RANT ON:
Did anyone watch Sighting in with Shooting USA (February 16th) where they featured the Army Marksmanship Unit discussing how to make corrections when shooting uphill or downhill? SFC Emil Praslick from the AMU introduced two terms.
Straight line distance: The [actual] distance between yourself and the target
Flat ground distance: The actual distance that the bullet will feel gravity's effect as it pulls it to the ground
So what's my beef.? Simple, the AMU's definition of "flat ground distance" is wrong. Gravity acts on the bullet over the "straight line distance" but they must assume that we're all too stupid to understand simple vector math. All they had to say is that we can make an approximate correction for inclines or declines by calculating the flat ground distance and adjusting elevation/windage accordingly. To me, this is similar to telling a new shooter that 1 MOA at 100 yards is 1" rather than 1.0472". We all know that it's close enough for most situations, but why dumb it down? We can handle the truth!!!
I have HORUS Angle Slope Level Indicators (ASLI) on some of my rifles and they simply give me the cosine of the angle from horizontal to the target. They work using the same principle described by the AMU, but it's an approximation that is "good enough" for most situations. However, if you're trying to hit MOA targets at 500, 600, 700 yards etc., it may not be good enough.
The reason why a bullet drops less when shooting uphill or downhill isn't because "it only experiences a gravitational force over the flat ground distance", it's because the component of g perpendicular to the bullet's path is less than g. How hard is that?!!
RANT OFF:
Did anyone watch Sighting in with Shooting USA (February 16th) where they featured the Army Marksmanship Unit discussing how to make corrections when shooting uphill or downhill? SFC Emil Praslick from the AMU introduced two terms.
Straight line distance: The [actual] distance between yourself and the target
Flat ground distance: The actual distance that the bullet will feel gravity's effect as it pulls it to the ground
So what's my beef.? Simple, the AMU's definition of "flat ground distance" is wrong. Gravity acts on the bullet over the "straight line distance" but they must assume that we're all too stupid to understand simple vector math. All they had to say is that we can make an approximate correction for inclines or declines by calculating the flat ground distance and adjusting elevation/windage accordingly. To me, this is similar to telling a new shooter that 1 MOA at 100 yards is 1" rather than 1.0472". We all know that it's close enough for most situations, but why dumb it down? We can handle the truth!!!
I have HORUS Angle Slope Level Indicators (ASLI) on some of my rifles and they simply give me the cosine of the angle from horizontal to the target. They work using the same principle described by the AMU, but it's an approximation that is "good enough" for most situations. However, if you're trying to hit MOA targets at 500, 600, 700 yards etc., it may not be good enough.
The reason why a bullet drops less when shooting uphill or downhill isn't because "it only experiences a gravitational force over the flat ground distance", it's because the component of g perpendicular to the bullet's path is less than g. How hard is that?!!
RANT OFF: