This product must rate up there with one of those crosspaths of “Gee, why didn’t I think of that”, and the advancement of technology. A company called MagnetoSpeed introduced one of the oddest velocity chronographs I’ve ever seen, but the idea is absolutely brilliant. Essentially they have this device that is about a foot in length, connected to a sort of CPU, that mounts underneath a barrel or suppressor via a piece of velcro and plastic spacers. This is then connected via a wire to a control unit that reaches back to where the shooter is. So the shooter can sit behind the gun, in the prone (or any position for that matter), fire rounds, and will be able to read off the muzzle velocity after the rounds have been fired. The foot long device sits in front of the muzzle by about 8 inches or so. How this works is that the device has two magnetic fields, the first one just in front of the muzzle, and the second one at the end of the device. When a round is fired, the bullet passes through the first magnetic field, disturbing it, and then through the second magnetic field. The CPU takes the time that it passed through the two fields, calculates the speed of the bullet, and then converts that into velocity data back to the handheld control box.

The important bit to note about the system is the distance below the muzzle line. The company supplies a square rod that the shooter uses to make sure the device is at least below this muzzle line, so the device isn’t shot by the oncoming bullet, which would destroy it. To accommodate for this distance, the plastic spacers come into play, and are designed to stack on top of each other to distance the device from the muzzle. These are all held in place by the velcro strip. There are two versions, an economical model going for $179.99, that can already by bought on Midway USA, and a much more deluxe version going for around $400. It also has a picatinny attachment so shooters can attach it directly to the 6 o’clock rail on a rifle. It comes with a hard case, or a soft field case.