Have a 257 Weatherby,shooting 110 Accubond handloads @ 3250 fps dead on at 200, -5.6 @ 300 and -16.5 @ 400 and -33.7 @ 500 yards according to a LEE load program. Have a one piece EGW weaver style base and warne quick det rings. The scope is a Sightron 4x14 with 1/4 in clicks and 60" of travel. Okay here's my questions. If I know the yardage to the target can I simply say @ 400 yards just turn the elevation knob up 16.5 clicks up hold dead on and shoot??? Also with the scope mounted and sighted in I have about 42" of elevation clicks up. Can I shimm the rear and get more elevation clicks?? Because according to my chart I max out at about 540 yards. I would like to shoot out to 800yds. Thanks ahead for any help. And please keep the answers simple I suck at math and mil dots!!!!!
Yes, but only because you happened to pick the range (400 yards) where your "click" value is 1 inch. At 500 yards you will not be able to come up 33.7 "clicks" to accurately hit your target. You will need 26.96 "clicks".
Your scopes clicks are either 1/4 minute of angle (.26175 inches per click per hundred yards) of 1/4 in. (.250 inches per click per hundred yards) It really does not matter for the ranges you want to shoot, so to make the math easier we will call it 1/4 inch per click, per hundred yards, so 1/2 in. per click and 200, and 3/4 in. per click and 300, 1 in per click at 400, etc.
The easiest math is to take the yardage you are shooting (say 500) for your example. You know you need to come up 33.7 inches for that range, take the number of inches you need to come up (33.7) and divide it by the whole number (5 for this example) of the number of yards you are shooting. 6 would be for 600 yards, 7.5 would be for 750 yards, etc.
In this example 33.7 / 5 = 6.74. Multiple 6.74 x 4 = 26.96 "clicks"
6.74 is the number of minutes of angle (not exactly, but close enough for your purposes) and 4 is 1/4 of 1, the value of a "click" in your scope.
At 300 you bullet drops 5.6 inches, so 5.6 / 3 = 1.86 x 4= 7.46, or rounded up 7.5 "clicks"
Your 400 yard example: 16.5 / 4 = 4.125 x 4 = 16.5 "clicks".
Just for therory, lets guess you bullet drops 120 inches at 800 yards. 120 / 8= 15 x 4 =60 clicks.
I just summed up a class it used to take over an hour to teach, because I always made sniper students know how to do all thier math long hand in case thier calculator broke.
Not too tough.
John