Garmin Xero C1 Chronograph: Long Term Review

This is my long-term review of the Garmin Xero C1 Chronograph, the tiny little radar chronograph that I couldn’t imagine going without at this point. It’s not a small investment to make, so of course everyone wants to know if it’s worth it before dropping that kind of coin. Well, I’m happy to say that it is absolutely fantastic. With the recent release of the C2 version for a couple hundred dollars more, I’m also sure there’s questions about whether it’s worth the upgrade.

I’ve used several different chronographs over the years. As I got deeper into writing for print magazines, the need for something that was both convenient and effective was at the forefront. For several reasons, I’ve been frustrated with both my optical and magnetic chronographs. For a long time, I was tempted by the LabRadar and the promise of its radar goodness. Sadly, it didn’t seem like it was suited to my needs.

The Garmin fixed that.

Let’s get to the bottom line up front first.

My Chronograph Needs

To set up this review, let’s first discuss what I use a chronograph for. I first picked up a MagnetoSpeed Sporter many years ago when I initially developed an interest in long range shooting. Knowing your velocity with any given cartridge and rifle combination is one of the most important factors for developing your dope and holds. It can’t be done without it. As my experience has shown, the velocity label on the side of the ammo box is almost always wrong.

That’s why everyone should understand their velocity numbers in general. Especially with rifles. Pistols were never that much of a concern for me, at least until I started doing writing for third party print publications. In those reviews, they require a lot of velocity and accuracy data as part of the article. So things became more “serious.”

MagnetoSpeed Sporter

For the most part, the MagnetoSpeed was fine. The sporter model attaches with a simple nylon strap that runs up and over the barrel, fastening onto the other side of the plastic block. The bayonet poking out the end has two sensors that detect the projectile passing over them to determine speed. With light-recoiling rifles like a 223 or 22LR, it never gave me trouble as long as there was enough barrel space to mount it.

Unfortunately, several of my rifles, particularly the ARs, have long handguards that prevented me from attaching the thing.

I’ve used it with several 308s and a 300 Win Mag (a Sako S20) as well, and had a lot of trouble with the bayonet slipping off the end of the barrel under recoil no matter how much I tightened it down. The magnetic chronograph is very position sensitive. In the Sako’s case, the bayonet slipping around actually threw off my published results and resulted in some wild velocity standard deviation (oops!).

Where I could attach it, the MagnetoSpeed at least made indoor testing of my rifles workable. Sadly, it did nothing for pistols. When it came time for me to start doing published pistol reviews, I needed another option.

The PACT Model 1 XP

Counter to my skillset, my very first gun review for print was a “staff reviewer” piece on an Iver Johnson 1911A1. Part of the article required velocity testing, and my MagnetoSpeed wasn’t going to cut it. So I went out and bought an optical chronograph, the PACT Model 1 XP.

This type of chronograph has a pair of sensors spaced a fixed distance apart. A plastic “wing” arcs over the top of each one providing a white background for the sensor to detect a bullet passing over it. Using the chronograph involves setting the unit up on a tripod about 10-20 feet in front of your shooting position, and then firing the bullet through the open space under the wings and over the sensors. To date, I’ve never missed and shot the chronograph.

Yeah, that’s a common issue with this style of chronograph.

This type of unit has two major downsides for me. The first is that they work best in specific environmental conditions. Ideally, an overcast day with enough light providing the needed contrast, but not so much that it overwhelms the optical sensors. When I’ve used it, I lucked out with chilly overcast West Virginia mornings.

But that gets to the second issue: I have to use it outside. Where I live in Northern Virginia, all of my local ranges are indoors. Assuming the weird fluorescent lighting even worked with the optical chrono (it usually doesn’t) I cannot ever actually go 10-20 feet down range and set it up. For that reason, any pistol reviews I had to do always required going more than an hour away over the border into West Virginia to do velocity testing.

Radar Chronographs

The first time I heard anyone mention a radar was in the context of LabRadar. It was one of the editors at the publication discussing that they had their eyes on one. At the time, this was the front runner in a generation of radar chronographs. The idea had promise. You set the radar up next to the gun, and then it detected the bullet going downrange to give you the numbers. In theory, this would solve my issue of use with both rifles and pistols. Assuming it worked at an indoor range, it would meet that need, too.

All of the top shooters seemed to use it- but they also had complaints. Having not used one myself, it seemed like the most common issues were that it was large, awkward to set up, suffered poor battery life, and had trouble distinguishing shots on a crowded range- especially indoors. When I asked around about it, especially for indoor use, the answer was a resounding, “don’t bother.”

That’s where the Garmin Xero C1 enters the picture. For years, the LabRadar was the only serious game in town. It looks to me like Garmin paid close attention to the needs and complaints, and then built a better mousetrap.

The Garmin Xero C1 Pro Chronograph

I first started seeing chatter about the Garmin in October 2023. A few people had tested them or seen them in person, and the hype was building. The initial reviews were blunt, “Seems like a LabRadar killer to me.”

They were out of stock just about everywhere, but I managed to find one via GovX and took advantage of veteran discounting (which wasn’t a whole lot, to be honest). I placed my order in January 2024, with the unit arriving a week later. My first impression when it arrived was, “This thing is tiny!”

In practical terms, it’s about the size of a deck of cards.

Here are some of the key specs:

Aside from syncing with a phone app, the unit also syncs with the Applied Ballistics calculators found in several of Garmin’s sport watches, like the Tactix. For maximum velocities, the Xero C1 tracks rifles and pistols up to 5000 FPS, air rifles up to 2000 FPS, airsoft pellets up to 1000 FPS, and arrows up to 600 FPS. In all cases, the Garmin chronograph also produces values for kinetic energy, power factor, extreme spread, standard deviation, and average. You can also add individual notes on each shot, such as clean/cold bore and other comments.

I’ll note that it doesn’t do velocity at different points downrange like the LabRadar does. That will make “truing” your dope more difficult, but no more difficult than any traditional velocity measurement method.

Out of the Box

Packaging was basic. Just the box, the Xero C1 chronograph, a compact tripod, and a USB charging cable. It would have been nice for Garmin to some kind of carrying case to protect the display panel and radar surface, but they didn’t. So I set out to find another solution.

I ended up with a hard-sided bright orange Nanuk 903 hard case. I also purchased a custom cut foam insert that I picked up from a guy calling himself “Range Panda.” Again, I purchased it myself and there’s no connection to the seller. In all, it’s some high quality work and I’m happy to throw some attention towards the guy’s business.

First Session

My first range outing was the most challenging environment available to me. If the Xero C1 worked here, then I couldn’t imagine it not working anywhere else. I purchased the Xero C1 shortly before also picking up the B&T GHM9 PCC . The initial range trip for the GHM9 was also the first outing for the Garmin Xero C1 as well. In all, I’d fire about 200 rounds that day, with about 50 in front of the chronograph.

My local range is indoors, and I was in one of the 50-yard bays. It was a busy Saturday, and I had shooters occupying all four lanes around me (extending two out on each side). These folks were shooting everything from pistols to obnoxiously loud braked AK SBRs.

The manual states that there needs to be at least 20 yards of distance for the radar to work. I’ve used it for testing pistols at 10-15 yards without issue, however. Perhaps it’s a matter of velocity. Faster bullets need more distance to capture the data.

Setting Up

I started with a quick zero and then some velocity testing. When you initiate a new session, the Garmin Xero C1 asks you what you’re shooting (rifle/pistol/air rifle/arrow/etc.), and roughly what velocity to expect. It’s not clear why it asks this, but I suspect that it helps it filter out the noise of other projectiles that don’t match what you’re doing. After a few years of testing, I also think it affects the pulse frequency of the radar.

Once you pick a cartridge, you also optionally tell it the weight of the bullet. You don’t need to do this, but adding it provides your kinetic energy and power factor numbers during a session. Without it, you’ll still get velocity.

Since I was shooting a PCC with pistol ammo, I selected “Pistol” and set the velocity. Then the Garmin tells you to set the device up 5-15 inches to the side and 5-15 inches behind the muzzle. You can turn off this instruction, but I found it helpful. Make sure that the radar side is facing down range. It doesn’t need to be perfectly aligned with the bore. Pointing it generally in the direction you’re shooting is good enough.

That’s it. Start shooting.

The Garmin detects the impulse from a shot then uses radar to locate the projectile during flight. Once it tracks it, it uses some calculation to reverse engineer the velocity at 10 ft in front of the muzzle.

To that end, it worked flawlessly. It picked up every one of my shots and gave me a reading despite the cluttered indoor environment.

Handling Interference

During initial testing, I paid attention to the display on the back of the Garmin Xero C1 to see how it handled the other shooters in the lanes around me. It was detecting the impulse from their shots, and even moved to start “calculating” the velocity, but then never actually displayed the calculation. Despite it triggering repeatedly, it never once logged someone else’s shot as being part of my string.

I don’t know what voodoo Garmin did to make that happen, but I was impressed.

Several years later, and many range trips, I’ve only had one problem of interference where the Garmin picked up and logged someone else’s shots. It was at an indoor range, they were in the lane next to me, and we were both shooting .357 Magnum lever action rifles. It was an understandable mistake.

Battery Life

Now a few years in, battery life has never been an issue. I charge the Garmin Xero C1 maybe 2-3 times per year and it’s still going strong. When I use it for range sessions, I’m typically keeping it on for 10-15 minutes total at a time, so I’m not a heavy user like some people may be. For casual use, I don’t see batter being a problem.

Should I need an emergency charge, a battery charge pack with USB cable is always handy to top it off.

Data Output

Now for some output, which I think is really cool. My other chronographs are “dumb” in that they only track a string of shots on the device itself and then I have to delete it before the next string so that it doesn’t mix up data like averages, extreme spreads, standard deviations, etc. The Garmin separates every string into its own “Session” and keeps it distinct from the others.

It kept a continuous sync with my phone throughout testing. I will add that this particular feature requires you to log in to your Garmin account (or create one if you don’t have it). I already had one due to my long time use of Garmin fitness products, but I understand a lot of people don’t want to deal with setting up an account for something that could just store locally on their phone.

That said, this feature dramatically sped up my testing process.

What I found really nice was the export feature. Once you’ve logged a session, you can view and edit it in the app at any time later on. If you want, you can export it as a .csv file for opening in any spreadsheet editor. Here, you see all of the same data for any particular string, but also even more detail like the specific time for each shot, deviations, notes, and any flags you’ve added to it.

Being a spreadsheet, you’re also easily able to add new columns and perform other calculations as well. It’s neat stuff for a data nerd like me.

Building Profiles

At some point along the way, Garmin added the ability to create profiles for both your firearms and ammunition. During sessions, this let’s me track exactly what weapon I used and which load of ammunition. As neat as this seems, it doesn’t feel complete. For example, when selecting a particular weapon, I would like to be able to look at every session I used that weapon. Or, conversely, if I build up a certain load then I would want to be able to review every session with it across many different weapons and compare notes.

As it is, without that kind of history and relational data, the ability to build profiles doesn’t feel finished.

Long Term Findings

It should be no surprise that given how well the little Garmin Xero C1 Chronograph worked for indoor settings, using outdoors was a breeze. The thing that stood out to me was how much more time efficient the process was. In the past, I had to handle velocity testing with the MagnetoSpeed separately from accuracy testing. With the MagnetoSpeed, the bayonet hanging off the end of the barrel was not conducive for shooting groups. With the Garmin Xero C1, it’s totally disconnected and standing alone to the side, not touching anything. That makes it convenient for doing both velocity and accuracy at the same time. I think I shaved off at least a 30-45 minutes of time from testing this way.

Accuracy Comparison to Industry Standards

I got the chance to compare the Garmin Xero C1 side by side with the industry standard Oehler Model 36 industrial chronograph at an indoor testing facility. I discovered an interesting quirk of the radar unit. When you select the type of weapon you’re shooting (i.e. pistol, rifle, etc.), it also asks you for a velocity range. The option brackets are 600 FPS – 1700 FPS or 1700 FPS – 5000 FPS.

I suspect your selection here affects how the radar handles its Doppler pulses and calculations.

While testing a .357 lever action, I found that velocities in the middle zone of those velocity ranges were very close between the Garmin and the Oehler Model 36. So a .38 Special load moving at 1290 FPS was within about 20 FPS between the two devices. The Oehler reported a 10-shot average of 1271 FPS with a standard deviation of 13.0. The Garmin Xero C1 reported a 10 shot average of 1290.9 FPS with a standard deviation of 13.2. That’s close enough that you could chalk it up to margin of error

However, as velocities got closer to the bracket limits, it got a little weird.

While shooting a full house 158gr .357 Magnum load, for example, the Oehler Model 36 reported 1732 FPS. The Garmin, on the other hand, reported 1716.2 FPS. That’s still not a huge difference, but it does show that the Garmin might struggle a little bit at the edges of the velocity bands. That’s a swing of 35 FPS from being 19 over to 16 under. Of note, I did not try to use the faster 1700-5000 FPS bracket during that test, which might have been interesting in hindsight.

Still, now we’re comparing a $500 consumer chronograph to a $3500+ industrial chronograph- you’d expect there to be differences. To stay within 20 FPS either way is very nice.

The Garmin Xero C2

In January 2026, Garmin announced the Xero C2 as the successor to the C1. The spec sheet tells me that there are two primary differences. First, the C2 has much faster processing, and can track up to 10 shots per second. The C1 can do about one shot every two seconds. Personally, I find the C2’s new capability interesting but not really useful. I use a chronograph for testing at a casual pace to manage heat and keep careful logs. I’m sure there are situations where tracking 10 shots per second would be useful, but not for me.

The C2 also offers some improved connectivity to Garmin watches with built-in Applied Ballistics software. Combined with a slightly more ruggedized housing designed for mounting directly to rifles, I guess I can see this being useful for someone who is trying to adjust their ballistic data based on velocity from shot to shot. But, again, that’s not me.

So, in short, the C2 seems like a decent evolutionary upgrade but ultimately not compelling enough for me to sell my C1 and upgrade when you consider it’s $200 more. If you just need a general use chronograph, the C1 is probably the way to go.

The Competition

Since the Garmin Xero C1 took the market by storm, other companies have joined the fray. Most of them, such as the Athlon RangeCraft, are cheaper and designed to do a similar job at a more budget-friendly price. I’ve got no experience with these, and strongly suspect their basically using the same Chinese OEM and different packaging.

LabRadar also released the LabRadar LX to compete at roughly the same price point as the Garmin. It’s apparently pretty good, and tracks bullets through a longer flight path to give an actual calculated ballistic coefficient. I see this being useful for long range precision shooters who need that kind of data.

Wrapping Up

So that’s my experience with the excellent Garmin Xero C1 Pro chronograph. So far, the thing has been nothing short of exceptional. It’s compact, silly easy to set up, accurate, and I love the data logging features. I truly believe that Garmin has come out with something that changed the direction of the industry.

Should you invest in one? If you’re a serious shooters who routinely needs to get velocity numbers, then it’s probably worth it. Whether that means you’re a reloader trying to tune a load for a specific purpose, building dope charts for a variety of rifles, or just need to test a bunch of different guns for writing- the Garmin makes it easier.

That said, I’m also not going to say you need one. If you don’t have the same environmental or range considerations I have to contend with, then you can certainly get by with a less expensive option like the PACT Model 1 or similar. If you’re only shooting rifles, then a MagnetoSpeed can be had significantly cheaper and will probably still serve you well. Probably.

Of course, you could also try one of the new compact radars at lower price points.

On the other hand, if you value the convenience and time savings the little Garmin provides, and you can accept the $499 price tag, then I think it’s an incredible piece of gear.