Kestrels

titch--

titch--

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For starters right now I have the 2500nv and so last night I went snoopin around the internet looking at different wind meters. I always wanted something that has DA.

After looking at some of the models I started to look at the 4500 with applied ballistics but they no longer make them, so I went looking for the replacement model for it and its the 5700 sportsman model @ just over 600 bucks though. A good chunk of change for a wind meter to me, but I like some of the features that come with it like AB for starters. I know some people will say just get the app for your cell phone its MUCH cheaper, but I like the fact that the kestrels are WAY more rugged/durable and water resistant compared to cell phones by a large margin. I also like the fact that it an all in one unit. You point it in the direction your shooting put in the range and check your wind and it all works everything out for you in a matter of seconds. Muzzle velocity truing could be another good feature that could come in handy. Another feature that I like to play around with is the vane mount that you can order separately. To me this would be a very good way to see how the wind acts and good way to learn from it. I know it only shows the wind at YOUR location but I think it could be a good tool to see how fast it can shift direction and change speed since the wind is pretty much one of the biggest factors in shooting long range. :)

Anyways I just wanted to get some of your opinions/thoughts on the matter here. Is it an over priced hunk of $h$$$t, a worth while investment... any answer is appreciated. :nest::nest::nest:

Also FYI I also like making charts in JBM once I have all my dope kind of worked out, so I dont have to rely just on electronics. :redface:
 
titch-- said:
For starters right now I have the 2500nv and so last night I went snoopin around the internet looking at different wind meters. I always wanted something that has DA.

After looking at some of the models I started to look at the 4500 with applied ballistics but they no longer make them, so I went looking for the replacement model for it and its the 5700 sportsman model @ just over 600 bucks though. A good chunk of change for a wind meter to me, but I like some of the features that come with it like AB for starters. I know some people will say just get the app for your cell phone its MUCH cheaper, but I like the fact that the kestrels are WAY more rugged/durable and water resistant compared to cell phones by a large margin. I also like the fact that it an all in one unit. You point it in the direction your shooting put in the range and check your wind and it all works everything out for you in a matter of seconds. Muzzle velocity truing could be another good feature that could come in handy. Another feature that I like to play around with is the vane mount that you can order separately. To me this would be a very good way to see how the wind acts and good way to learn from it. I know it only shows the wind at YOUR location but I think it could be a good tool to see how fast it can shift direction and change speed since the wind is pretty much one of the biggest factors in shooting long range. :)

Anyways I just wanted to get some of your opinions/thoughts on the matter here. Is it an over priced hunk of $h$$$t, a worth while investment... any answer is appreciated. :nest::nest::nest:

Also FYI I also like making charts in JBM once I have all my dope kind of worked out, so I dont have to rely just on electronics. :redface:
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I underlined what I believe is a misconception. You must calibrate your kestrel, before you use it, every single time. It does not know your altitude, guesses your altitude based on what it senses for the barometric pressure. It also guesses the barometric pressure based on your altitude where it thinks you are.... If you know your altitude, you put it in before you shoot, and out pops an accurate barometric pressure reading or vice versa. If you have neither, you must do a song and dance to calibrate both seperatly before you get any valid data. If you need more info click here.

To overly simplify, your kestrel is reliable, yet quite dumb. If it detects apressure drop, it does not know if it is because you walked up a hill, or if it is because the weather changed. Until you tell it what changed (and you have to tell it every single time to get accurate information) it is guessing, and can be off by quite a surprising amount.
 
I got mine thinking I would use it for wind readings. What I found was that it is useful to see how accurate your guess about the wind speed at your position is but wind changes so much with terrain and distance that the wind speed an arms length away is only a small part of the wind you need to account for.

What I use it for mostly is determining density altitude. At least I did until it suddenly stopped working last week. I have to figure out how to get it fixed.
 
I thought altitude was just needed for initial calibration. Time to break out the manual. I went through the same thought process. Just ended up with a 4000 model that syncs to AB on my phone.
 
b_w. said:
I thought altitude was just needed for initial calibration. Time to break out the manual. I went through the same thought process. Just ended up with a 4000 model that syncs to AB on my phone.
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My understanding is that if you are using density altitude your actual altitude is not that important. I know I could be at sea level but if the density altitude is 5000' that's what I will go with.
 
There seems to be a common misconception about Barometric Pressure vs Station Pressure on a few threads near the top of this sub-forum.
Barometric Pressure is used more to track weather patterns, whereas Station Pressure is used in ballistic applications.

For station pressure, set your reference altitude to "0" which generates the actual pressure felt in your location...plug into your calculator and go. Entering a barometric pressure and altitude (if that's all you have) is so that the calculator can reverse engineer the station pressure before continuing to crunch the ballistics data.

From Kestrel's website:

Basically you need station pressure for ballistic calculations. Many applications assume though that you only know barometric pressure from the weather channel. So they want you to input the barometric pressure and your altitude. The program then calculates the station pressure from that. So if the customer’s program asks for both pressure and altitude, they most likely want the barometric pressure and altitude and then the customer would have to adjust for each time they move locations.

Typically for shooting, you will want your station pressure, not the barometric pressure. Station pressure is the pressure felt at that spot, without being adjusted for altitude. This is the same pressure being felt by the bullet when traveling in the air. When you adjust station pressure for your altitude, this is now Barometric pressure and typically only used to track weather patterns. In order to get the Kestrel to read station pressure, you should set your reference altitude to ZERO. This will then show you station pressure, every time, and there would be no need to adjust it if you move locations.

Unfortunately station pressure is not readily available if you do not have a Kestrel. Therefore many ballistics programs have the user enter their barometric pressure AND altitude. The ballistics calculator then calculates station pressure from this for the ballistics solution. This is because barometric pressure is widely produced by the local weather stations and easily obtainable. If your ballistics programs requires you to enter the barometric pressure and altitude, then you will need to adjust your reference altitude each time you change locations. You will also need to keep updating your reference barometric pressure on the altitude screen to ensure your altitude is correct.

If there is an option in the ballistics calculator that you are using to enter the station pressure vice barometric pressure, then please select this option and set your reference altitude to zero. If not, then you will need to enter your reference altitude each time you move locations to get the barometric pressure. Use this barometric pressure as your reference barometric pressure for the altitude and use those numbers for your ballistics solution.
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ht tps://kestrelmeters.com/pages/setting-station-pressure-on-kestrel

If you are using to the kestrel to calculate altitude for hiking/tracking purposes, then calibrating barometric pressure and altitude is a must. For shooting applications, Station Pressure and a "0" reference altitude are all that is needed.
 
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^What Chris Ward said. If you have a Kestrel that does Density Altitude (4000 and up) you don't need to recalibrate it all the time since you're actual altitude is irrelevant. The Kestrel will measure the barometric pressure where you are, the temp, humidity and give you a DA reading that you can input into your ballistic calculator (if your Kestrel doesn't have AB). Density Altitude is an aggregate of temp, pressure, humidity that represents the density of the air. Actual altitude is unimportant. In that way, you can have the same DA reading on a really hot day a sea level and a coldish day at elevation and the bullets flight path will be the same (other than muzzle velocity variation due to temperature).

To the OP, the Kestrels with AB are spendy units. I've got a 4000 NV that I use for learning to read the wind and for DA and other environmentals that I plug into Ballistics AE on my iphone. Once trued up, it's been great. I do plan on upgrading to a Kestrel with AB though for some of the reasons you listed. Better battery life (especially in the cold), more rugged, more waterproof and the practicality of having everything in one package. Nothing in precision shooting is cheap, haha
 
chrisward3 said:
There seems to be a common misconception about Barometric Pressure vs Station Pressure on a few threads near the top of this sub-forum.
Barometric Pressure is used more to track weather patterns, whereas Station Pressure is used in ballistic applications.

For station pressure, set your reference altitude to "0" which generates the actual pressure felt in your location...plug into your calculator and go. Entering a barometric pressure and altitude (if that's all you have) is so that the calculator can reverse engineer the station pressure before continuing to crunch the ballistics data.

From Kestrel's website:



ht tps://kestrelmeters.com/pages/setting-station-pressure-on-kestrel

If you are using to the kestrel to calculate altitude for hiking/tracking purposes, then calibrating barometric pressure and altitude is a must. For shooting applications, Station Pressure and a "0" reference altitude are all that is needed.
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Thanks for that.

I went with the 3500. It just showed up in the mail, but I haven't had a chance to use it yet. I couldn't justify the cost of the 5700 Sportsman (for where I'm at currently in my LR abilities) and like the OP, I was really interested in the 4500, but being discontinued made it tough to find one.
 
I've been using the 4500NV for around 2 yrs now. I hunt and compete with it, it's never let me down. It's been dropped is been in the rain and this morning in -10 the foxpro and my rangefinder both quite working but not the Kestral. It's one of the most important pieces in my kit. I've drop coyotes over 1K because of it. You'll never regret buying one.
 
Hey guys thanks for all the input so far.

Yeah Im just thinking on something with DA in it so its a lil easier and faster input wise, but at the same time now Im thinking of getting the sportsman for the convenience with AB with it. Panhandle Precision on youtube has some good videos on these new models.

As some have said already, I too am using the meter now to guess at the wind and then seeing how close I was. Another thing that Ive done is made up some charts on what angles at what wind speed my wind flags fly at, so that when I have em out down range I can kind of call the wind by looking at the flags downrange.

And if someone has a 5700 I would still liketo hear your thoughts on it
 
I've moved to DA as RugbyDave said...its one measurement that encompasses a number of others. It also makes it easy to make manual charts for a data book by separating sheets in 200m DA increments.

As for the Sportsman vs Elite...The cheaper one doesn't have the custom drag curves (which is a huge selling feature of the AB software). Its a bit more coin, but worth it compared to the predictive G1/G7 data. My $0.02.

For the record, I use a Kestrel 4000NV for DA and wind, and then reference by data book and/or phone to come up with a solution. Ive been tempted into the 4500AB and the Elite, but at this stage in the game...ive never been under great time/stress/life-death constraints where having the one unit would've saved my life or won me a better prize. That said, I can always make excuses to sell the wife on letting me buy one...and Visa is always happy to let me spend their money.

Good luck with the hunt/decision!
 
Hey chris thanks for the response

As for the custom drag curves, does that just make it simpler for inputting all your data? If thats it, I dont mind pissin around with it to get it all worked out. :)

Right now I pretty much just shoot in my one private location, but if a person changed locations all the time get a new setup like this would be I think investment. :) Which I would like to do in the future. Looking back at my posts on this subject it looks like Im already convinced about picking one of these lil units up. heh
 
My shooting partner and I upgraded from the 4500 AB to the 5700 elite and am very happy with the results. The 4500 started to struggle when you got out to trans sonic distances and even a little before. The 5700 has been bang on and we still have a lot of work to do on the custom curve functionality. The hardware is much improved and lots of small code improvements are evident when you start to use it.
completely agree that DA is the way to go and with a good chronograph (magneto speed) it is dead on. The other benefit is if you don't have a chrono you can enter the mils for a distance and it will figure out the rest.

Kestrel Link looks interesting and will be trying it for multiple target stages. Can calculate 8 different solutions in seconds. Not sure if it will be the way to go but it is worth testing out.

In this case, if you have the means you will not regret the decision. As a side note they upgraded our unit for $300.00 and that did not seem too bad...
 
Hey Magoo thanks alot for you reply. I think Im pretty much convinced already heh. Dont know about coughin up the dough though. :)

Hey chris I just reread your post and with my 2500 I wanna set it to alt 0 for station pressure?
 
The custom drag curves that you get with the Elite (vs the Sportsman) are just that, custom drag curves for different projectiles measured by the guys at AB (Litz et al). What that means is that for a specific projectile, instead of using the G1 or G7 value that the bullet manufacturer gives you, you use a drag curve that was actually tested out for that specific bullet. A G1 or G7 ballistic coefficient just uses a number to relate the curve of the projectile to a standard curve (the G1 curve for flat base bullets and G7 for boat tails). It's just a more precise way of predicting the bullet's flight, especially ince you go transonic or subsonic. Hornady do something similar (using doppler radar to empirically measure the bullet's trajectory) with their 4DOF program but it's not available in a Kestrel or other device.
 
Sooo for a "buy once cry once" kinda guy what model do we start at? Are the Kestrel Elite Weather Meter with Applied Ballistics? worth the coin and will they do all the necessary stuff??
Thanks
 
Right now Im looking at the 5700 sportsman no link for like 625 from Coretac Solutions. So far thats the best price Ive seen and read they are pretty good people.

What other places worth looking at?
 
mildot said:
Sooo for a "buy once cry once" kinda guy what model do we start at? Are the Kestrel Elite Weather Meter with Applied Ballistics? worth the coin and will they do all the necessary stuff??
Thanks
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If you buy the Sportsman and decide you do want the features of the Elite, you can just pay Kestrel the difference and they'll upgrade your sportsman since it's just a software upgrade.
 
I've been "burning the midnight oil" and I think I have a finalist: Kestrel Sportsman Weather Meter with Applied Ballistics with LiNK & Vane Mount
 
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