Ballistic Calculators

D

doghunter

New member
The title says it all.

My question is; Does anybody use them and how useful did you find them?

Plenty available online, paid for and free apps https://www.range365.com/10-best-ballistic-calculator-apps/

I found them useful when a young novice shooter asked for advice about adjusting his scope (rimfire) when shooting at a 100m target when his rifle had been zeroed at 50m.

As an 'old school' shooter, I already had the data written down in my notebook (to suit my particular rifle, scope and ammunition), but the nowadays generation want instant answers so fired up my phone which happened to have such an 'app' installed (Lapua Ballistics Calculator) and once some basic questions were asked about his ammo and scope clicks/moa my answer was "about 31 clicks up should get you on the paper"

What a happy young shooter, a bit of fine tuning by a click or so and he was dialled in and saved wasting ammo. A good result.

* doggie *
 
I use a ballistics calculator on every shot when hunting prairie dogs. I use applied ballistics, with a Kestrel 5700 on a post with the vane, feeding my iphone.
I have my phone mounted on my rotary table, in line with the gun barrel. I range the dog with my Lieca binoculars, and put the range in my phone, the app does all the work and kicks out the windage an elevation clicks.

Now it would appear that I should never miss...... Not True. That darned wind changed on me!, or else maybe I pulled the trigger at the wrong time.

The best part is the ability to get a proper elevation setting for the range. There is NOTHING INTUITIVE about judging distance and elevation clicks, particularly at extended ranges. To use the full potential of a ballistics program, it will involve you getting into all the data on your loads, which then gets you into all the stuff you need for accuracy, its a fun rabbit hole to dive into.
 
I use the JBM calculator, it is free and allows practically any conceivable input and output that I need.

I have favorite loads for each rifle and I printout the drop/drift information and tape it to the bell of my scope. Or if a person wanted he could print out the data for each and every load they use for a particular rifle and keep the info in a notebook.

drover
 
I am also a very satisfied user of JBM.

With it, I pushed a 308 Win to 1300 meters, a 9x19 to 200 meters , a 5.45x39 to 500 meters and a subsonic 308 Win to 200 meters, all with a happy success.

As mentioned above, external ballistic calculation is a funny rabit hole to jump into.

It learned me a lot about advertised BC's, bullet stability along it's path, projectile release conditions at muzzle ... and moly.

I am using an old PACT. Needless to say 1 cell got hit one day and that 3 out of 4 polarising filters pods are epoxied by now.
 
powderbrake said:
I use a ballistics calculator on every shot when hunting prairie dogs. I use applied ballistics, with a
Kestrel 5700 on a post with the vane, feeding my iphone. I have my phone mounted on my rotary table, in line with the gun barrel.
I range the dog with my Lieca binoculars, and put the range in my phone, the app does all the work and kicks out the windage an
elevation clicks.

Now it would appear that I should never miss...... Not True. That darned wind changed on me!, or else maybe I pulled the trigger
at the wrong time.

The best part is the ability to get a proper elevation setting for the range. There is NOTHING INTUITIVE about judging distance and
elevation clicks, particularly at extended ranges. To use the full potential of a ballistics program, it will involve you getting into all
the data on your loads, which then gets you into all the stuff you need for accuracy, its a fun rabbit hole to dive into.
Click to expand...

A problem with measuring at the firing line is that it is a only a single point in the trajectory.

I like shooting over grain crops.
You can look at them and see the 'waves' in the wind across the field.

The middle half of the trajectory is likely to have a greater effect.
I use Pentax 10x field glasses.
The optics are pretty much 'camera' quality.
Flare is not present for the most part.
It is like you are standing closer.
 
I agree with your only one point statement. It is the important point anyway.

Of course, judging the wind and making the proper windage inputs is the toughest part of long range shooting.
If I was better at it, I would hit more dogs.

I am waiting fir the day a radar will dope the wind for me. They do exist, but not to my knowledge at a reasonable cost.
 
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