Ballistics

Ballistics- The study of the behavior of missiles or projectiles in flight; the art of designing projectiles so as to give them efficient motion and flight behavior; the examination of bullets and fire arms to determine the source of a bullet.

The target shooter must know the art of ballistics. Once the obvious choices of weapon, ammunition, and targets are made, a myriad of variables still remain. A target shooter must be familiar with terms such as range, elevation, windage, light, mirage, temperature, humidity, to name a few.

In determining range and angle of target movement, it is necessary to have an understanding of mathematics.

It is important to know the distance between you, the shooter, and the target. To easily find out how far away you are from the target you can use certain algebraic equations. To use the Range Estimation Formula Method you must have either binoculars or a telescopic scope equipped with a mil scale. You must also know or make a very good estimation on the height of the target in yards. The formula is the size of the object in yards multiplied by 1000 divided by the size of the object in mils = the range to the target. For example, a shooter sees a target that is in the shape of a

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Lets say the bear target is 4 mils in the scope. To fix this you must lower your gun. For every 5000 feet of elevation, the shooter needs to lower his or her sights by one minute. Now the shooter can finish the formula. It is important to find the range in order to know what the arc of the bullet is. All of these things can make a big difference on the path of the bullet. That will make you shoot higher than necessary. The shooter needs to lower the guns sights by one minute. The shooter must then convert that in to yards. Once he has done that he can plug t in to the first part of his formula. Bullets do not fly in a straight line.

Humidity has the opposite effect on a bullets path.

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