Free Ballistics Program I Wrote

[ApplePie]

I wrote a new Windows program I call Bullet Ballistics. It's totally free to everyone. Maybe you will find it useful. Here's a screenshot of the program:



In the past I used an old DOS program to do this, but it does not work with modern versions of Windows. I wanted a simple and clean interface that mostly just calculates bullet drop and is very easy to use. I know there are web pages to do this, but I wanted a standalone program on my PC. I could not find a good free and simple ballistics calculator, so I wrote this one. I compared the results against several other calculators and they are identical or very close, so it looks like I got the calculations correct.

The setup file can be downloaded from the following link:
Bullet Ballistics Download

Let me know via private message if you have any questions or encounter any problems. For example, some people don't know how to download a program file and are totally stymied when the Chrome browser gives a warning message that says: "bbsetup.exe is not commonly downloaded and could be dangerous". That message is just a warning. You need to click the grey box to the right of the Discard button and choose "Keep". Other browsers will give similar warnings you need to bypass. The only way to prevent these warnings is to pay Microsoft hundreds of dollars each year for a "digital signature". It's extortion really, and I'm not going to pay to give away a free program.

 

[jmorris]

Looks good, your numbers are pretty close to what my Pact XP comes up with.

At 1000 yards they are a tenth of an inch different and a few FPS, inconsequential as loads won't be that consistent anyway.

 

[ewlyon]

Very nice. Very simple an easy to use. Thank you for posting it

 

[ants]

I'm downloading, and I'll give it a try. Mucho thanks, partner !!! I love the handloading community.

 

[flyguy958]

Looks good. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Sommerled]

Sweet! many thanks for your altruistic attitude and very nice to use program.

 

[ElvinL]

Looks great! Much Thx!

 

[ApplePie]

1/10 of an inch?

Looks good, your numbers are pretty close to what my Pact XP comes up with.
At 1000 yards they are a tenth of an inch different and a few FPS, inconsequential as loads won't be that consistent anyway.

A tenth of an inch at 1000 yards? Wow, a change in relative humidity makes ten times more difference at 1000 yards, and that's such a minor variable that I didn't bother to include humidity in the interest of simplicity. I'm surprised (and delighted) it's so close to what your Pact XP comes up with.

Thanks to all for your kind words.

 

[Nature Boy]

I'm downloading it and will play with it this weekend. Thanks for the work you put into it and letting us have it. That's awesome

 

[dh1633pm]

Sweet. Thanks for taking the time. I like that you added the links so you could look up coefficients.

 

[bob4]

2 thumbs up.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

Thank you for your work and for giving it to us.

 

[ApplePie]

I added a new button called "More BCs" to the bottom of the lookup ballistic coefficients page. Clicking that button brings up a new window with a list of ballistic coefficients for many bullets and rimfire cartridges, without having to go to the web to find them.

For those of you who downloaded this early on and don't see this button, you can just download and install again. No need to uninstall first.

 

[Mountainjack]

Thanks, will check it out...

 

[RainDodger]

Nice clean little app and easy to use. Runs fine on Win10.

 

[LoneGoose]

Thanks, AP.

 

[Andrew Leigh]

Thanks for the application, I downloaded and it will be used. For my purposes it is much more convenient to use than the Sierra application I use for the same purpose.

What are the chances of having an "across the pond" feature, i.e. having the choice to select imperial vs. metric units, this will increase the appeal.

Thanks

 

[ApplePie]

What are the chances of having an "across the pond" feature, i.e. having the choice to select imperial vs. metric units, this will increase the appeal.

You're right Andrew; I need to add an option for that and convert the units to metric. I'll work on it and post here when it's completed and ready to download.

 

[2bfree]

Thanks a lot. easy to use and gives me an easy way to see how BC affects flight.

 

[Andrew Leigh]

You're right Andrew; I need to add an option for that and convert the units to metric. I'll work on it and post here when it's completed and ready to download.

Look forward to that thanks.

 

[ApplePie]

Metric conversion

I have three questions about adding a metric option to this program:

1. For a metric version, do we still want to specify bullet weight in grains?

2. I assume muzzle velocity and retained velocity should be expressed as meters per second, right?

3. How should energy be expressed? Newton meters? Meter kilograms?

Of course I will change inches to centimeters, feet and yards to meters and Fahrenheit to Celsius.

I can do it however it makes the most sense to users. It does not even have to be ALL metric if it makes more sense to leave some number in imperial units.

Gee, this is a bit more work than I thought!

 

[Andrew Leigh]

Hi,

for some odd reason even though we are metric be operate on a hybrid system. Probably 90% of all reloading related goodies brought into our country are from the U.S. So essentially we operate on both, we talk "Amercican" for most our reloading but as our ranges are marked in m and our measuring instruments in metric.

1. For a metric version, do we still want to specify bullet weight in grains?
Still in grains.

2. I assume muzzle velocity and retained velocity should be expressed as meters per second, right?
Both in fps.

3. How should energy be expressed? Newton meters? Meter kilograms?
ft/lbs

Of course I will change inches to centimeters, feet and yards to meters and Fahrenheit to Celsius.

All distances and dimensions in metric, range and range increments in m, altitude in m, scope height in cm. Speeds in km/h.

Hope this makes sense.

Temperature in dec C.

So it is actually easy as the one that require changing are the easy ones.

 

[rivraton]

I have three questions about adding a metric option to this program:

1. For a metric version, do we still want to specify bullet weight in grains?

2. I assume muzzle velocity and retained velocity should be expressed as meters per second, right?

3. How should energy be expressed? Newton meters? Meter kilograms?

Of course I will change inches to centimeters, feet and yards to meters and Fahrenheit to Celsius.

I can do it however it makes the most sense to users. It does not even have to be ALL metric if it makes more sense to leave some number in imperial units.

Gee, this is a bit more work than I thought!

Energy would be expressed in Joules, I believe.

 

[Andrew Leigh]

Correct but we still talk ft/lbs as it is in al the reloading manuals.

 

[thump_rrr]

First of all thank you for your efforts.
It is greatly appreciated.

I would think that meters per second would be better than km/h for speed.

I know that it would be a lot more work but maybe a way to select every parameter separately would be the way to go.

I shoot at someplaces where they have both metric and imperial ranges side by side.
I currently use an app that allows me to switch any parameter at the click of a button.
My drop tables are still in MOA even though my distances are in Meters.

My shooting partner shoots in Mils and with the click of a button my drops are shown in Mils rather than MOA.

In my opinion the problems with most ballistic calculators start to show up at 600m and greater distances where real world solutions don't match up with the more basic balistic calculators.
Spin drift is one of those things.
I'm using my 1-10" twist .308 barrel with a 175gr SMK in the following example
At 300M spin drift is .25 moa or 0.75" Most people will chalk this up to a little more or less wind than calculated.
At 600m spin drift is 0.5 moa or 3.28".
At 1000M spin drift is 1.25 moa or 13.66". This is a complete miss on a figure 11 target where the torso is 18" wide, or 9" from center till the right or left edge.

Thanks once again for all of your efforts.