Is there a good rule of thumb on bullet drop or rise on steep angle shots. I know the bullet will shoot high but how much at what angle and how steep does it haft to be before the flight of the bullet is changed?

Hawkeye47

The trick is to calculate the distance "as the crow flies." For instance, if you are shooting 300 yards uphill (or down) at a 45 degree angle, the horizontal distance to the target is 212 yards:

300 cos 45 = 212

In other words, if you climbed a tree at that same spot until you were exactly level with the target, you would be 212 yards away from the target. The bullet drop for the 300 yard, 45 degree shot will be basically the same as a 212 yard shot. This is why if you sight for 300 yards, you will hit a bit high. The same applies to uphill or downhill shooting, because either way, the line-of-sight distances is longer than the horizontal distance, or the time that gravity has to work on the bullet. Hope that helps.

Just remember to base your windage hold off on the "lazered" range of 300 yards.

Don't out think yourself, aim a little low, and let fly. Know your weapon. I could have over-engineered a shot on a Dall's Sheep last year. The shot was about 70 degrees below horizontal. I pulled down about 4" under where I thought it should go, and he dropped at the shot.

If you are shooting at paper play with the math if you want.

check out this article http://www.wildsheep.org/magazines/article_uphill_shooting.htm

I'm with Kenesco on this one. Anyway, drop is a function of TOF, not angle of flight. Using the "horizontal distance" theory is a little better than nothing, but it is still flawed and will result in misses at longer ranges.

quote:

Originally posted by DigitalDan:
I'm with Kenesco on this one. Anyway, drop is a function of TOF, not angle of flight. Using the "horizontal distance" theory is a little better than nothing, but it is still flawed and will result in misses at longer ranges.

Time of flight (TOF) is hard to get your head around when you are out in the field.

It is difficult to practice shooting at long distances at different angles unless you have a lot of room uphill or downhill. But you will learn this pretty quickly and will be able to estimate shots much better.

For 100 yards horizontal, you will actually be shooting 141 yards up or down at 45 degrees. So at 45 degrees, the formula is ROUGHLY 1.4 times the horizontal distance.
With a trajectory chart it is very easy to figure the approximate drop.

DigitalDan is right, this is just an estimate and the farther the distance, the worse it gets.

The best advice is to do what I do.
Practice this as much as you can at as long of a distance as you can.

TOF is same same whether it's uphill, downhill or flat, for a given distance. Flippy, it's just my weird assed way of saying it's distance, not angle. Sometimes my mind gets lost on the freeway of life. Thank God for guard rails!

Knowing your gun and practice is key. Most load manuals have info on this, and if it is applicible to your hunting one would be well advised to know the angles as well as the rest of your ballistics. Make a couple of assumptions after you review the info for YOUR rifle. You aren't going to be splitting hairs in this situation. You might laser the range but you're guessing the angle. look at the effect on your rifle in 30* increments give or take, make a written/mental note on the effect on 30* and 60*, see the near split down the middle at 45* at ranges in the 300-400 yard range. Or, if you're lazy, just remember the 45* effects and fudg it from there. Inside 200 yards it probably will have small influence, take those factoids with you to the field, use accordingly. You don't want or need to burden your hunt with a lot of wasted baggage. Unless you're shooting elk at 1500 yards, in which case, why are you reading this?

I have several of these ACI's that help considerably to quickly calculate horizontal distance for holdover-- http://www.snipertools.com

coyote, good link. Have added one of the articles here for those that care to peruse the issue deeper.
http://www.snipertools.com/article4.htm

Trapntrav,

That was a good article, I've never seen it described in that much detail. I'm sure that article would be quite surprising to most shooters.

Man, I hope I never have to make a long shot at a steep angle. Us Flat-landers aren't too familar w/ shots in that type of terrain. Around here we shoot mostly horizontal or close to it. I have hunted in the Rockies a few times but, mainly just in the hills and some sadles where steep shots didn't occur.

Have a Good One!

Reloader

Thanks everyone for the info!!! We will be hunting in pretty rough country in September and I plan on trying to limit my shots to 350 yards, unless it's a monster Ibex that I can't get any closer to.

Hawkeye47