How close is the cosign rule in slope shooting?

newtonian

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I know of a great park where elk appear before dark. Like many such places the convexity of the open area makes it unlikely to see elk when on the ground there. I found a cliff vantage point that would offer shots from 250 to about 600 yards. The downslope is 21 to 26 degrees. For me, the easiest method is to just apply the cosign rule. My question is whether you have found it reliable enough for steep shots at fairly long ranges. It is surprisingly hard to find a place to test this out.
 
I know of a great park where elk appear before dark. Like many such places the convexity of the open area makes it unlikely to see elk when on the ground there. I found a cliff vantage point that would offer shots from 250 to about 600 yards. The downslope is 21 to 26 degrees. For me, the easiest method is to just apply the cosign rule. My question is whether you have found it reliable enough for steep shots at fairly long ranges. It is surprisingly hard to find a place to test this out.

If you're using a kestrel w/AB just use cosine and plug it in. It will do all the hard stuff. If you using something else especially paper dope and you are at 20+ degrees, you can do your manual slope dope correction (cosine x distance) which is better than nothing. I wouldn't say 600 is far, but as said, it will work fine.
 
If you apply the cosine to the distance, it go awry pretty quick.

Applying the cosine to your dope as a percentage gets much better results.

Ex: 500 yards @30* down slope. Cosine .866.

Don't apply the cosine of .866 to the 500 yards. If your dope is say, 10 moa for 500 yards, then 10 moa x .866 = 8.6 moa
 
Thanks; I have never run across that idea, but it makes sense. It has always seemed that the cosine rule is a bit too simple when you consider the changing quantities in bullet flight.
 
There are a couple common methods used, with varying accuracy.
  • Rifleman's Rule. Seems more common, but it not very accurate. Shooter gets MOA values from their 0-inclination range card for the horizontal distance range.
  • Improved Rifleman's Rule. What Dog Rocket explained. This method is surprisingly accurate, and imo is easier to do. Shooter multiplies the drop MOA values from their 0-inclination range card by the cosine(shooting angle).
-For both cases, use the wind values for the line-of-sight range with no correction factor
-If you want to convert your hold MOA to inches of drop, you have to use the horizontal distance to do so.

I went through this whole analysis last week as I became curious after some discussion in another thread. I was not surprised at how inaccurate the standard Rifleman's Rule is. I was surprised by how good of a job the Improved Rifleman's Rule did! Plenty accurate for most hunting situations! That said, it's not much more work to type a couple numbers into your cell phone's ballistic calculator.

Plots display the vertical difference for each method relative to the 'actual' ballistic solution as reported by JBM web calculator. Aka, how much you would miss by!
7mmRM was used for this calculation.

Standard Rifleman's Rule is good to 500 yards, or longer if the inclination angle is less than 10 degrees.
1600922418094.png



Improved Rifleman's Rule is surprisingly accurate for all but the largest inclination angles. FYI, this rule works better with a short zero distance.
1600922505918.png




And, if you apply no correction for shooting angle at all....
1600923364414.png
 
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the easiest way to get it right is take the degree angle from your RF of it has it and plug it into your Kestrel

if using a COSINE Indicator use it's number and plug it into the quick formula both methods will give you the correct come up on your turret
 
If you're using a kestrel w/AB just use cosine and plug it in. It will do all the hard stuff. If you using something else especially paper dope and you are at 20+ degrees, you can do your manual slope dope correction (cosine x distance) which is better than nothing. I wouldn't say 600 is far, but as said, it will work fine.
Just to be clear, agreed that for the shooters on this sight 600yds may not be far for a target, but shooting game w/any challenging condition at 600yds (steep angles, heavy wind, etc.), if you are not precise and wound vs. kill an elk, does not only yourself a great deal of dis-service, but shows huge irresponsibility and disrespect for the elk/any game.
 
I would suggest the BallisticsARC app from Geoballistics. Simple point your phone toward the target and press the angle symbol and the data sheet will update for the shot. Super easy.

My caribou hunt ladt year was very similar where the best target engagements where from a rock outcropping. Simply check the angles to the different clearing before hand so I could be fast when the time came.

You can even use the map feature and competition mode to predope different shooting lanes simultaneously.
 
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