Sainte_Terrer
New member
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2016
- Messages
- 43
I don't often shoot far with my rifles while big game hunting. In fact, it has been several years since I have shot a deer at 200 yards or more. But, the mind wanders in the hot summer days and I thought to myself, "Do you really know where to hold?" I've got a Leupold VXR with a CDS dial on one of my rifles. It is stupid simple. Twist the dial to the yardage and account for wind. But, I've been hunting with my .338 a lot lately and I don't have a drop compensating reticule or external dials on it. Thus, I decided to visualize the drop for this rig.
So here's what I did:
I input my load specifications into an Android application called Strelok and used the drop outputs to place dots on a HD photograph of a buck. I selected my ideal POI and placed my 50 yard zero dot there. After that, I defined the depth of the buck's chest as 18" (a general figure for whitetail). Then, I drew a line down the chest cavity and measured that with photo editing software. This gave me a figure measured in pixels. I divided this by 18, and got a value for pixels/inch. After that, I measured the appropriate number of pixels for hold under (100 yards) and hold over (every other distance).
I'm pretty happy with the result. It is not a perfect system, but it is relatively accurate. You still have to do some mental measuring in the field, but it does help. No, it is not as good as a fancy reticule or inscribed dials. It is also completely dependent on the accuracy of your ballistics calculator, which MUST be confirmed in the field (preferably with a chronograph and shooting at all the distances). Yet, I think it is a pretty nifty concept. I only went as far as 400 yards, since judging gaps would be really difficult beyond that. In addition, I don't ever shoot past 350 in the field anyways. Here's what it looks like:
So here's what I did:
I input my load specifications into an Android application called Strelok and used the drop outputs to place dots on a HD photograph of a buck. I selected my ideal POI and placed my 50 yard zero dot there. After that, I defined the depth of the buck's chest as 18" (a general figure for whitetail). Then, I drew a line down the chest cavity and measured that with photo editing software. This gave me a figure measured in pixels. I divided this by 18, and got a value for pixels/inch. After that, I measured the appropriate number of pixels for hold under (100 yards) and hold over (every other distance).
I'm pretty happy with the result. It is not a perfect system, but it is relatively accurate. You still have to do some mental measuring in the field, but it does help. No, it is not as good as a fancy reticule or inscribed dials. It is also completely dependent on the accuracy of your ballistics calculator, which MUST be confirmed in the field (preferably with a chronograph and shooting at all the distances). Yet, I think it is a pretty nifty concept. I only went as far as 400 yards, since judging gaps would be really difficult beyond that. In addition, I don't ever shoot past 350 in the field anyways. Here's what it looks like:
