Doppler Radar - the New Age in Airgun Ballistics

[rsterne]

There is a new "Chronograph" coming out soon, that IMO will revolutionize airgun ballistics research.... http://www.mylabradar.com/

It is a Doppler Radar unit with about 100 yards range that you setup beside your shooting bench, it is triggered by the muzzle blast (and yes, airguns will trigger it), and records the time of flight and velocity twice per yard for as far out as it can pick up the bullet.... This is about 100 yards for a .30 cal, less than half that for a .177, and slightly more for larger calibers.... It can pick up a .25 cal pellet out to at least 75 yards.... The drawback is that projected price is $559 US....

The data can be downloaded into a spreadsheet in a computer, and then it is a relatively simple matter to manipulate it to graph the velocity, compute the BC, and even compute the ever changing Drag Coefficient as the bullet slows travelling downrange.... By shooting a bullet at different velocities, we will be able to build up a complete Drag Model for it.... This will allow you to calculate accurately the trajectory and wind drift for that bullet, knowing only the muzzle velocity.... While each bullet will have a slightly different drag curve, it is likely that after enough data is collected we can have one, or a few, drag models that will give us much better information than we currently have available.... For those who are fussy and shoot at extreme range, they could have a drag model for their individual bullet and gun....

I would personally love to have one of these, and hope that I can save enough to get one within a couple of years.... I'm very excited about the prospect to find out for sure what is happening in the transonic region where we have so much interest, and current models are so inaccurate for our use.... The first use of this device for airguns (to my knowledge) has been to measure the BC for the new 34 gr. JSB .25 cal Exact Heavy, which works out to 0.053 (Chairgun GA profile) starting at 784 fps and ending at 662 fps at 75 yards....

Bob

[Tommy]

Bookmarked for when I hit the lottery or get enough donations to get one and send it to Bob for testing and he can tell us all what and how BC affects our shooting
Just a thought
That looks like a laser unit I used to have to measure a room for remodeling.
Tom

[rsterne]

It's radar, not laser.... Would definitely be fun to play with....

Bob

[C.ALLS]

I sent for information on purchasing one. It says they would be available fall 2014?

[rsterne]

The email I just received from LabRadar says they hope to have them available for sale in August of this year.... You can register your email to receive news from them....

Bob

[newlife3]

Could be  Worth it for a group /club purchase..

[Tofazfou]

Yeah, i saw Harry's (yrrah) post over on the Yellow about them a while back and i saw his recent use of one.  I want one too.

My goodness the spending never stops.....................

[C.ALLS]

Yeah, i saw Harry's (yrrah) post over on the Yellow about them a while back and i saw his recent use of one.  I want one too.

My goodness the spending never stops.....................

And to think I got into airguns because I thought my powder burners were too expensive lol....

[Tofazfou]

[/quote]
And to think I got into airguns because I thought my powder burners were too expensive lol....
[/quote]

EXACTLY!  But airguns are just sooooooo much fun and challenging.

[oldpro]

I will most certainly get one. What a fantastic tool.

[jaraxle1zx]

If you live in a big city chances are they have this or they are getting it.
I read a lil but only parts I remeber is, it's stupid expensive, more than 1 tower, and they can tell what you shot and speed of bullet and how far bullet traveled
Maybe it wasn't radar.

[farrlarr]

You might want to take a look at the most recent issue of Shooting Times where there is an article about the Magneto Speed, another system that does not use sky shields, lights or any of the other things about which people with standard chronys complain.  It costs about half what the Lab Radar costs, and does not require you to be some distance away from other shooters as the Lab Radar does.

I have no connection with the company, just thought people might like to know of another system.

         

[rsterne]

Cool unit, but only measures the muzzle velocity, not a (nearly) continuous reading from the muzzle for up to 100 yards downrange.... It could not be used to measure the BC or downrange velocity....

Bob

[dcorvino]

Thank you for the update Bob.
I have been looking at these for a while, this will probably be my Airgun related purchase for next year.
What I really like about it is you get the information on the projectile at the target. And that the chance of shooting your chrony has been greatly reduced.

Dave

[Slavia]

Compared to other toys like snowmobiles or fishing boats that's really not outrageously expensive.

[Matt15]

Looks very Cool!  However I am confused how it works. How does it measure the bullet velocity twice per yard? In the description it says point towards target, so does it see the bullet in flight? Thanks

[rsterne]

It uses radar, ie high frequency radio waves, which travel at the speed of light, bouncing off the bullet as it travels downrange.... By measuring the time taken, it can determine the range travelled, and since the bullet is moving away from the radar, there is a frequency shift to a slightly lower frequency, caused by the Doppler effect, which it measures to calculate the speed of the bullet at that same distance.... It does this twice per yard until the bullet is out of range, and a bullet with a larger base can be detected and measured further away.... The results are stored as time of flight, distance downrange, and velocity, for a "virtually limitless" number of shots (ie a big onboard memory) and can then be downloaded to a computer as a CSV file, which can then be used in a spreadsheet such as MS Excel....

Bob

[maraudinglizard]

Yeah, i saw Harry's (yrrah) post over on the Yellow about them a while back and i saw his recent use of one.  I want one too.

My goodness the spending never stops.....................

And to think I got into airguns because I thought my powder burners were too expensive lol....

Amen to that! 

[Matt15]

It uses radar, ie high frequency radio waves, which travel at the speed of light, bouncing off the bullet as it travels downrange.... By measuring the time taken, it can determine the range travelled, and since the bullet is moving away from the radar, there is a frequency shift to a slightly lower frequency, caused by the Doppler effect, which it measures to calculate the speed of the bullet at that same distance.... It does this twice per yard until the bullet is out of range, and a bullet with a larger base can be detected and measured further away.... The results are stored as time of flight, distance downrange, and velocity, for a "virtually limitless" number of shots (ie a big onboard memory) and can then be downloaded to a computer as a CSV file, which can then be used in a spreadsheet such as MS Excel....

Bob

Thanks Bob!!!

[oldpro]

I've used Doppler radar launch monitors and they are just amazing in every way and you never get error readings like other launch monitors