Labradar! Tips and tricks thread**

coyoteking

coyoteking

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I was just out at the range with mine for the fourth time and I am still getting a lot of failures to read and missed shots. I’ve read the manual back to front and front to back about 10 times, I’ve tried placing the muzzle ahead, behind, 6” away, 12” away, and 18” away. It’s getting frustrating.

I opted for this over the Magnetospeed because I didn’t like the idea of having a foreign object attached to the barrel when I wanted to record velocity while shooting groups. Maybe a luddite like myself should’ve gotten the magnetospeed?

Anyways, with any new tech there’s always a learning curve and I’m usually behind it. I’m sure I’m not the only one, so I thought maybe it’d be a good idea to start a thread where more experienced users could give some tips to us technologically adverse shooters.


*FWIW, I’ve been chronographing some hunting rifles without a brake, a RPR which has a brake, and a 1911 pistol which I just can’t seem to get the labradar to pick up. With the pistol, I place the labradar about 10 yards from a wood target and switch it to pistol mode. All of my rifles have been tested at 100 yards at a wood target. It seems to pick up the rifle shots about 80% of the time. The rifle loads I’ve tried have been 22-250, 243, 6.5cm, 270, and 300rum.
 
Here is a sticker i made for my Labradar,
Never had a reading failure since.
Rifle outdoors and pistol indoors...

oY0znUm.jpg
 
Last edited:
Definitely
Proj weight : on my sticker it’s written my usual weights or...

By actual, i write projectile weight that’s on the box and not actual weighted weight.

For pistol it’s PF so doesn’t need to be that close
For rifle, i trust SMKs are close, and only get 1fps variation per 10F
 
MartyK2500 said:
Definitely
Proj weight : on my sticker it’s written my usual weights or...

By actual, i write projectile weight that’s on the box and not actual weighted weight.
Click to expand...
Ok gotcha the only problem I have has so far is I have a husky 308 full stock and out of 65 shots I have yet to get a reading. I am not sure if the full wood causes issue it is strange.
 
I'm not sure how you are mounting the unit, but it can't vibrate at all from the muzzle blast, typically you get a 'failure to acquire projectile' or some such warning in that situation. You can use a 'speed square' held onto the front face vertical and horizontal to assist in aligning the unit to the target. I do use the airgun microphone attachment all of the time though.

I've been using one for a couple years with everything from braked .338 Lapua's and .17 Hornets outdoors to .177 airguns indoors and have a very high success rate of captures.
 
I've mainly had trouble with 204 and 17 Hornet not getting any reading. Same set up except change bullet weight for 22 250 or 6.5x55 I get readings. I'm also making a bracket to clamp the unit to the bench, cheap tripods don't work well with this unit.
 
coyoteking said:
I was just out at the range with mine for the fourth time and I am still getting a lot of failures to read and missed shots. I’ve read the manual back to front and front to back about 10 times, I’ve tried placing the muzzle ahead, behind, 6” away, 12” away, and 18” away. It’s getting frustrating.

I opted for this over the Magnetospeed because I didn’t like the idea of having a foreign object attached to the barrel when I wanted to record velocity while shooting groups. Maybe a luddite like myself should’ve gotten the magnetospeed?

Anyways, with any new tech there’s always a learning curve and I’m usually behind it. I’m sure I’m not the only one, so I thought maybe it’d be a good idea to start a thread where more experienced users could give some tips to us technologically adverse shooters.


*FWIW, I’ve been chronographing some hunting rifles without a brake, a RPR which has a brake, and a 1911 pistol which I just can’t seem to get the labradar to pick up. With the pistol, I place the labradar about 10 yards from a wood target and switch it to pistol mode. All of my rifles have been tested at 100 yards at a wood target. It seems to pick up the rifle shots about 80% of the time. The rifle loads I’ve tried have been 22-250, 243, 6.5cm, 270, and 300rum.
Click to expand...

Did you try setting your level to the more sensitive setting?
I was poking around looking at how to download firmware upgrades and found a download on mylabradar.com that has some setup tips. I don’t shoot with a brake so I put my muzzle about 6 inches away,even with the chrono, and the trigger on the number 1 setting on the sensitive setting. So far it’s recorded every shot. Except the ones where I forget to arm it. Hate it when I do that. About the only thing I have found that I don’t like about it is that if you are doing a load test for two different rifles at the same time and are waiting for the barrel to cool, you can’t go back to a series and continue adding shots to it for a particular round. Other than that it’s money well spent for me.
 
Well, I left the cheap tripod at home and bolted the Labradar to a 2x6 and clamped the 2x6 to the bench. I made sure to adjust my bullet weights (something I wasn’t doing before as I thought the only reason to input that data was for energy calculations) and placed the muzzle of my rifles directly beside the Center of the unit, about 6” away.

Out of 10 rounds of .243, 2 failed to pick up. Out of 18 rounds of 22-250, 3 failed to read. There was no ‘failure to acquire’ message displayed, the chronograph just remained static.

At my range there is a 3 phase, 14,000 volt power line that runs parallel to the rifle lane. The distance from the path of my bullet to the nearest electrical cable is about 25-30 yards. Could interference from this power line be causing any issues?
 
coyoteking said:
Well, I left the cheap tripod at home and bolted the Labradar to a 2x6 and clamped the 2x6 to the bench. I made sure to adjust my bullet weights (something I wasn’t doing before as I thought the only reason to input that data was for energy calculations) and placed the muzzle of my rifles directly beside the Center of the unit, about 6” away.
Click to expand...

The projectile weight entry is just for calculating energy or power factor.

Is your menu set on trigger mode or doppler mode?
 
maybe turn it down to 3. Also try doppler mode

I place the radar to be about where the end of the scope or forend of rifle is, not near the muzzle

Make sure it's aligned properly. These peep sights work well

GMya24d.jpg
 

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I just got mine a few weeks ago and had nothing but trouble getting it to pick up any shots. Then I started paying more attention to lining the V up with the target I was shooting at. No more issue don't think it has missed a shot since then. It has missed some of the velocitys at different distances but not the complete shot. Very happy with it just a little hard on battery life.
 
The only time mine has missed a shot had to do with the alignment. I have prob tracked 1500-1700 shots with it, maybe missed 5 shots total. A couple cause I didn’t hit the arm button twice.. and maybe three from poor alignment. With a braked rofle I like it about 3” out in front of the muzzle. Everything else I run it back where I can reach it easy, roughly at the front of the forend.

Get the peep sight, a cheap battery pack and pay attension to the alignment.
 
LongBomber said:
The only time mine has missed a shot had to do with the alignment. I have prob tracked 1500-1700 shots with it, maybe missed 5 shots total. A couple cause I didn’t hit the arm button twice.. and maybe three from poor alignment. With a braked rofle I like it about 3” out in front of the muzzle. Everything else I run it back where I can reach it easy, roughly at the front of the forend.

Get the peep sight, a cheap battery pack and pay attension to the alignment.
Click to expand...

Peep sight not required in my opinion. Definitely get a power bank. Alignment and positioning with attention to placement depending on braked or not for rifle is definitely important.
 
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