Radar guns

[efastball]

Here is my experience with Bushnells many years ago. Only get a Bushnell from a local store. I had to return 2 of them. They work well most of the time. I had to use only Coppertop batteries. No-name batteries would show crazy readings - 200 mph or 10 mph. If you store this thing in the heat (your garage) the outside of it will become gooey and unusable.

The Ball Coach Pocket Radar is probably the best value for most people. $299 They are as accurate as Stalkers.

The MOST important thing for any radar gun is to make sure it shows you the slowest and fastest reading. Only this way can you decide if the reading is accurate. Ex. a pitch will slow 6-10 mph from hand to home plate. So if you don't have both readings, you will have no idea where along the path that reading was taken. So a gun only shows you 50mph, you have no idea if it was out of the hand or at the plate.

The Bushnell version that I had will show both readings. All of them don't. Be very careful with miodel numbers, and return it if it's the wrong one.

These Stalkers show both readings - Sport2 $500, Pro2 for $1200. They are fun/helpful to know if your kid is a pitcher and you are the instructor.

The ball coach version tries to mitigate this with Continous mode, but only shows the fastest reading. It seems to work well, see video

 

[Shawn]

My Bushnell and Pocket Radar both read within 1 mph of each other almost always, have had 2 mph difference a couple of time out of the 175-200 pitches clocked with them. I've only used mine for pitching, not exit speed so I can't speak on that particular use.

Thanks for the info

 

[Shawn]

I could buy the Pocket radar now, just depends on how badly I want it.

 

[ArmWhip]

I compared a Jugs and a Bushnell side by side, this was about 10 years ago and even back then they were within one mph of each other. Radio waves, Radar, travel at the speed of light, no chance of radar gun reading "later". When you depress the trigger the gun sends out waves, when it gets a return it calculates the speed. Electricity travels at 95% of the speed of light so there is no delay in the circuitry either. The only issue you might have is with the strength of the signal which will determine how close on object needs to be to generate a strong enough return., not an issue with a Bushnell. Now I'm going to have to go out with my glove radar and see how close I have stand behind a pitcher to get reading, I've never thought about doing this, now I'm curious. I use a Pocket Radar now

 

[justanotherguy]

I used the Bushnell years back. The one thing I learned is that it's much more susceptible to the incoming angle of the pitch vs a pocket radar. The more I got directly in line with the pitch (baseball) the better it read. There's also the issue of having a huge "gun" in your hands making it obvious what you were doing vs having a small cell phone sized thing in your hand "sneaking" some radar views of a pitcher.

 

[Laphoneman]

I compared Bushnell and pocket radar last year and Bushnell was 1-2 mph slower every pitch guy owning Bushnell just needed to be educated that none of them are going to be accurate from a 45 degree angle once he learned to get on plane directly behind catcher his reading quit jumping around. I have used my pocket radar from behind the batter for exit speeds it worked well.

 

[Shawn]

I used the Bushnell years back. The one thing I learned is that it's much more susceptible to the incoming angle of the pitch vs a pocket radar. The more I got directly in line with the pitch (baseball) the better it read. There's also the issue of having a huge "gun" in your hands making it obvious what you were doing vs having a small cell phone sized thing in your hand "sneaking" some radar views of a pitcher.

Yes people just think your holding a phone up with the Pocket radar. For some reason people don't like someone using radar guns.

 

[justanotherguy]

Yes people just think your holding a phone up with the Pocket radar. For some reason people don't like someone using radar guns.

Yup, or people think you're a scout! If the girl sees she starts trying to throw harder. Now that I've radar'd lots of girls I've got a pretty good feel for their speed and can usually guess w/in 2mph. I also know this, 60 isn't common AT ALL! We've been going to some pretty good showcases and I've only seen 60+ 3 times now. (16/18u)

 

[slagothar]

Yup, or people think you're a scout! If the girl sees she starts trying to throw harder. Now that I've radar'd lots of girls I've got a pretty good feel for their speed and can usually guess w/in 2mph. I also know this, 60 isn't common AT ALL! We've been going to some pretty good showcases and I've only seen 60+ 3 times now. (16/18u)

This....I used my pocket radar at 16U USA nationals a couple of years ago, and only clocked 3 pitchers all weekend hitting 60....

 

[Shawn]

Well I bought the pocket radar, smart coach. We are just starting to practice pitching and hitting, didn't practice during soccer. So tomorrow well be the first time using it. Smart coach has an app on my iphone that works with it. Joey Myers said to compare apples to apples when comes to radar guns. Comparing a Bushnell to a Jugs for example is comparing an apple to a orange.

I think I went high/mid range, and as mentioned you can get readings during games and people will just think your holding up a cell phone.