Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why am I shooting high on game?

No. Sighted for X yards, rangefinder w/o angle compensation reads X yards, horizontal distance less than X yards, so aim lower.

Best solution to your mathematical equation is buy a range finder with angle comp. It makes life much simpler

I'm describing the principle here, not the particular method of solution.

Mathman, you are correct, and I should have been more specific in my response. Trajectory of course does make a difference. I guess I just assumed that the OP was aware of his trajectory and how distance to target would be affected. Was just trying to say that angle of elevation can affect POI as well, but did a poor job.

While you are not saying anything truly incorrect, you are trying to hide behind a wordy explanation.

You need to aim lower for both uphill and down shots, period.

That's the principle? Aim lower? Not "Use the horizontal distance to determine drop", but "aim lower"? You can do better than that.

I can't believe you have me, a former university math teacher, thinking you're being pedantic. I provided two links with extensive discussions of the situation.

I know a clean or fouled bore was mentioned earlier but have you repeatedly tested your rifle's cold bore POI? At the ranges you are talking I wouldn't think it would make much difference but I had a rifle that would regularly throw its cold bore 2-3" above where the rifle was sighted in at (2.5-3" @ 100). Missed a few deer and spined a few others at 150-175 yards before I spent more time on paper and figured out that my cold bore was impacting 5" high sometimes. That barrel is no longer on that gun.

Mathman knows its all about cosine and easy trig. When shooting uphill or downhill (makes no difference), the distance you use for your drop chart is going to be the horizontal leg of the triangle. When you use cosine, that is a function of the adjacent leg over the hypotenuse. If one doesnt know that, hed be much better served with a range finder that has angle comp. They arent that expensive.

Back to the OP. Shooter Error. Recreate the shot and practice it. Pay attention to poi and repeatability.

150 gr 30/30 is 1/2” low at 25 when zeroed at 100

I tend to shoot high if I miss. It's psychological. A lot of my shooting is with open iron sights .. handguns, muzzleloaders, sometimes .22s. All of these have substantially arc-ed trajectories. I have a built in guestimator of distance and hold-over that is just instinctive. That instinct betrays me when I switch to flatter shooting centerfire rifles.

Tom

Probably jerking the trigger but a friend of mine could always hit cans offhand with his 30-30. One day he decides to see how well it groups at a hundred yards cause he thinks he has the most accurate Model 94 in the world. His first group was about 5 inches, second even worse. He was torqueing down the fore arm into a bag and it was changing point of impact each shot. When he moved the front bag back under the action he started shooting two inch groups. He actually shot a three inch group offhanded. They were never intended to be bench rest guns.

Me the OP. All great posts for incomparable advice...my 336s are short range tools and I have no need to worry about trajectory out to 50 yards or so when my carbine is zeroed for 100.

Here in PA. I put myself in situations , when armed with a 30-30, where you can't see clearly enough, much past 50 or 60 yards, to make a clean shot. Kinda like dark timber so a 100 yard zero is practical for my purposes with this rifle/cartridge combination. Not that the weapon is not capable of much longer shots.

I have shot the weapon twice since posting. At 50 yards from a sitting position which is my usual venue in the woods (back to a tree. etc.) Trying to put together all the advice I gained plus my own observations. I shot very well so I would blame my high hits on a combination of buck fever, poor shooting form like jerking the trigger and not following through, etc....Thanks-a-million all...Tree

You are shooting high with your setup for only three reasons, either

You aren’t sighted in with the proper MPBR

Or

You are focusing on centering the front blade instead of letting it happen

Or

Trigger pull


Thats it

Now if you are shooting 170gr off hand there is a recoil -vs- bullet speed and exit from the barrel problem shooting offhand


I wouldn’t agree a 30-30 is a “short range tool”

read it right....I said MY 336s are short range tools (My as in mine).... you can shoot yours at whatever range you want and in the second paragraph above- "not that the weapon is not capable of much longer shots"

Also with a peep, you look THROUGH not at the rear aperture and the eye pretty much naturally centers the front post on target...this is why they call my particular set up "ghost ring" sights because the rear ring blurs out as you center the front post.

Treemutt,

Many folks don’t understand the natural concept of peeps and they concentrate on centering what is natural and it will change the impact.

“Short range” is a personal and subjective term.

I’m not fighting today, I’m waiting on a Boar hog to show up or the asteroid to hit, whichever comes first.

So you treemutt, have a wonderful Sunday.

To expand on SD post: The bullet drop is due to gravity, which operates along the horizontal distance. This will be less than the hypotenuse of the triangle, when the target is either higher or lower than the shooter, so a lower hold for either is correct if needed.

Which is why some rangefinders have the compensation feature which converts sight distance to gravity distance, so to speak. (mine don't.)

A hold on the lower third of the body will generally compensate out the small difference to make a good kill at "normal" ranges, so I ignore it, but I am conscious of it. Time in flight (for comparible bullet weights) is far more important.

YMMV with very long hypotenuse distances, and/or extreme angles.

It becomes far more important in archery where much slower projectile flight time gives gravity a longer time to act over the course of the flight. Or, translating into bullet speeds, a 150 gr bullet from a 30-30 will have more drop at any given range than from a 300 Mag. Identical bullet weights, but because the 300M spends less time in flight, its bullet will drop less.
.

Assuming you were looking through it and not over it. Looking over it would account for such a high hit at only 25 yards. Easy to do with a ghost ring. Much less likely with a standard disc aperture.

Did the same thing 3 years ago, I had a 25 yard shot at a buck and shot right over him. I think my problem

was I had the Sights 3" high at a for Elk. Next time I hunt der I will have my scope set at 1.5" to 1.75" hope fully that will help.