Thread: How to calculate shooting angle?

Hi all.

I learnt an important lesson yesterday shooting too high on a stag at 450y. Apparently rangefinders with tbr aren't that great at doing the maths with angles greater than 15° past 400y. (Vortex fury)

How are you guys measuring your angles? Phone app? Gadget fixed to scope?

Also chasing a good ballistics app to help me dial correctly for the next opportunity.

I've snotted a few animals at similar ranges but none have been on big incline/decline angles.

Thanks in advance

Greetings @TimC,
I would have thought wind deflection would have been a bigger variable than the angle at that range. Some details of your current kit and method would help.
Regards Grandpamac.

Hi Mac. Yeah I hadn't put much thought into it but after doing some research using a formula found online it suggests I should have dialed for closer to 390y and not 450. Of course I'm only estimating the angle at approx 30°

Tikka 6.5prc vx5 setup with CDS. I'm thinking I'll ditch the CDS and go back to standard dial now I know there's more science to it.

what was the Vortex fury -- a range finder or Fury ab 5000binos ?

5000hd bins. Not the ab model. Not sure what angles the ab model can calculate but this is the manual for mine

Rest any smartphone on the barrel.

TBR = LOS x cos (α°)

Originally Posted by Moutere

Rest any smartphone on the barrel.

TBR = LOS x cos (α°)

Smartphone to give angle, range finder to give line of sight distance.

And assuming part of the barrel or suppressor is parallel to the bore.

Greetings again,
I had fished out Bruce Grants book (1972) in which he had figures out to 400 yards for angles of 30 and 40 degrees and the mark VII .303 ammo. It seemed from that it was unlikely you had allowed much, if any correction for the slope. Your rangefinder should display the angle as well as the TBR. I have seen people using a protractor and a weighted string in the old days though. Effective, accurate and cheap though.
Regards Grandpamac.

AB model is the same 15degs works after that the Bal mode will tell you what degs but you have to work it out for yourself. Thanks hadn't realized that!
Does make a custom dial hard to figure. I will use Strelok Pro to work it out.

Greetings once more, @TimC from your number of posts and your query I suspect that you may be newish to this hunting thing. I should say right now that I am no great hunter but one thing that I have learnt over the years is that setting up for longer range shooting needs to adhere to the KISS principal KISS stands for "Keep It Simple Stupid". In practise the means keeping the steps needed for taking a shot as simple as possible. Out to 250 metres or so you should be able to take a shot without the need to range and dial if your scope is zeroed for 200 metres. You just need to know that the shot actually is 250 metres or less. You can do this using your scopes reticle to bracket the deer's body. Once you get past that you will need to range and adjust for that. For this you need to be able to do it with a minimum of kit and faffing around. If you have a TBR range finder and better still one that spits out the correction use that. If you want to make calculated corrections at even longer range by all means do that. Dry practice is good for getting the time needed to make adjustments and practice shooting at range even better. Practice really does make perfect or a least a lot better in the hills.
A long time ago a friend related a tale of woe. He had spotted a deer in a shootable position and had got out his drop chart, measured the angle and ranged it but by the time he had his rifle set up the deer had gone. Range 130 yards. I kid you not.
Regards Grandpamac.

Change your range finder mate range finders like that give other rangefinders a bad name iv never had one thats being unreliable on tbr

Or if you like the rest of the vortex just use the look angle feature in your app if it has it

I have strelok which I validate my loads in conjunction with, out to 650 odd yards, my range finder has tbr and different loadings for different bullet drops, I compare and trial and error between the app and the range finder to figure out at what point is too far for an accurate reading off my range finder, at that point I use my app solely. At this stage 450 yards is about a quarter moa difference between my range finder and app. Angles are always a funny one, gravity only works vertically, so the steeper the angle the less gravity your bullet is travelling through is my understanding. I feel your pain, I always try to have those moments at the range instead of in the field if I can help it

Thanks for all the replies.

Grandpamac no I'm not new to hunting at all. I was new to shooting past 300m though until a year ago. Now I've shot many animals out to and past 400. It's the angle thing that I have only just experienced, I was aware of the science behind it but I wasn't aware of my rangefinders short comings to it's limits of angle. It seems I had too much faith in it. Sorry if my queries sound amateur. Thanks for the advice and tips though.

Kelton what rangefinder binos would you recommend that can handle greater angles at range?

Cheers