Labradar improved sight

[Karl Haemmerlein]

I love my Labradar. I use it in a challenging environment for radar at my house and understand the limitation's that imposes. For small caliber rounds I cannot get reliable/accurate data past 17 or so yards, even though it routinely tracks .22 out to 70 yards, with occasional catches as far as 110 yards. But any data with small bore at my home is inaccurate past 17 yards. .357 flat base bullets it will give good data to maybe 40 yards to one of my targets, and only 25 yards to the other target I use. I'm just tickled I can get good/accurate/repeatable data all the time no matter conditions, I only use the data to 15 yards for everything. Hate the decades I used optical chrono and all the problems associated with them.

As far as aiming one, in a horrible environment with backscatter everywhere, you would be amazed at how small a change can make a huge difference. A one foot different aimpoint of firearm with everything else exactly identical on any of my firearms/air rifles at 55 yards(my worst target for use with radar) makes nearly a 70% difference in the signal to noise ratio(SNR). The labradar notch for aiming is horrible, the two sides of the clamshell are not anywhere near symmetrical. I made a molded to the unit base that has zero movement when dropped on in the position it was molded to the case, wobbles like crazy when flipped around due to the non symmetrical case. Where I use mine it is imperative that it is accurately aimed to the center of the radar beam, which isn't exactly perpendicular to the case.

After owning mine for 3 days, I realized the drop a pen or something into the slot is not repeatable enough to get a workable aim where I use it. Time to test. Set up my labradar in a place I don't shoot(not safe) but is much better in terms of backscatter of radar aimed at a spot, tip of dead tree, 114 yards away. I controlled it with Bluetooth so never touched the labradar after set up. De-tuned my .22 PCP air rifle to about 21 ft/lbs and used really light pellets that start falling like a rock past 70 yards. For the safety is all people, my pellets were landing on my property, not by much. Set up tripod with shooting saddle and had scope of air rifle maybe 1 inch above center vertically of the labradar(scope just over 2" above bore), and about 3 inches to the side. Took one shot at aimpoint, and proceeded to shoot a grid around the aimpoint writing down the aimpoint of each shot. I had dozens of tracks to look at when done. Should mention I use a vibration switch to trigger my labradar, works perfect every time. I actually made it before the labradar shipped to my house.
First ten yards of track shooting at aimpoint, which is far better than shooting at either of my targets.

Dist (yd) SNR
0 -
6.27 31.5
6.8 30.58
7.34 30.67
7.87 30.75
8.4 30.07
8.93 30.36
9.46 28.19
9.99 29.31

First ten yards of track shooting at where Labradar beam was really pointed from test, aimpoint was maybe as much as 2.5 feet from initial aimpoint at 114 yards. Do the math, the pellet was just over 2.5" difference at 10 yards. The real center of the beam was 1.5 foot above initial aimpoint at 114 yards and 2 feet left.
Dist (yd) SNR
0 -
6.14 43.05
6.72 43.01
7.29 42.98
7.87 41.95
8.44 40.95
9 40.49
9.57 40.24

The tracks continued like this as far as they went, snr about 33% better all the way. A lot of people don't think the aim is that critical, do a test if you have a safe place and see for yourself.

 

[Karl Haemmerlein]

I thought about and think I need to add something else I discovered shooting the grid around my aimpoint. If you shoot horizontally accross the labradar enough, you can get crazy high SNR for the caliber you are shooting. But it is not really good data. If when testing you get to the point you have stupid high SNR but the tracks show it dropping off faster than anything else, you are shooting too much across the beam.

 

[M29since14]

IIRC, Labradar specifically cautions the user not to displace the unit more than 18" from the muzzle (line of fire), but naturally that is not exactly the same as cautioning one not to shoot at a radical angle across the beam. They also mention the possibility for inaccurate readings if the parameter in the settings menu is not correctly adjusted to reflect the actual position of the unit relative to the muzzle (presuming, again, that they mean line of fire).

As to the air gun trigger and the AR15, I can't answer that question. My experience with the Labradar and chronographing .222 and .223 ammo has been with bolt-action hunting rifles with 24-26" barrels. As was mentioned, because of the size of the shooting bench, it is not possible to place the unit as close to the muzzle as Labradar recommends, thus the air gun trigger. If the bench was a bit bigger, I could probably do without the trigger. With the present bench, the trigger is not needed with bigger rifles, or with rifles equipped with a muzzle brake.

 

[BLUEDOT37]

When I look at the tracking data I rarely see that it picked up the bullet before 11 yards.

On a recent TV episode of Guns & Ammo they were talking to Hornady about their new range & the radar chronograph they started using some years ago to more accurately determine downrange bullet performance

They said it's important for the radar to know how far the muzzle of the firearm is from the unit so it can correctly calculate backwards what the muzzle velocity is.

I've been using the 12" option on mine & trying to keep muzzle placement consistent as one time I got higher than expected readings that in retrospect might have been caused by this.

M29since14 thanks, I understand better now why you use the trigger.

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