Most accurate chronograph?

[rnbra-shooter]

As soon as you actually start to care, and have a look at these things, it seems that the manufacturers are pretty clueless about what their measuring equipment can/cannot do.

Does it really matter? Most of the most accurate rifles in the world have never shot through a chronograph.

It depends what you're trying to do. I assume your remark refers to short-range benchrest rifles - I agree that they are most of the most accurate rifles in the world, and that there's seldom a need to chrono them.

If you're trying to tune and test ammo for long range shooting, there's two ways you can do it that I am aware of.

Method one is to shoot your ammo at 1000 yards in favourable wind conditions. Keep testing/modifying/etc until you get good groups (or good vertical spreads). The only disadvantage with this method is that routine access to 1000 yard ranges, especially if "favourable wind conditions" are desired, can be difficult or expensive.

Method two is to shoot your ammo at shorter range, over a chronograph. If it groups poorly, or if its velocity has a large spread, it's highly unlikely to shoot well at 1000 yards. Work on your ammo until you get something that shoots accurately and has good chrono numbers (nice tight velocity spreads). This is not a guarantee that it'll work well at 1000 yards, you still have to verify this with actual 1000 yards shooting. But short range testing over a chronograph can be a part of cost-effective long-range ammo development.

To steer this back to the thread's topic, note that in method two, a particularly *accurate* chronograph is not needed. So long as you have a chrono that is *precise* enough (i.e. its errors in precision are smaller than your ammo's), it can help you accomplish your task.