Ballistic Precision Chronograph, Slingshot Bullet Bow Velocity Speed Tester with MPS/FPS Joules Readings

If you like knowing what your gear is actually doing instead of just guessing, this Ballistic Precision Chronograph is a must. It gives clear MPS, FPS, and Joules readings, which makes dialing things in way easier. Setup was straightforward, and the display is easy to read. It picks up shots consistently without me having to perform a ritual dance to get a number. Whether testing airguns, bows, or even slingshots, it delivers solid, repeatable results. It’s compact enough to bring along without being a hassle, but sturdy enough to handle regular use. If you’re into tuning, comparing ammo, or just satisfying your inner data nerd, this thing is a blast. Five stars. Finally, numbers instead of guesses. 🎯

For $40 or whatever it was, I wasn't expecting much out of this but I only needed it to get a decent guesstimate of how my paintball gun was performing. Thus far I don't have too many complaints, although the essential Chineseosity of this device clearly shows through when you're assembling it. It's obvious that it's made in a way to ruthlessly cut the price point, but it does indeed work. For instance, the arms that hold the upper LED strips on screw onto some threaded rods that are quite simply put through the casing and bent to give them their angle, like someone at the factory just grabbed them and tweaked them by hand with a pair of pliers. It works fine, but looks decidedly janky. The LED strips are powered by way of sending current through the metal uprights; screwing them on solidly is essential to making the thing work. The mounting screws appear to be commodity fine thread computer case screws, and the couplings on the uprights are clearly just jelly bean motherboard standoffs. Whatever; it all fits together and functions just fine. In the box you get one spare upright and one spare LED strip, presumably in case either A) one of them turns out to be a dud, or B) you manage to shoot one off. I found the electronics are quite sensitive to voltage and the unit is not at all happy with the 1.2v input voltage of NiMh rechargable cells. It works fine with alkaline batteries or those zooty regulated-to-1.5 lithium not-quite-AA cells. The display is a simple white led 7 segment arrangement which the description calls an "HD" display. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. I will echo the other users' sentiments here that the user interface is more than a bit cryptic and the manual makes absolutely NO sense. The device boots up by default into meters-per-second despite showing "FPS" on the display. You have a very brief window of opportunity immediately after power on to press the bottom square button which will toggle to feet-per-second, which makes the display flash "FPS" rather than showing it solid. See, it's TOTALLY clear and intuitive... Really, the goofy user interface is the only issue I have with this. It seems to me it could have been made much less stupid than it is for no cost other than a slight reprogramming of whatever cheap off-the-shelf microcontroller is surely inside this thing. Anyway, you fling a projectile through and it'll show how fast it reckons it went on the screen. You can configure how long the number stays up but by default it'll clear automatically after 3 or 4 seconds so don't dawdle in writing it down. The unit forgets any configuration you did the instant you power it off and doesn't remember a single setting, so you'd either better be happy with the defaults or git gud at reconfiguring it every time you power it on. Overall it seems accurate enough to me. The numbers it gave me seem plausible for my paintball gun (280 FPS or so) and my air rifle (1100 FPS or so) but I haven't tried to put an actual rifle bullet through it yet. I can say it will read down to exceptionally slow objects, i.e. if you hold it vertically and just drop something through it you can make it read single digit FPS values. Jury's out on extremely fast objects, at the opposite end of the spectrum. There's basically nothing inside the casing so it's extremely lightweight and probably prone to being knocked over in the wind. There is indeed a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread on the bottom if you want to mount it to a cheap camera tripod, or you could just put a brick on it. The only requirement is that you don't cover the windows over the infrared receivers towards either end. Apparently in bright sunlight you may need to fashion some kind of shade for it, but I've not yet had that issue. I figure you could just drape or tape a piece of cardboard over it or something.

Previously had an F1 Shooting Chrony, which lasted a long time. When it died, I didn't want to spend to replace because I just occasionally need to verify handloads. This is a great budget option for casual users. Works perfectly. Simple to set up and use. Shot my handloads across it, gave consistent readings in the expected velocity range. Like the compact and lightweight design, AA batteries (instead of 9v of my old F1). Screen is easy to read. Controls are simple. They included an extra rod, screws, and light strip. If you are going to haul a chrony to the range numerous times a month, and shoot many rounds across it, get something more sophisticated. If you are a casual user like me, and sometimes just need to verify velocity against the reloading tables, this should serve you well, and you won't cry if you accidently hit it with a projectile, because it's cheap to replace.

The FPS readings were wildly inconsistent with my competition PCP pistols (under ~500fps). Big swings in FPS, and every 4-5 shots a complete failure to register at all. This is in an indoor range with proper lighting, I sanity checked on another chrono to make sure it wasn't my pistol. I use a chrono for relative measurements, it just needs to be consistent but it couldn't even muster that. The instructions were impossible to read, and the build quality was genuinely bad. They just bent some small screws poking out of the body with pliers, which you attach the posts to. They were all 4 bent differently, you have to bend them yourself to make it somewhat even. Same size and shape as a real Chronograph, but it absolutely doesnt perform like a real one. Save the money, its not worth the headache.