I looked around for quite a while to find a shooting chronograph to use for my ammo tests. Finally I just asked The Lady Tam, and she said she used this model for her testing. So I looked around and while Amazon had a good price, so did Midway. But Midway sometimes takes forever to ship and I really wanted to have Amazon's warranty in case something went wrong.
So I went to order it from Amazon, and suddenly their "Good" price had gone up $14.00. YIKES! I'd read about how Amazon plays with the prices, but I bit the bullet and bought it from Amazon. Five days later it arrived. It arrived in a box almost 3 times it's own size, but with the clamshell packaging the chronograph was in, I could understand it. Plus I got a LOT of brown packing paper to be converted into targets!! Right away I found a problem. One of the sun shields had been broken. I got back on Amazon to see how to just get a replacement sun shield and the only thing Amazon allowed was to return the whole thing and get a refund. Not we'll ship you another one and you send us that one back, just return it for a refund. Uhh, I don't want a refund, I just want a new sun shield. Well in the packaging was the users manual with a way to contact the manufacturer, Battenfeld Technology, plus they actually had a phone number which is answered by a real live human being. I called them and explained the situation. And after a 4 minute phone call and 5 days, I had a new sun shield delivered straight to my door. "No Charge" Now THAT is good Customer Service.
Now that I have a replacement sun shield, lets get on with this "Partial" review.
Inside the "Basic" setup packaging you get the chronograph, 2 sun shields with the steel rods that hold them in place, a 15 foot patch cable, and nylon bag with a cord pull top and a users manual. Everything, the chronograph, cord, shields and manual fit inside the bag with a little bit off extra room for me to put in a medicine bottle with 2 extra 9 volt batteries.
The chronograph itself, has it's battery compartment on the bottom next to the mounting nut so the chronograph can be installed on a tripod. The battery compartment has room for your main battery plus an extra battery in case you need it.
The sun shields have their rods held to them under small ears on the shield. The rods fit into the shield and then into the angled holes on the top of the chronograph.
All of my tripods, and other camera mounts screw right into the nut int the bottom of the chronograph, so I shouldn't have any problem setting up securely.
Now, there is a Free Android Application that Caldwell/Battenfeld has put on the play store, to allow you to hook your Android phone/device up to the chronograph and it will keep track of all of your data for you. I haven't had time to really play with the App yet, but I can tell you, it DOES NOT work with my Generic 9 inch Android Tablet, however it DOES seem to be working with my T-mobile ZTE Concord Android Phone. I says SEEMS to be working because my phone was able to communicate to the chronograph, whereas my Tablet could not. This is NOT Caldwell/Battenfeld's fault. My tablet is a very generic Chinese Android Tablet that I buy from the same supplier as my other android tablets as they honor their warranty and 98% of all the Apps I try work on them. Not bad for $60.00, but it does NOT communicate with the chronograph through it's speaker plug and my cell phone does.
So I haven't taken this to the range yet to test, but Sprog #4 aka Daughter #3 aka The Meganator, and I are heading to the Sooper Sekrit Range in the morning to test the chronograph, some 1 1/8th ounce Brenneke Style S&B 2.5 inch Tactical Shotgun slugs against 1 ounce Foster Style 2.75 inch Remington Slugger slugs, and some Aquila 60 grain .22 LR Sub-Sonic ammunition in both pistol and rifle. We might also get some practice in with the Franken-15. Even though it has an inexpensive Leaper Red/Green dot optic, it's surprisingly accurate.
So tomorrow afternoon, I should have some more data on how the Caldwell Chronograph works with it's App and my Android Cell Phone.
Until Later, Be Safe and Shoot Straight, and ALWAYS use your Ear and Eye Protection.
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