Athlon Rangecraft Velocity Pro Chronograph [REVIEW]

Ballistic chronographs measure the velocity of rounds you send downrange. This can vary quite a bit from the benchmarks that you find on the back of a box of factory ammo. Knowing the muzzle velocities for your firearm and ammunition is important because it’s a critical variable in understanding the trajectory your bullets will follow as they fly toward your target.

Bullets travel upward then back down again, like Tom Brady throwing long bombs. This trajectory depends on factors such as how fast the bullet is going, its ballistic coefficient, wind, and environmental factors like temperature, pressure, and altitude. Ballistic solvers can predict that trajectory when provided with these parameters. Therefore, you’ll know where to aim based on the distance to your target.

At shorter distances, estimates are, as they say, close enough for government work. But as distances increase, the need for precision also increases if you hope to get your hits — thus the importance of measuring the actual velocities for the exact loads that you’re running in your particular gun. Shooters, whether competitors, snipers, or hunters, rely on accurate velocity data to get hits on target as distances stretch out and target zones get smaller. Reloaders measure velocity to dial in their recipes and achieve consistency. 

For decades, folks relied on light-based chronographs that calculated velocity by analyzing how long it took for a bullet to travel past one optical sensor to another. These fussy contraptions were a pain to set up and use. MagnetoSpeed’s chronographs, on the other hand, use electromagnetic sensors to measure velocities. They’re excellent but require that you attach a large bayonet to your gun and are difficult to use with pistols.

DOPPLER FOR THE WIN

In 2023, Garmin upended the market by releasing a chronograph a bit larger than a GoPro that uses Doppler radar to measure velocities. Like radar guns measuring Ohtani’s fast balls, Doppler-based chronographs emit radio waves and analyze reflections off the projectile to calculate velocity. The Garmin is super easy to use and takes readings when simply placed near your gun. But with an MSRP of $599, it’s not cheap.

And now it has a formidable competitor that just started shipping — Athlon Optics’ new Rangecraft Velocity Pro Radar Chronograph. The Athlon is also a self-contained Doppler radar unit in a similar rectangular form factor, just a bit larger — about half an inch wider at 3.5 by 2.7 by 1.2 inches and 1 ounce heavier at 4.7 ounces. 

The increased size allows for a larger 2.4-inch LCD display and an extra button to control the unit. The display also has a brighter backlight with settings to display white on black, black on white, or shades in between. Resolution is the same at 240 by 320, though Athlon displays finer-looking text; we’d love to see an option to switch to a bold font for older eyes. The display is also glossy; we’d prefer it be matte like the Garmin. Note that the Garmin has an angled screen, while the Athlon is perfectly square.

Additionally, its radar antenna array is roughly 30-percent larger than their competitor, according to Athlon.

Included is a weighty metal mini-tripod with rubber feet that works well, though there’s a standard 1/4-20 tripod mount on the bottom of the unit, so you can attach it to anything you want. We’ve used a smaller DJI mini-tripod instead to fit into a tight pouch in our range bag. Place the chronograph 4 to 10 inches from the muzzle but be wary of muzzle blast from your fire-breathing builds.

An internal lithium-ion battery is rated to last around six hours and recharges via an USB-C port with a rubber cover. In our testing, it easily lasts an entire day at the range. 

There are three buttons on top — power/return, option/delete, and OK — as well as up and down buttons on the right side. This makes the Athlon intuitive to operate as the up/down are separated from the action buttons; the Garmin has four buttons all in a row, and we sometimes inadvertently hit the wrong button. On the other hand, since all of the Garmin’s buttons are on top, you can mindlessly mash down on them with one hand while it sits on a bench. It takes a little more finesse to support the Athlon in your hand so you don’t tip it over while pushing sideways on the arrows and down on the top buttons.

The user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, with a main menu where you select from a Quickstart session, new session, previous sessions, and settings. The Quickstart session dispenses with projectile weight, so you’re up and running quicker but won’t see kinetic energy and power factor calculations. A regular session asks you for bullet weight and provides all of the data fields. 

Select between rifle, pistol, archery, air gun, and “other,” so the chronograph can apply the appropriate algorithms. Rifle and pistol modes have high (1,800 to 5,000 fps) and low (600 to 1,800 fps) settings, while “other” adds an even lower velocity band down to 65 fps.

While shooting, the Athlon displays the velocity of your last shot, min/max, and how many shots it’s recorded. On top, there’s a configurable field; click the middle option button to cycle through average velocity, standard deviation, extreme spread, deviation from average, kinetic energy, and power factor. This is quite convenient; while you can customize the Garmin’s display, it requires clicking through menus. You can also long-press the delete button to easily erase the last shot in a session.

HAVE GUN WILL MEASURE

Many ELR and PRS competitors like to attach a chronograph to their riles. This allows them to verify velocities during a match, sometimes on the clock in ELR or to diagnose issues after a stage. You can also monitor for potential adjustments if there are significant environmental changes, such as temperature swings.

While a lot of shooters have done this, neither Athlon nor Garmin advocate mounting their devices on a gun. It’s not surprising, between absorbing recoil, banging into things, and the fact that these devices are emitting and reading radio waves real-time to make their calculations — so securing them to a platform that moves rapidly while they’re taking measurements isn’t optimal. Nevertheless, Garmin has proven itself with high round counts over the past year and half; it’s too early for the Athlon units to have earned that same reputation, but based on its construction, we’d imagine that it will.

While you can purchase purpose-built hardware to attach your chronograph to the Arca rail on your rig, there’s a much cheaper option. Nodal slide rails are used by photographers to adjust the position of their cameras for panoramic images. One end has an Arca attachment, and the rail extends forth with a tripod-threaded bolt — thus you can attach it to your handguard with the former and screw on your chronograph with the latter. We found 150mm and 200mm nodal slides on Amazon for a little over $20. 150mm is tight due to the width of the Athlon. 

Additionally, if you mount it on the left side of your gun, you need enough room to reach the buttons on the right side of the Athlon. The raised corners on the housing help protect the buttons, but it would have been nice if the bottom were completely flat to mate better with the nodal slide. Athlon included two slots on either side of the tripod mount, which would prevent the unit from rotating if someone made a custom mount with matching lugs.

GOING HOT

We tested the new Athlon side-by-side with two Garmin units. It was just as easy to use and reliable in picking up shots. Notably, the Athlon is quite a bit faster to process each shot. When collecting data with the Garmin, we’ve grown accustomed to glancing at it between shots to make sure it’s ready for the next one; this isn’t necessary with the Athlon, for a more carefree experience overall. 

We asked them about it, and Athlon said that their “advanced digital signal processing and optimized algorithms for radar-based projectile detection results in quicker data processing, reduced latency, and improved reliability.”

As far as average velocity readings, across all of our testing sessions, the Athlon varied from the Garmin units by an average of 0.6 percent with no single session being more than 1-percent different. The Athlon’s average standard deviation was 8- to 15-percent higher and extreme spread was about 20-percent higher. We’re unable to assess which SD is more accurate, but clearly the average velocities were spot on with each other.

Finally, you can download an iOS or Android app to sync up with your chronograph. You can use it to manage and modify your data, add notations, and sort and filter your sessions. You can also export data, but currently only one session at a time; Athlon needs to add a bulk export feature, which wouldn’t be hard to do.

We’ve read some user complaints about syncing with Athlon’s app, but the latest version worked seamlessly with our test unit.

Athlon did a great job with the Rangecraft Velocity Pro. It pretty much matches or exceeds the Garmin’s capabilities, especially with its wonderfully rapid processing speed. However, since it’s just launched, it hasn’t yet had the opportunity to build the reputation for reliability the Garmin enjoys.

If you’re willing to hop on the train early, you’ll also be rewarded with a more affordable price. Unfortunately, due to recent events, Athlon had to increase prices from what was announced early this year, when pre-sales were going for damn near half the price of the Garmin. While the savings now isn’t as dramatic, street prices are around $315 for the Athlon versus $450 for the Garmin (as of 7/8/25). 

Demand is still high, and retailers are back-ordered with waiting lists as Athlon works to ramp up production. The market has spoken, and we agree. Two thumbs up.

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