Thread: Assessing resulting vertical spread from ES (or SD) for your load at distance

How are the long range shooters amongst us determining the vertical dispersion that results from a given ES (or SD) at distance in their loads ?

It is clear that if using the usual shooting apps for this that the sight height should first be set to zero, and the zero distance also set to as close to zero as possible, as this approximates a horizontal launch. Then the difference in drop (from the horizontal) for variations in entered muzzle velocity will be correctly translated into vertical POI change as would occur in practice for ES variations.
If on the other hand the usual zeroing distance of 100m or 200m is entered into the ballistic app instead for this type of simulation, then the reported change in the vertical point of impact for a given variation in MV will be reduced, since the angle of launch is recalculated each time to match the zero distance, rather than being held constant.

I know this may sound a bit cryptic, but anyone who has looked into this will probably know what I mean.
So what method/s did you use?