to track fast moving projectiles, like rifle bullets, accurately. Slower, bigger projectiles (for example 9mm bullets or arrows) require less distance. Arrows can typically be tracked in 3-4 yards, for example an indoor archery range.

Mine showed up Saturday and I took it out today. My experience mirrors OP's. Fantastic device. I hate paying retail for stuff but this thing was worth it, given that it is new, it is awesome and I did not have a working chronograph already. My ProChrono abruptly bit the dust a couple years ago and I hadn't bothered to replace it. I thought I wanted a Labradar but got hung up by combination of price & fussiness. I'm glad I waited. The Garmin is expensive but it is dead simple to use and it just works, no drama.

As others have said, the app leaves a bit to be desired. I just went through manually entering full load data on about 20 shot strings and now my fingers hurt from typing. Wish we could enter loads once then select them from a drop-down. Or something like that.

BLUEDOT37 said:

One question, do you have any idea what is the closest distance at which the Garmin will track & record the velocity at?

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As Gartenmeister said, the manual says 20 yards is the minimum distance. I tried mine in my basement air pistol range, which is about 25 feet, and it seemed to be picking up everything. Once the weather gets a little better here, I plan to experiment some more. I'm also going to bring it to my indoor range soon and try it out. I will post my experiences here as I go. With the LabRadar I do like the fact that moving the data around for PC use is easier and it was something that I considered before I decided to get the Garmin. In the end, the size of the Xero won out. I still can not believe how small it is. I read on another forum that LabRadar is coming out with a small unit also. Maybe we are on the brink of a chronograph war.

Thoroughly enjoying mine and the data. Sighted in a new Ruger precision rimfire yesterday using CCI std vel ammo at 50y. Took that data and entered it into my Strelok Pro app and I'm good to go for distance beyond 50y now. The Ruger, Vortex, and CCI ammo worked better than expected, especially the ammo.

cmj8591 thank you for the excellent report on this unit. I was getting ready to buy an Oehler but after reading this I am on hold. At 72 this is a little "New School" for me but it looks like the way to go for ease of operation. With true muzzle velocity the loading manuals should give accurate down range ballistics. SD and Extreme spread will aid in selecting a consistent load.

jem102 said:

cmj8591 thank you for the excellent report on this unit. I was getting ready to buy an Oehler but after reading this I am on hold. At 72 this is a little "New School" for me but it looks like the way to go for ease of operation. With true muzzle velocity the loading manuals should give accurate down range ballistics. SD and Extreme spread will aid in selecting a consistent load.

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Unless I was constrained by finances, I would not consider buying a sky screen unit. Oehler makes a great machine and was the LabRadar of it's day but I will never wrangle sky screens again. If you're thinking about buying a unit, you will not be disappointed with the Garmin.

I had some time to check out how the unit works in an indoor setting with other shooters firing at the same time. The indoor range at my club is only 50 feet which is short of the 60 feet that the unit is supposed to have to see the bullet. I set it up at my shooting position for one of the ad hoc matches that we have after our bullseye league shoots. This particular match was 20 rounds, ten fired at 30 feet and 10 fired at 50 feet. I was using a 625 in 45acp with 200 grain SWC's and 5 grains of bullseye. There are 14 shooters on the line at a time and I thought it would be good to see if the unit would pick up stray shots from the other positions. It did not and that was not an issue. It did however, fail to pick up a couple of my shots. At the 50 foot range, it recorded 8 of 10 and at the 30 foot range, it recorded 9 of 10. Besides not having the necessary 60 feet for the radar to pick up the bullet, the chrono is supposed to be within 15 inches of the gun. When the unit is on the bench and I'm standing in a shooting position, it is about 24 inches away. Add that issue to the short distances and I'm guessing that's the problem. As I have said in a previous post, it was picking up .177 pellets at 25 feet. Of course it was set for air guns so that may make a difference. As far as battery life, I charged it to 100% when I took it out of the box. I used it in 17 degree weather for an hour and at the indoor range for about 45 minuets. I also spent some time scrolling through the menus and figuring out what is what. As of right now, the battery is at 90% so I don't think I'm going to run into a problem. The more I use this thing, the more I like it. It has found a home in my range bag.