What’s going on, Squat Squad, and welcome back to Slav Guns. Right as I was finishing my LabRadar LX video, I got a surprise email: the LX could now calculate ballistic coefficient right in the unit. That feature didn’t make it into my original video, so at SHOT Show 2025 I went straight to the LabRadar and Infinition booth to ask the obvious questions. Is it real, how does it work, and how do you actually use it at the range?
Quick note: this is a booth conversation from SHOT Show 2025 (filmed in January 2025) with a LabRadar/Infinition rep. It’s not a new range test. For my hands-on impressions of the unit itself, check out my full LabRadar LX article.
TL;DR
- BC in the unit: the LX now gives you G1 and G7 ballistic coefficients for a shot series, right on the display.
- Not a two-point guess: the LX tracks a bullet over roughly 10 to 30 meters and uses all of those points, not just two velocities, to pull drag out of the data.
- What you need: a new series, bullet weight and caliber, temperature and barometric pressure, then 20 to 30 shots.
- Free upgrades: BC came as a firmware update, and LabRadar says owners get new features without buying a new unit.
- Faster readings: the time to show a velocity dropped from about 2.5 seconds to close to 1 second on the same hardware, with more speed promised.
Why BC matters to a precision shooter
Your ballistic app is only as good as what you feed it. Muzzle velocity is half the story. The other half is how fast that bullet slows down, and that’s what ballistic coefficient describes. If the BC from the box doesn’t match what your bullet actually does from your rifle, your drops at distance won’t match either. Normally the fix is shooting at distance and tweaking numbers until your app agrees with reality. Getting a measured BC from a chronograph you already set up for velocity is a big shortcut.
Where the tech comes from
This was the part I found the most interesting. Infinition, the company behind LabRadar, doesn’t just make the compact chronograph. They also build the big tracking radars used by the defense industry and ammunition makers. The rep explained that those big radars measure drag over very long ranges, and that experience with NATO countries and partners is where the LX’s math comes from.
The LX collects a large number of velocity points on each shot and runs advanced analysis on them. From there it extracts drag using your bullet diameter, temperature, and barometric pressure, filters out the noise, and calculates the BC. He was upfront that the LX doesn’t have the reach of their big radars, which track out much farther. But they put as much of that capability into the small unit as they could.
Two points vs. the whole track
My basic understanding of BC was that you need a velocity at one point, a velocity at a second point, and you work it out from there. There’s even a bit of a redneck method where you set up two optical chronographs at different distances and shoot through both.
The rep’s answer: the LX usually measures somewhere between 10 and 30 meters of the bullet’s flight, depending on the projectile and conditions, and it uses all of the points in that window. That’s why they won’t share the exact recipe. He also pointed out that light-screen chronographs can be off by several percent depending on setup, while he put the LX’s velocity measurement at about 0.1%. Better velocity data in means a better BC out.
How to get a BC from the LX at the range
Here’s the workflow he walked me through on the unit:
- Start a new series. The BC is calculated for one series, so go into the menu and create a new one. Make sure you’re in the right mode.
- Enter the projectile. In the projectile menu, put in the bullet weight and caliber. The calculation needs them.
- Enter the weather. In the meteorology settings, put in temperature and barometric pressure.
- Shoot 20 to 30 rounds. You need a good sample to get a good BC.
- Read it off page three. Scroll through the display pages. Page three shows G1 and G7, so use whichever drag model your app prefers.
What if you don’t have a weather meter?
For now the weather data goes in by hand. There’s no link between the LabRadar app and something like a Kestrel, so you read your weather meter and type the numbers in. I asked what someone without a weather meter should do. You can pull local temperature and pressure online. It’s less precise than measuring at your bench, and being a couple of degrees off will shift the BC a bit. By his example that’s around a few percent, and it really only matters if you’re shooting extreme long range where every little bit counts.
Not just for rifles
One reason I like a Doppler unit over a magnetic one is versatility. A MagnetoSpeed is a great product, but it won’t help with handguns, .22s, BBs, airsoft, or archery. The LX handles all of those. I asked if BC works only for centerfire rifles, and he said it works across the board. People have even tried it on .22 LR and found it did a good job. Air rifles came up too, and he said they’re looking at that drag model and may add it.
Built like a Tesla: the hardware stays, the features grow
When I first talked with the LabRadar team, I handed them a bullet-point wish list, and they told me a lot of it was doable. LabRadar first sent me an LX to try and give feedback on, and I was blown away by how easy it was to use. What I really like is that the LX works a bit like the Tesla model. You buy the hardware, and a full operating system inside keeps getting upgrades:
- BC calculation was added after launch.
- The data display was redone.
- The time to show a velocity went from about 2.5 seconds to close to 1 second on the same unit by putting unused acceleration hardware to work. That’s great for handgun shooters who don’t want to hold the gun up waiting on a reading.
- Another update was coming that cuts about 0.2 seconds more, plus a bigger update with what he called some surprises.
When we ran it side by side with a competing unit in my testing, the LX was faster most of the time, which surprised me. Precision rifle isn’t a cheap sport, so not getting nickel-and-dimed for new features is a real plus. If you buy an LX, you aren’t buying something that’ll be outdated in a few weeks.
Updating the firmware yourself
New units ship with the latest firmware, but a unit that sat at a dealer for a few weeks or months may be behind. The fix is simple. Go to the download section on the LabRadar website, connect the LX to your computer with USB-C, copy the update file to the drive that shows up, and reboot. To find a dealer, the rep pointed people to mylabradar.com. It has a dealer locator, and they’ve added new distributors outside the US, including Europe, South Africa, and Australia.
Bottom line
Getting a measured G1 or G7 BC from the same unit that gives you muzzle velocity makes the LabRadar LX much more useful for long-range shooters. Just give it good inputs: the right bullet weight and caliber, real weather numbers, and a 20 to 30 shot series. If you’re still deciding whether you need a chronograph at all, start with my what’s a chronograph and why you may need one breakdown. The range gear I use is in my Amazon picks.
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Do you trust the BC on the box, or do you true it for your own rifle? Tell me in the comments.
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