Ballistic Apps

Colby07

Newbie
I have two ballistic apps, applied ballistics and shooter ballistics. Both are IOS. I haven’t had a lot of time to test them side by side but one thing I noticed right off the bat is the difference in the tables. Everything entered is the same between both apps. Wind is set on a 6mph tailwind. Shooting a 308 gmm 168 grain Sierra bullet. Left is the Applied Ballistics app right is shooter.


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Yondering

Regular Member
Yeah, that's to be expected somewhat, they are using slightly different math for the calculations. I have 4 or 5 different ballistic apps on my phone and they all give slightly different results. Some guys claim Ballistic AE (Applied Ballistics) is the most accurate but I haven't found that to necessarily be true, and the user interface is pretty complex. Pick one and tweak the settings to match your actual measured drops; any of the calculators are just an estimate until you've trued them to your results.

A couple others I like for iOS are iSnipe and MD Ballistics. iSnipe has the best UI in my opinion and uses Litz b.c. values, and MD Ballistics has an interesting reticle/target view on the main page where you can dial in your range easily. MD Ballistics also has a feature to set different b.c. values for specific velocity windows (like Sierra and Hornady publish for their bullets) and I like that.
 
Hornady 4Dof works pretty good. You already have Applied Balistics though so run with it, everything that app spits out initially is a baseline. I’m going to go on a tangent here, the BC that your bullet is given on the box is dependent on the rifle they tested it, it is not going to be exactly the same for you. So back on track, you need to true that muzzle velocity and BC. Step one is do you have a chronograph that works well (Labradar or magnetospeed) if not it isn’t the end of the world. If you do enter the speed it spits out for an average of five rounds. Next up zero for 100 yards. Then go out to 300 and get a group inside a 4” aiming point. Once you have adjusted for 300 take your data and check it to the chart AB spit out (set wind to zero). If it lines up 100% go further out, if it doesn’t change your VELOCITY. Example: AB says dial 3.8 MOA and you actually dialed 3.9, adjust the speed in AB until it lines up. Next go out to 500-600 and do this again. At this point your going to have pretty close dope out to 1,000 (side note 168s have a bitch of a time getting to a grand, try 175s) once you go beyond 600 yards adjust your entered Ballistic Coefficient and leave the velocity alone.

Hope this makes sense.
 

LukeNCMX

Member
The most accurate bullet data out there in my experience are the Applied Ballistics custom curves. Not to be confused with the freely available AB G7 BCs available everywhere. You can buy them as in-app purchases inside the AB app. If the AB custom curve does not work for you, especially in the supersonic leg of the bullet's path, then 99% chance the error is somewhere else in your firing solution.
 
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