Garmin Acquires Applied Ballistics

By Daniel Y • Published November 10, 2026

Garmin has acquired Applied Ballistics. That's right, one of the most popular and accurate ballistic calculator providers is going to be under Garmin's umbrella. This poses a lot of interesting new possibilities for future product types.

Garmin @ TFB:

This is not Garmin's first entry into the shooting sports realm. Many shooters will be familiar with the Fortrex line of GPS units, some of which had ballistic solvers.

The big news was the release of the XERO C1 chronograph. It very quickly became the industry standard for shooters. That success has been followed up with a refined C2 version of the chronograph.

Garmin has a history of integrations with AB products, too. Some of those Fortrex and Fenix units have AB ballistics built in. Seeing this change in ownership may signal broader integrations or new types of integrations we have not seen previously.

This next part is pure conjecture but exciting to think about. AB is known for having improved drag curve models for projectiles. These are far more accurate than a G1 or G7 ballistic coefficient. BCs are just a mathematical approximation of a bullet's drag characteristics. AB's models of bullets are based on true Doppler data for how the bullet performs at various ranges.

Given that Garmin's chronographs are miniature Doppler radars, one has to wonder if there will be some functionality to calculate your own drag curves using an AB integration on a Garmin chronograph. Again, I have no inside information about this. It is pure speculation, but that would be a very cool feature to see, particularly for those of us shooting bullets that are not found in libraries like AB.

All images from Garmin.

Or perhaps Garmin could get into the smart optics space. Various manufacturers are integrating tools like laser rangefinders and ballistic calculators into their optics. If Garmin were to enter that space, perhaps they would include chronograph data, applied ballistic solvers, and their recent forays into the laser rangefinder realm. Again, purely hypothetical, but an interesting possibility. We will all just have to wait and see what is to come, potentially even at SHOT Show 2027.