August 17, 2016 | 0 Comments

Gear Review: Kestrel 5700 Elite Meter with Applied Ballistics

“If you’re the type of person who buys things so people at rifle ranges will fawn all over you, I owe it to you to tell you that nobody at the rifle range fawns over your Kestrel 5700 Elite Meter with Applied Ballistics. In fact, the only people at rifle ranges who even care that you have a Kestrel, already have a Kestrel themselves. A kestrel is a bird, birds have wings, people at bars have wingmen. It all comes full circle. The Kestrel in my hand costs $709 and nobody at the rifle range wants to talk about it.

Navel gazing about gear related popularity aside, the Kestrel 5700 Elite is jammed full of things that justify that $709 price tag. For ease of explanation, consider the Kestrel 5700 Elite to be comprised of three major pillars. The first is a robust weather station hardware pack that collects data on magnetic direction, wind speed, barometric pressure, temperature, and humidity. If this is just what you’re looking for, you can pick up a Kestrel 5500 Weather Meter for an Alexander Hamilton over $300.

If you’re looking for more concentrated in one device, the 5700 Elite brings the second pillar to the table – a robust software package that runs the Applied Ballistics program. Applied Ballistics is the brainchild of Bryan Litz whose name has become synonymous with math and shooting.

The last pillar — arguably the coolest to the technophiles — is the unit’s LiNK capability. You use it to connect the Kestrel device to your smartphone and/or bluetooth enabled rangefinders like the recently reviewed Bushnell Elite 1 Mile ConX. The aforementioned 5500 Weather Meter also sports this capability for a $90 upcharge (MSRP is $399)

Weather Station

As a fully functional weather station, the Kestrel is capable of doing crossover duty as a handy dandy outdoorsman’s tool. With it’s waterproof construction and onboard sensors it can either measure, calculate, or display the following:

Time & Date
True or Magnetic Compass Direction
Wind speed
Crosswind
Headwind
Temperature
Wind Chill
Relative humidity
Heat index
Dewpoint Temp
Wet Bulb Temp
Pressure
Barometric pressure
Altitude
Density Altitude

Ballistic Calculator

Where the Kestrel comes alive — the reason you should consider paying $709 — is when you load-up ballistics data for your particular rifle and bullet combo. You do this directly through the device itself or through the associated app for iOS or Android. I’ll cover the app side of things later. Given that you get the Elite model without LiNK capability, it’s worth nothing that ballistic profiles are fairly easy to load up. Typing is done via scroll functions on the four way pad. It is a slow process, but one that gets easier the more you do it.

Unlike the various iOS shooting apps I’ve tested, the Kestrel doesn’t hold separate rifle and bullet libraries associated with each other. The Kestrel manages each gun and bullet as a distinct value. If you run a .308 rifle with two separate loads and a 6.5 Creedmoor with three different loads, you’ll have five distinct profiles.

I mention this because the non Elite version of the Sportsman can only store three profiles. Move up to the Elite model and you’ll be able to manage up to sixteen profiles. More is better.”