uphill/downhill shooting questions

rocknwell

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Joined
Jul 7, 2011
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186
Location
Cedar City, UT
I can't seem to find anything on this forum about shooting uphill/downhill.

i was wondering if i could get some help with understanding (at least in a

basic fashion) the ballistic properties of vertically angled shots and how an

angle/cosign indicator works to help you know what you're doing. any help

would be fantastic! i live in western SD where bluffs and rolling hills may

require me to make such a shot. Thank you in advance!

micah
 
Angle Shooting - Correcting For The Effects Of Gravity by Ward Brien ( 1 2 3 ... Last Page)
Len Backus

Look this up under Technical articles on page 1. I moved it up for you.
 
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so i read the article and it was very helpful and interesting! thanks for showing me. there is something i don't understand though. last time i hunted, the 2 deer i took were at a decent upward angle from where i was sitting and it was into the wind. i have always thought that if you are shooting down, you aim low, but if you are shooting up, you aim high. so that's what i did and my shots hit both deer on the first shot. 2 deer, 2 shots, 2 kills. so my question is if that idea is wrong and you have to aim low no matter if you are shooting up or down, then the scope i was using was surely off right? i was using a borrowed .22-250 that i had never shot or sighted in. i just took the guy's word that it was good to go. what are your thoughts?
 
Less holdover is required for either an upslope or downslope shot. The magnitude of the correction becomes larger and larger with both increasing distance to the target, and increasing slopes. The guys that are taking sloping shots at the longer ranges are likely all using a ballistics software program to determine the exact dope. Out past ~ 500 yards, and with slopes exceeding 10%, the corrective dope starts to become critical if you hope to connect. At 750 yards with 30% slopes, the reduced holdover with my 300 Win Mag - sighted in at 300 yards - is about 20 inches. I mean 20 Inches of difference compared to shooting on the level. We've moved up into units of feet of correction - rather than inches of correction.
 
How far were the deer. Gravity is the culprit in angle shooting. The longer the distance the more the drop. 200 yard shot the bullet would still be in kill zone where a 600 yard shot probably not. Depends on angle and distance and speed of bullet.
 
after lots of research, it's looking like to really accurately hit targets at long range, i'm going to need some expensive equipment other than my rifle and scope. my budget is not that huge. i'm thinking i'm going to have to learn the protractor/string method for angled shots and make sure i bring a calculator to the range/hunt to make accurate calculations. which is fine by me. technology is great, but to be a great shooter, which i want to be, being able to make those shots with little to no technology to help is key. i'm definitely going to invest in an angle cosign and level tools though. those are nice additions. thanks for the insight. i really appreciate it
 
You'll find that under 300 yds, unless the angle is pretty steep, there isn't much correction needed for angled shots. Especially if you're talking about deer sized vital areas.

Rock Chucks are another story though, once the angle gets over 15-20 degrees and shots get 300 or further, it pays to compensate some on those smaller targets.

The string and protractor works, but sometimes it's a little tough to sight down the straight edge and then turn the protractor sideways to view the string and the angle (gotta be careful to not lose the posistion) It's tougher still when the wind is blowing the string/weight around.

The angle indicators that mount on the scope or base are nice and handy. So are the rangefinders that show the angle to target :)

I am just a couple hours from RC if I go via Custer then Hill City.
 
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