LOS distance or adjusted for ballistic calculator

Joined
Mar 6, 2013
Messages
3,030
Which distance is the correct one to use for ballistic calculators? I usually use Shooter and get good results but I’ve been shooting in the mountains more lately.

My thinking is it doesn’t matter as long as the inputs are entered correctly but maybe at longer range or shooting setups with a lot of drop it does. The way I see it you have distance as an input and look angle. Now if I put in the corrected distance for the angle and then put a zero look angle that should be the same as line of sight with the appropriate look angle. What I don’t know is if the ballistic calculator is actually accounting for the parabolic path and angle of that path in relation to the angle to the target. If that’s the case I would say line of sight and look angle is correct or more accurate.

Just seems there has to be a reason shooters add angle cosine devices to their rifles and I can’t seem to find the answer why.
 
Joined
May 29, 2012
Messages
3,474
Location
Lewiston ID
Which distance is the correct one to use for ballistic calculators? I usually use Shooter and get good results but I’ve been shooting in the mountains more lately.

My thinking is it doesn’t matter as long as the inputs are entered correctly but maybe at longer range or shooting setups with a lot of drop it does. The way I see it you have distance as an input and look angle. Now if I put in the corrected distance for the angle and then put a zero look angle that should be the same as line of sight with the appropriate look angle. What I don’t know is if the ballistic calculator is actually accounting for the parabolic path and angle of that path in relation to the angle to the target. If that’s the case I would say line of sight and look angle is correct or more accurate.

Just seems there has to be a reason shooters add angle cosine devices to their rifles and I can’t seem to find the answer why.

Accurate ballistic calculators work better with LOS and Angle inputs together to take into account TOF as you mentioned.

Inside 1K yards with a modern round and common velocities the difference between using ASI and LOS/Angle are negligible.

ACI’s are good, but they are more of a quick indicator tool instead of a reliable device to be used to calculate accurate comeups. Most often they were popular before rangefinders with angle compensation were the norm.


Mike


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
OP
doverpack12
Joined
Mar 6, 2013
Messages
3,030
Perfect thanks Mike. So set rangefinder for LOS and either input angle rangefinder says or lay phone on barrel once on target and record look angle.
 
Top