BuckChrony Chronograph

New Product Release

TLDR? Check out the BuckChrony here: https://buck-rail.com/product/buckchrony/

This one has been a long time coming. Rick Eutsler introduced me to Nate from NateChrony back in June of last year. He knew Nate had a good thing going with affordable chronographs and I had a good thing going with affordable suppressors. He had suggested that we work together incorporating a chronograph into a suppressor.

From my time in aerospace mechanical hardware development I learned a lot. One lesson that has stuck with me is that software development and hardware development are very different (duh!) and being good at one doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be good at the other. Often times, when a hardware company dabbles in software development it doesn’t go well. The pocket chronograph collecting dust on my desk is a testament to that.

Thankfully for us, Nate is a software wiz and has developed a killer product that just works. I only needed to figure out how to incorporate that killer product into a BR suppressor. I was working on the modular suppressor at the time and it just made sense to incorporate the NateChrony into an expansion chamber module that accepts our 1.5″ baffle modules. Nate shrunk down his hardware so that we can fit it into a compact module all while maintaining all of the features of his chrony while actually adding even more functionality and power. All in all there is nothing else like it on the market.

Here’s a semi-comprehensive list of the features:

• Barrel mounted – for now, 1/2-20 UNF threads only, but more thread patterns to come. This means the sensors will always be mounted in-line with the muzzle and contributes greatly to it’s reliability.
• IR Sensors – The sensors work very much like the old Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronographs, but without the fussy dependence on perfect light conditions. The sensors are arranged and housed in such a way that you have all of the simplicity of this technology without the elements that make it unreliable.
• Accuracy – If you look at many reviews of popular chronographs you’ll often notice that when the reviewer checks the measurement against another chronograph there is often substantial discrepancies from one chrony to another. NateChrony calibrates every single unit before they send them to us against master units with certification from the Australian National Measurements Institute. Every single unit is live-shot calibrated.
• Precision – This Chrony will measure within +/- 1 fps at 1000FPS making it as accurate as the most expensive chronographs on the market. LabRadar and Garmin advertise .1% accuracy. For reference Caldwell advertises .25% accuracy (meaning +/- 2.5 FPS at 1000FPS) That’s greater than the standard deviation on some high-end modern airguns. FX doesn’t post the precision of their chronographs as far as I can tell.
• USB-C powered – you can power it with your phone (non iPhone) or with a 5v usb-c power supply. This allows for more powerful hardware, less weight on the muzzle, longer battery life (because you don’t have to fit a tiny battery into the module). No built-in battery also means you won’t have to replace the whole unit when the battery quits on you.
• No APP – The software for the NateChrony is stored on the device itself. When you power it on it puts out a wifi signal, you connect to the device wifi (no data necessary), and log into the device with your mobile browser. No finicky app, no account creation, no data mining, no bluetooth, no cloud or web server outages. You can save the device page to your mobile homescreen and it will open up just like an app when you are connected.
• Software – Nate is constantly adding new features to his software. Right now, it will tell you speed and energy at the muzzle. It will save multiple shot strings, output charts, min, max, avg, spread, and std dev. Also makes it easy to download shot string data. Nate is also developing his SteadyShot version that will show acceleration in the X, Y, and Z axes before each shot and chart it out as a training aid. The SteadyShot version will be available at BR as well. Stay tuned for that one.
• Suppressor – This module can be used as a standalone chronograph (pictured above) and can be configured to work as a suppressor as well. As far as I know, this is the first airgun suppressor/chronograph on the market. Well, kind of on the market. Our modular suppressors are out of stock and I won’t be making more until we catch up with all of our other stuff.

We’re still a very small garage operation y’all and just having some growing pains. Growth is slow when you treat your business like a hobby that pays the bills. Not saying that’s right. That’s just what I’ve done. I’m working on it…

Speaking of being irresponsible, I will be heading to the British Shooting Show in a few days. When I get back I’ll be pushing hard to catch up on modular suppressors. At the end of the month I’ll, hopefully, be trading in an arm, leg, and appendix for a couple more SLS machines. If we pull that off we’ll be getting caught up very quickly. Hang in there!

As always, thank you for your business and thank you for your support. I don’t take it for granted and will continue to work hard to earn it.

Sincerely,

Terry Harman