creating a rimfire dope chart manually?

boxhitch

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Testing for a particular ammo in a particular rifle
I heard of using a cardboard box, shooting at 30 and moving out to longer distances for groups using the same poa
Poi will drop, measurements can be used for mils of turret adjustment

Is this more reliable than an app for specific range and environment ?
 
I have not done as you are thinking - two thoughts come to mind - so, you will experience wind effects that the app may or may not consider - I am not sure that wind is ALWAYS making the bullet go ONLY to one side, or whether there is also an up/down aspect to that. Is my belief that actual shooting with real ammo and your rifle will give you the "best" data - and I suspect that you will want to do that shooting more than once, to confirm that your "data" is good.

Also assumes that you have particular need or desire for extreme accuracy - I was never there - Cooey .22 rifles and whatever High Velocity ammo that I could get - shooting at gophers mostly. Is a thing I am reading of people doing really tight targets at 100 meters / 200 meters with higher end guns and target quality ammo - might be a thing to hear about from those guys, who do that.
 
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Way overthinking this... you can print a drop chart using JBM using basic BC and velocity. Then go out and measure out distances every 20ms or so and just shoot and see what your real world drop is. The JBM chart will get you close... then you adjust from what you see in the real world. The fancy jargon is 'truing' your data.

Every part in your system has a bit of error so by doing real world testing, all the errors are accounted for. This assumes your gear is working properly and ammo is of good quality.

You want to dial UP on your scope so your bullet lands at the target at a specific distance. Trying to work backwards from drop will confuse the crap out of things as distances extend.

Validate over period of time accepting that ambient conditions will change the numbers... but less then you might think.

Done

Jerry
 
I'm not sure why you would do that versus using an app? Once the app is dialed in (ammo, twist, scope height, weather, etc), it's very reliable and gives great results.
 
You could print off a table from the app and confirm or deny the results. If the app is wrong, by all means make your own table. Twist has nothing to do with it of course, if you don't have a chrono velocity will naturally be a guesstimate.
 
Jerry covered it. As long as you use an FFP scope and a Christmas tree reticle it’s easy. Take a guess, hold over using the reticle or adjust the turret, shoot the distances, and keep notes. Use angular measurement (MOA or mils) not drop measured on target.
 
As mentioned above, you can get a good theoretical start with JBM Ballistics online for free:
https://jbmballistics.com/ballistics/calculators/calculators.shtml

I use the "Trajectory" calculator at the top of the list.

You will need your ammo's bullet BC. Some brands provide this on their website, some don't. There is a wide range reported. For example, SK and Lapua cite their BC's for their target ammo as 0.172. CCI Standard Velocity is cited as 0.120. Eley does not seem to provide the BC of their bullets. Don't stress too much about the "accuracy" of the BC number, as you can "true" this later, based on your real world testing. For a brand you can't find, pick a number from what's out there, and then shoot the various distances to observe the drop effects.

You will also need the muzzle velocity. You can generate this yourself with a chronograph which is your best bet, and if you do, be sure to use a large sample size, like 30 rounds or more, and record ambient temperature and let the ammo sit in that air temperature to make sure it has equilibrated. Or you can take the average V0 off the manufacturer's website. The V0 from the websites is an average and varies slightly between lots and within a single lot. I suspect the lab generated V0 is highly influenced by temperature, barrel length and brand, so your average V0 is likely to be different.

Your scope height center above the bore (sight height) is important to input accurately, because this is a sensitive variable in the calculator.

For the rest of JBM's inputs, it should be straight forward, and you can use their defaults for the atmospherics (temperature, pressure, humidity) to get started. Later you can tweak these with your own input data. I suggest you use a zero velocity wind to start with to generate the drop outputs with zero wind. Later you can game the tool to see how the wind affects the numbers.

You can ignore some other inputs like the minimum point blank range, vital zone, and several others because these do not affect your stats for bullet drop.

At the bottom of the inputs settings, you can chose the range increment. For rimfire, a 5m increment really shows the trajectory much better than the manufacturer's websites which tend to use 25m increments. You will also see major trajectory chart differences for what you enter for "zero range". The zero range is a highly sensitive variable for trajectory, so be sure you know what that is for your notes as you test shoot to verify. For shooting matches I zero at 50m for my Range's distance. But for grouse hunting I zero at 30m. The trajectory difference (and therefore crosshair hold) for grouse head and neck shots at a scope zero distance of 30m is significantly different than a 50m zero, so make sure you keep good notes for your verification shooting tests for what your zero distance was.

Your OP mentions Mrad. JBM gives you the choice in the bottom input boxes to generate the outputs in Mrad and cm, or MOA and inches, or any combination.

Play around with it and you will get the hang of it. On my Microsoft computer, I can right mouse click select and and copy the JBM output trajectory table into first a Notepad text file. Then I right mouse click select and can copy the table into Excel and it formats perfectly. For some reason my machine will not let me copy it direct from JBM to Excel, so the Notepad pasting step is a trick to make it work for then pasting into a spreadsheet.
 
I am probably not as particular about this as some people (ie. Not competing), but when I switch distance at the range I use Strelok app. It always gets me within an inch or so of where I need to be, and then I adjust accordingly. I have noticed that temperature plays a huge factor in elevation adjustments.
 
I use this to look up bullet info (BCs and speed)

http ://gundata.org/ballistic-calculator/

And use that info in this one to generate a chart with whatever distance and steps you want.. set up for mils or moa.. shows your drop and wind.. everything adjustable of course.

https. ://shooterscalculator.com/ballistic-trajectory-chart.php

And then go out and shoot at those distances and find out how much error there is, then you can adjust speed or scope height until the graph matches your actual results, Or use this data to get close and then just write your actual on a card or something.
 
Also remember that your dope is is going to change with temperature... Don't surprised when you tested now in the spring at like 10C and then the next time you shoot its a 30C summer day and it's way off.
 
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I did this with my first .223 years ago and it was very useful, but the distances weren't the same as 22LR. I've considered it with my gopher rifle, as I stick to one ammo type for that and have lots of time behind that set-up. Instead, I use a ballistic plex reticle and have really gotten to know it. To my satisfaction at least. Difficult to gauge distances on flat ground most of the time, and I seldom use a range finder unless I make a long distance hit and want to pat myself on the back. lol
 
I took a look at the jbm site, it looks good, I'll probably poke around with it a bit more, but the site I posted is a bit easier to read, and it has a graph which makes it a lot easier to visualize.
 
I've found that Calc programs from Nikon and Federal are also helpful. For Nikon I just find their scope that has the reticle/mag like my scope and then plug in my data - The Fedreral program is just another "Basic" calc program. As others have said, current conditions will have some effect on POI; it just depends on how accurate you want to be.
 
Guess I'm thinking if you have to shoot to prove some app generated chart for local real time conditions, why not just buid a card from the shooting results
thought this would be k.i.s.s. but appears not
 
I'm not sure why you would do that versus using an app? Once the app is dialed in (ammo, twist, scope height, weather, etc), it's very reliable and gives great results.

Unfortunately (fortunately) not all of us have ''smart'' fones
or know how to use them.

I'm fairly analog .
...skwerl
 
Despite being a very windy day, I laid out some targets 20m apart, used some past data as a starting point, launched lead at them, wrote down the adjustments. Repeated a few times at each distance to try and even out the variations due to the winds. Will verify next time out.

Really unsure how less complicated this process needs to be...

Jerry
 
Guess I'm thinking if you have to shoot to prove some app generated chart for local real time conditions, why not just build a card from the shooting results
thought this would be k.i.s.s. but appears not

Because your tests are at fixed distances on a specific day, with a specific temperature and atmospheric pressure. Your data will be off when conditions change, and of course when your target distances change. The trajectory arc of .22 rimfire is quite steep, and changing distances you will be surprised at how much you can miss, and how much you can underestimate and over-estimate dialing and hold.

Example: You tested your ammo at a specific temperature and pressure at a target distance of 50m, but no further. What's your hold or elevation clicks for 60m? That's what your calculator app tells you.

And when you change ammo with a different muzzle velocity or different BC (drag coefficient), everything changes. And when you change your scope height everything changes.

The ballistic calculator allows you to adjust your turret clicks or hold for wind and elevation, based on any new inputs, without having to do shooting tests all over again. :)

But it will never be perfect, and your rifle is unique. So the app must be tuned. Tuning the app calculator is faking it out. You can tune it by adjusting the muzzle velocity to make the calculator app match your POI at distances. You can tune it by adjusting the BC (drag) up or down to match your POI. Once tuned, it should be closer to reality for POI on your daily atmospherics.
 
Real time data from your gun, ammo and your location, bumps all computer fake output print outs. Manual cards made for your gear and your ammo and your location is trump! its real and proven. computers just get you close.
 
Real time data from your gun, ammo and your location, bumps all computer fake output print outs. Manual cards made for your gear and your ammo and your location is trump! its real and proven. computers just get you close.
Manual cards work for one set of atmospheric conditions, computers can adjust for altitude and temperature.
 
I will mention that the entire game of PRS is centrally the pursuit of the capability to make first round hits on targets - and the targets are at distances the competitors have never shot, not to mention the wind, atmospheric conditions, and azimuth are also different from what they have shot.

This pursuit leads to a certain collective optimization of technique and practice. And you will find, without exception, that the optimal has been determined to be the use of ballistic calculators.

Shooters that rely on DOPE and forego the ballistic calculators are not competitive at the top end. Its practice yields inferior results. The shooter is less capable of making this kind of shot.
 
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