Chronograph? We don’t need no stinking chronographs!

Or do we?

Whether or not one needs a chronograph depends on a lot of factors. Chances are that those who know they don’t need one probably haven’t read this far and those who aren’t sure will navigate away soon after reading this.

Who needs a chronograph?

In my opinion, the top candidates for a chronograph are long distance rifle shooters, those who load their own ammunition, and avid competitors . Beyond that, there are bloggers and content creators, like me, who can use a tool to add more information to their content regarding ammunition. Hunters are another group who can benefit from a chronograph but need versus want or even nice to have depends a lot on what they are hunting and likely engagement distance. It might go without saying, but the market for those with the need for a ballistic chronograph is exactly large.

Take me for instance. I am a content creator. I also dabble in long distance rifle activities. I hunt and sometimes engage game animals at distances where accurate ballistic information matters. I obviously have a blog which makes me a content creator. And I’d argue that, yes, I need a chronograph. Furthermore, I’ve owned two that I haven’t written about. Both are what I would consider traditional chronographs. Perhaps a better term for them is “old school chronographs”. I’m going to avoid getting into the technical details that differentiate between traditional and modern chronographs in this post, but suffice it to say that I haven’t made much use of the “traditional chronographs” because they are bulky and a bit of a pain to set up. I’ve used them, but only on occasion when I felt they were absolutely necessary for specific activities.

This is all leading me to introducing the Garmin Xero C1 Pro Chronograph that this post is about and that I’ve been making a lot of use lately. It’s pretty sweet! It’s extremely compact. Set up is trivial. The only downside that I can think of is that it’s currently the most expensive chronograph on the market. Roughly five to six times more expensive than “traditional” options.

How Compact is the Garmin Xero C1 Pro?

Tiny. At least, tiny is the word I would use to describe it.

With very few exceptions, like the MagnetoSpeed options, chronographs are bulky items that don’t often fit into a range bag. The Garmin Xero C1 Pro, on the other hand, fits into my pocket. Even with the included ultra small tripod attached. Whether or not that is your experience depends on the size of your pockets, but let’s just say that there is no lugging it around. I’d argue that it’s not much larger than a typical smartphone plus a really small stand. The chronograph itself is not much larger than a typical shot-timer.

The size makes fitting it into virtually any range bag easy as pie.

Is Setup Really Trivial?

Let’s face it. We should be reading manuals, but most of us don’t. I didn’t. Come to think of it, I don’t remember a manual being included in the box. However, I do recall the little tripod and a charging cable being included.

The initial set up is dead simple. Attach the tripod. Charge the thing.

Operating it is simple enough to figure out. There are four buttons on top of the unit. An “OK” button, a back button, an up button, and a down button. The back button has a “PWR” label inscribed just below it which I correctly assumed to mean power. Pressing it turns the unit on. A long press turns the unit off.

Once powered on, you are presented with a menu that is pretty easy to follow. The up and down buttons are used to navigate the options. The OK button confirms the selection. The back button returns you to the previous screen.

Using it goes something like this:

1. Power the unit on
2. Select new session
3. Pick the type of session (rifle, pistol, bow, air rifle, other)
4. Specify the velocity range (the most common velocity range for the specified session will be the default value)
5. Enter the projectile weight if you know it or skip it
6. Position the chronograph according to the alignment diagram displayed and press OK
7. Shoot and wait for the device to process the shot, repeat as desired
8. Press the back button to end the session

On the surface, that might seem like a bunch of things to do. However, it’s intuitive enough to figure out. I’ll even say that it took more effort to write it out than to figure it out.

More Features and Some Limitations

Once a session is started (after step 6 above), pressing the okay button brings up a number of other options like:

• access the session shot list
• access the session summary
• select the three additional data fields displayed in the session and one additional field stored in the shot list
• change the display color between black or white
• adjust backlight brightness
• adjust the backlight timeout
• select the measurement units between FPS, MPS, MPH, or KPH
• end the session

The configurable data fields is an extremely useful feature as different data points will be more important than others in different usage contexts.

For example, a competitive shooter who hand loads their own ammunition is likely concerned about making sure their ammunition meets the power factor requirements. They are probably also concerned about how consistent their ammunition is. So more than likely they are going to want to see power factor, standard deviation, and average velocity on the display screen. They will probably also want to record deviation from average velocity in their shot list.

In contrast, a long distance rifle shooter is more concerned about developing their DOPE (data on previous engagements) in order to know what elevation and windage adjustments they need to make in order to hit those long distance shots. To that end, they are likely concerned about extreme spread and standard deviations.

Those who experience context fluidity will appreciate being able to configure their display and shot list data points for those contexts. However, this brings me to a limitation of sorts that I found annoying: the most current display and shot list data configuration global. So when I switch between the competitor to the long distance context, I’m forced to reconfigure the display and shot list data elements if I want them available for the session and in the history. In my opinion, it would be cool if the configuration was specific to the type of session. In other words, the next time I start a rifle session the display and shot list configuration is what I used in my last rifle session and when I start a pistol session then the display and shot list configuration is what I used in my last pistol session. It’s not a huge deal, but it would have been a nice feature to have.

Another limitation (or another annoyance) related to the data configuration is that if it’s not set up correctly, the data one was looking to get may not be readily accessible on the device. For example, the gallery above shows a session summary and shot list from a session where I was looking to collect power factor information for a competition load. As it turns out, I forgot to configure “power factor” as the data element in the shot list and ended up with kinetic energy in the shot list which is of no real value to me for this session. Because I have the velocity and I know the grain weight, I can calculate the power factor by hand, but that’s annoying and time consuming.

The good news is that there is a smartphone app that the Garmin Xero C1 Pro can sync with that makes all of the data available and easily accessible.

Is the Garmin Xero C1 Pro Worth the Money?

In short, I think the answer is yes. Or at least, yes for those who can benefit from a chronograph and can swing the price tag even if the price tag is a little uncomfortable.

I get it. A $600 MSRP is steep and makes the Garmin Xero C1 Pro the most expensive ballistic chronograph available in the market today. Street price isn’t any better. I think the lowest price I’ve seen on the device since it made its debut is about $590.

The thing is I’m not aware of any other chronograph that is as feature rich, as versatile, and as convenient as this one.

So, yeah. I’ll strongly suggest that those who are in the market for a chronograph and don’t own one yet to go ahead take the “buy once, cry once” approach and get the Garmin Xero C1 Pro. Furthermore, I’ll encourage those who already have a chronograph but don’t make much use of it because it’s another thing to lug to the range and require a series of ceasefires to set up just right in front of the firing line to make the upgrade.