For those of you who don't know, I am crazy about extreme long range precision and I have been shooting beyond 2000 yards for 15 years and it has been a great journey. Before I started Desert Tech I could see that ballistics calculators really started to fall apart quickly beyond 1000 yards. In talking with real snipers who engage enemy targets at those distances, they have had to rely heavily on a quick follow-up shot, using the first shot to obtain accurate dope. It really bothered me that first round hit capability beyond 1000 yards was a rarity with available calculators. This irritation was like a sliver in my finger that I had to do something about. So, I went underground for the last three years testing and searching for the holy grail of ballistic computers. I was determined that I was going to do whatever it took to obtain my goals of predictable, first-round hits beyond 1000 yards. I have worked with a lot of great folks along the way. I got my hands on every ballistic calculator that I knew existed, talked to knowledgeable shooters around the world, and, unfortunately, even offended my peers with my stubborn mentality and honest discussions. I tested prediction capabilities over and over for months in differing locations and different environmental conditions. I can tell you what apps don't produce the same results every time you use them and which ones provide different results between their Android and Apple offerings. But I am not here to trash anyone else's work because I highly respect anyone who has invested the time, money, and effort to provide a ballistic calculator solution because it isn't cheap and it takes more work than most would realize.
In my search, I met Gustavo Ruiz the owner of Patagonia Ballistics and bought a copy of CB1. Later, when he released his new windows phone app I bought an extra phone just so I could use the app. Now, in my testing it was critical that all of the conditions were properly accounted for and the equipment was well-documented and accurate. The biggest issue we found was in evaluating rifle scopes. We found the majority of them had up to 1% error in their click values. The worst was 3% error. This included many $3K+ optics so don't think you can spend enough money to be safe. We also found some scopes had reticle movement when parallax was adjusted, discovered some had backlash issues, and some that even after the parallax was adjusted then the reticle moves several MOA when you moved your head around. Once we had all equipment quality confirmed and true scope values accounted for, then the testing began. We will be releasing a video series on scope testing to help users ensure the best predictions possible.
We found that Gustavo's engine provided predictive flight curves that matched Doppler radar data the closest and what was amazing is it did it with manufacture-published bullet data (G7 BC and actual muzzle velocities). We tweaked the best of the others to try to get their flight curves as close to Doppler radar data as possible but still weren't able to get as close as Gustavo's engine. I was ecstatic!!! For the first time ever I could obtain predictions that provided first round hits at distances up to 1500 yards and beyond.
I called Gustavo and reported my findings and he confidently said: "Yes, I knew that is what you would find." I asked him if he had plans to offer it on any other device than Windows phone and he declined. I asked if he would allow Desert Tech to build a calculator based on his engine for other platforms and he again declined and said come down here to Argentina and we will talk. "I want to get to know you and Desert Tech."
A few months later, I was in Patagonia Argentina with Gus completely off the grid, hunting red stags (free ranging of course) on an old farm that made me feel like I was living 100 years ago. We hunted half the day and talked ballistics from sun up to midnight every day for a week. By the end of the week, I had made a lifelong friend and Gustavo and I had made an arrangement that would bring TRASOL to life.
While in Argentina Gus mentioned that Frank Galli was also eager to get Gustavo’s engine onto other platforms and we were happy when Frank accepted our invitation to collaborate with us on TRASOL’s development. We continued to involve Gus in its development and together we were able to add even more precision and automation into the predictions during its development. Long-range shooting is highly technical which leaves a lot of room for making mistakes and overlooking something. To get the maximum prediction accuracy then you have to be extremely precise and ensure everything is set properly. As I used ballistic computers in the past then I found that if I had to jump back and forth between screens to ensure all of my target data and shooting conditions were inputted properly then I would likely miss something. So, we designed TRASOL so that all elements that need to be inputted for taking your shot are in one screen that does not scroll up or down. Now, all the data is 100% visible so it is easy to see what you need to account for and you can easily/quickly ensure "ALL" data has been accounted for.
Our primary goal with TRASOL is predictive accuracy because it doesn't matter what bells and whistles an app has if you still miss your target. An old friend of mine used to tell me there is genius in simplicity. TRASOL’s user interface was designed to be intuitively easy to use and minimize the chances of user error.
We have a lot of things planned for TRASOL’s future. We are happy that today everyone can enjoy the phenomenal prediction capabilities and its simple user interface.
In my search, I met Gustavo Ruiz the owner of Patagonia Ballistics and bought a copy of CB1. Later, when he released his new windows phone app I bought an extra phone just so I could use the app. Now, in my testing it was critical that all of the conditions were properly accounted for and the equipment was well-documented and accurate. The biggest issue we found was in evaluating rifle scopes. We found the majority of them had up to 1% error in their click values. The worst was 3% error. This included many $3K+ optics so don't think you can spend enough money to be safe. We also found some scopes had reticle movement when parallax was adjusted, discovered some had backlash issues, and some that even after the parallax was adjusted then the reticle moves several MOA when you moved your head around. Once we had all equipment quality confirmed and true scope values accounted for, then the testing began. We will be releasing a video series on scope testing to help users ensure the best predictions possible.
We found that Gustavo's engine provided predictive flight curves that matched Doppler radar data the closest and what was amazing is it did it with manufacture-published bullet data (G7 BC and actual muzzle velocities). We tweaked the best of the others to try to get their flight curves as close to Doppler radar data as possible but still weren't able to get as close as Gustavo's engine. I was ecstatic!!! For the first time ever I could obtain predictions that provided first round hits at distances up to 1500 yards and beyond.
I called Gustavo and reported my findings and he confidently said: "Yes, I knew that is what you would find." I asked him if he had plans to offer it on any other device than Windows phone and he declined. I asked if he would allow Desert Tech to build a calculator based on his engine for other platforms and he again declined and said come down here to Argentina and we will talk. "I want to get to know you and Desert Tech."
A few months later, I was in Patagonia Argentina with Gus completely off the grid, hunting red stags (free ranging of course) on an old farm that made me feel like I was living 100 years ago. We hunted half the day and talked ballistics from sun up to midnight every day for a week. By the end of the week, I had made a lifelong friend and Gustavo and I had made an arrangement that would bring TRASOL to life.
While in Argentina Gus mentioned that Frank Galli was also eager to get Gustavo’s engine onto other platforms and we were happy when Frank accepted our invitation to collaborate with us on TRASOL’s development. We continued to involve Gus in its development and together we were able to add even more precision and automation into the predictions during its development. Long-range shooting is highly technical which leaves a lot of room for making mistakes and overlooking something. To get the maximum prediction accuracy then you have to be extremely precise and ensure everything is set properly. As I used ballistic computers in the past then I found that if I had to jump back and forth between screens to ensure all of my target data and shooting conditions were inputted properly then I would likely miss something. So, we designed TRASOL so that all elements that need to be inputted for taking your shot are in one screen that does not scroll up or down. Now, all the data is 100% visible so it is easy to see what you need to account for and you can easily/quickly ensure "ALL" data has been accounted for.
Our primary goal with TRASOL is predictive accuracy because it doesn't matter what bells and whistles an app has if you still miss your target. An old friend of mine used to tell me there is genius in simplicity. TRASOL’s user interface was designed to be intuitively easy to use and minimize the chances of user error.
We have a lot of things planned for TRASOL’s future. We are happy that today everyone can enjoy the phenomenal prediction capabilities and its simple user interface.
