Who do I trust?

[PNW1985]

The Caldwell indicates 33.2 FPE which seems high to me. Do you think the rifle was shooting that fast?

My Caldwell chrono has been working fine for several years and I have it set about 5' if front of the muzzle.

Yes. My prophet 2 will sling lead way faster than 970.

 

[qball]

Chrono is there to give speed ranges and relative consistency, let the groups do the talking once you are in range.

 

[DonC]

It can't be any worse than trusting range finders. I have twin Sig's 1250's( I believe), side by side I can get some ridiculous readings.

Keyman and I bothe get bad results with lazer range finders. I have a Leupold. Sometimes it's dead on BUT I can't trust it. It's off frequently.

 

[Trucker3573]

I would personally move both outdoors before I made too many conclusions. Outdoors I would personally trust the radar more than the light reading one as light can be finicky. I haven’t tried with my air rifle but I know my compound bow readings would change over a pro chrony depending on the height the arrow was shot over it. Closer was higher but only about 10-15 fps.

 

[igolfat8]

I’d say one of the two is flaky. I have a Pro Chrono and a FX and both read nearly identical numbers. My buddy has a Caldwell and his and my Pro Chrono are nearly identical numbers with powder burners.

 

[MadCowCrazy2]

I don't look at the chrono for accurate readings, I just want consistency. If it's consistent then it doesn't matter if it's accurate or not.
Lets say you get really good groups at 950 fps, you try other settings and get worse results so you go back to 950 and get good results again.
You might have been shooting at 900 or 1050fps but chrono says 950, in the end it doesn't matter unless you swap chrono.
You might write down that for X pellet/slug you get good results at 950, then the chrono breaks and you get a new one and now 950 isn't good anymore because the new chrono shows other values. So you have to redo all the tuning again for the new chrono.

Question comes down to how much you want to spend for "accuracy", if you want accuracy you need to get one of those high end radars for $500-2000.
If you are ok with consistency then the FX pocket chrono or any other $200 chrono works just fine imo.

 

[_CTAIRGUNNER_]

I don't look at the chrono for accurate readings, I just want consistency. If it's consistent then it doesn't matter if it's accurate or not.
Lets say you get really good groups at 950 fps, you try other settings and get worse results so you go back to 950 and get good results again.
You might have been shooting at 900 or 1050fps but chrono says 950, in the end it doesn't matter unless you swap chrono.
You might write down that for X pellet/slug you get good results at 950, then the chrono breaks and you get a new one and now 950 isn't good anymore because the new chrono shows other values. So you have to redo all the tuning again for the new chrono.

Question comes down to how much you want to spend for "accuracy", if you want accuracy you need to get one of those high end radars for $500-2000.
If you are ok with consistency then the FX pocket chrono or any other $200 chrono works just fine imo.

This is a really good reply, tune for accuracy and consistency, if its grouping good and shooting how you want to shoot it, just use the chrono numbers for reference points in a tune rather than speed of the pellet. Something I am going to have to keep in mind in the future.

 

[Ballisticboy]

Question comes down to how much you want to spend for "accuracy", if you want accuracy you need to get one of those high end radars for $500-2000.

Unfortunately, if you want accuracy, no radar chrono can be safely relied on. I have used 10-20 thousand dollar fixed head radars on many occasions. It became standard practice to use multiple radars and to only accept figures when the two radars agreed with each other. Even the multi-million dollar tracking doppler radars were prone to errors. You need good, experienced, skilled operators to get the best out of radar devices, and even then you can still get major problems getting believable data.