Ballistic Velocity Doppler Radar

I bought this chronograph because I recently relocated to work to an area that doesn't have any outdoor ranges nearby, and had to find a solution that was acceptable to the only indoor range around. They, like most other indoor ranges, do not allow you to go ahead of the firing line, so I was unable to use my Caldwell Ballistic G2 Chronograph that I purchased a few months ago. This left me two options: The Magnetospeed, and The Labradar. After going back and forth on pros/cons, I decided to spend the extra money on the Labradar hoping that it's extra features (being able to calculate BC, and fact it can work with pistols and rifles) would be worth the premium over the Magnetospeed. I also purchased the baseplate Labradar Bench Mount along with the padded carrying case Labradar Padded Carry Case to complete the package.FIRST IMPRESSIONS:Wow, the unit looks great, and seems to be well built. The baseplate, while I believe to be overpriced, looks well built, and able to hold up to the task at hand. The padded carrying case left something to be desired. Having also bought the baseplate, I was disappointed to find the carrying straps (velcro straps) on the side of the case were about 3" to short to securely mount the baseplate to the case, making the case in my point of view worthless. I wasn't sure if this was by design (I sure hope not), or a defect in my particular example, so I emailed Labradar about it hoping to get an answer. After several days, I heard back saying my unit looked defective based on the pictures I sent, and he would be willing to send me velcro extensions. I politely declined saying after just spending $650 I'd like a functioning case, not a band-aid. He said I could either return the case for a refund (not exchange) or I could accept the extensions, but a replacement would not be sent. This leads me to believe they are all like this, but I'm not sure how they could get away with making something that the straps are too short to achieve the purpose of securely mounting the baseplate to the side of the case. I decided to send the case back, and instead opted for the amazing Pelican 1520 case, which is conveniently available in orange Pelican 1520 Camera Case With Foam (Orange). Was it more expensive? Yes, but I know the quality of Pelican, and I know they stand 100% behind their products, so I went with it, and I couldn't be happier with how the case fits all the items nicely.FIRST USE:So, I took my shiny new Labradar to the range this past weekend, and was able to test the unit out. The indoor range has 9 lanes, and I was conveniently put on lane number 5 (right in the middle). The other 8 lanes were also occupied by shooters, so there was a lot of lead flying down range. I set up the chronograph, turned it on "low power" mode due to the fact the range is only 25 yards, and proceeded to test my .223 reloads for my AR. Keep in mind that the .223 is a tiny bullet traveling incredibly fast, in an indoor, short range, with 8 shooters beside me. Every possible excuse for this thing to perform terrible was present. In fact, the person in Lane 4 (to my immediate left) was also shooting an AR. Yet, shot after shot, the Labradar faithfully recorded my shots, and my shots only. I fired 100 rounds, however I forgot to arm the unit on one of the strings until after the first shot, which was my fault. The unit recorded 99 of 99 shots perfectly, with zero errors, and zero shots being picked up from other shooters. I was THRILLED.The unit has proved to be worth it's price, at least if it continues to perform like it did on my first outing. I brought the unit home and inspected the contents of the SD Card. I found a summary file for each string shot (10 strings), with shot data for each shot, in pretty incredible detail. I found that the unit was accurately tracking the projectile for about 30 yards, with the 30-35 yard range (the slanted backstop) having pretty significant noise, which only proves that the unit is accurately reading it's environment.CONCLUSION:The unit is very easy to use, and I LOVE the fact that you can power it off USB. This allows you to either plug the unit in if you are so able, or you can use power banks that are typically meant for cell phones/etc. I bought a couple of these power banks on clearance and on my 1 hour session, it ran through 1/3 of the battery pack. I'd recommend using these rechargeable batteries because I hear that it eats through AAs at a pretty good pace.I really wish I had a better experience with the distributor; it admittedly worries me on how I would be handled if something were to happen to the unit during the warranty period. Hopefully I don't run into any issues and it will work well into the future like it did on my first outing. I'd still buy it again knowing all that I do now; it's a great unit that offers features that simply cannot be matched in the marketplace.*UPDATE 11/21/18*: I've had this thing out 3 times now, and WOW, I'm still so impressed. Something I will note that I discovered on my second trip out, is you MUST make sure the unit does NOT wobble. We had set up the LabRadar on it's bench mount (the orange plate in the pics) and put it on a folding table. Well the loads we were measuring were 45-70 and 458 SOCOM, and the kick was enough to wobble the table quite a bit (a few inches) and obviously that would throw off the LabRadar, and we were getting readings only about 20% of the time. We couldn't shoot from Prone given the terrain, so we took that up as a lesson. The third time out was just this week, and I tested 50 458 SOCOM rounds and it read every single one. It also read 69 out of 70 9mm rounds, and the one it missed was my fault...it needs about 1-1.5 seconds between rounds, and I got trigger happy and double tapped one, and it only caught one of them. Overall, I'd still happily rate this thing 5 stars; it's truly incredible. In fact, the RSO at the range I was at came up to me and was mesmerized as he'd never seen one in the wild, and he was pulling people off their lanes to come show them my toy. So I can't complain, it's a great unit that gets people talking, and pro-gun talk is always fun and welcome.

This product is flawless when it works. But there are MANY problems. I will list them all and the conversation I had with Labradar support.1. It seems many devices just don't work out of the box, I got one of those. I tried at three ranges (including indoors) and it just wouldn't work. The second device is working well.2. There is a TERRIBLE user interface flaw (and this can't be fixed, the user manual actually says it's "impossible"): you can't add shots to a different series. Why is this important? Think about load development, when you workup a new load (for example, using the ladder methodology) for the sake of good STATISTICS and to decrease the impact of unknown NON-RANDOMNESS, you shoot 1 round from each load in a cycle. You SHOULDN'T shoot all rounds from load A, then all rounds from load B, then C, etc. With this product, you are stuck either breaking this rule, or manually recording all values and then doing your own statistics (hope you wrote down each shot properly!) for Standard Deviation, Extreme Spread, charts, graphs, etc. There is a significant part of this product that you simply won't be able to use or enjoy. (Tip to Labradar: you could make some coding changes to your Android app and allow shots to be moved around. Ask your customers what they are looking for in a very expensive product.)3. The Android app only supports and displays meters per second regardless of what you have set in the Labradar. So the app is basically only useful for arming and disarming the device.4. You have to remember to arm and disarm, if you don't (especially outside in weather under 40F) you will drain your batteries fully before you can finish working up 20 rounds. As it is, arming and disarming while I was waiting 2 minutes between every shot, a 20 round load development will use about 3/4 of the batteries. Expensive.5. USB batteries don't seem to be fully supported because my GoalZero Sherpa 100 which meets all the specs and should have WAY more capacity than needed only works about as long as a good set of Duracell ProCells. If you read the firmware v1.2.4 notes you can see they made many changes with how the device works with USB batteries.6. Even though I met the specs of the indoor shooting range size, it doesn't work at all at my local indoor range. This is a bummer because it's below freezing most of the winter here. It didn't work with the first device (which didn't work at all) and it doesn't work with the second. I'm going to guess that there are many many reasons why it won't work at indoor ranges and it would take myriad studies to understand why. Just don't count on it, but hopefully you will be surprised.7. Read the fine print, it only records my 6.5 Creedmoor 140 grains out to about 55 yards consistently. So much for a 100 yard reading.8. So far, my engagement with Customer Service hasn't been stellar compared to the cost of this product.In essence, I am happy with the product after all the nuances and in spite of Customer Service and poor user interface design. The low rating is simply due to the cost of the product compared to all the problems I've had. Am I getting good MV readings now? Yes. Was it easy (or inexpensive) to get here? No, definitely not.

This is a great product. Much easier than a skyscreen type chrono. No skyscreens for one. I thought I paid too much for it until I finally used it. Now I feel it was definitely worth it. Another reviewer said to get the battery backup and I would agree. I used a little portable 5600mah cell phone charger that worked great. Several hours of use barely used 25% of the battery power. Takes a micro usb port as on a Samsung phone.It tracks and stores 100 shot strings on it's own and with a backup $15 SD card will keep much more. Also, if you plan to use it from a bench then get the short little tabletop mount they sell separately. Otherwise a regular camera tripod will work if you are shooting from a standing position.Once you dial it in it's very easy to use. Dialing it in isn't difficult either. I did some of the dialing in at home. Manually switching for rifle to pistol speeds is necessary, and from pistol to rifle. Also, it asks for bullet weight in grains for each string. A must have for the serious reloader. Takes the guesswork out of velocities. Super cool.

Works like a charm. Data seems to be correct. After getting a good zero and getting velocity data I was able to enter current environmental data and engage 1 MOA targets at 500 and 600 yards. Both were first shot hits. with a 6.5 creedmore. The only ding I'll give the unit is the Bluetooth interface and app. It just doesn't work well. It takes several tries to connect and then often disconnects or the app just crashes. Most often I would have to power cycle the labradar before I could reconnect. This was across several devices. Before you ask yes I updated it to the newest firmware prior to testing. If that part ever gets worked out this thing will be a 5 star.