Most of the commercial data books do fine, but after a while you realize that they are trying to do a lot at once because of the different needs of shooters. Not shitting on Nomad or their books, but over time the best book is the one you put together for your needs.
I have a Trimble with FFS but have been around long enough to know that I may not have time to use it, and it may take a shit on me at any time. I look at it as a luxury item and while I'd like to have it with me all the time, my setup doesn't require it to be there because I have a data book.
My entire data book setup that I drag with me everywhere consists of:
- Oldschool Tactical Tailor nylon databook purse
- Sharpie (regular and thin), mechanical pencil (thick, not thin led, important!), pen, highlighter, grease marker (usually for maps but can update laminated cards as well as your wrist card, but this doubles as my admin pouch)
- 5 foot roll up measuring tape (was beaten into me, literally, to measure fucking everything and anything that is a standard size and found in your AO)
- Solar + battery calculator (for math before going out NOT during)
- 8x5 notepad
- Object stencil (for reference cheat sheets and range card drawing)
- 6 ring binder I got from US Tactical Supply at an AAFES in Bagram (only have the binder as the pages mostly got dicks drawn on them)
- Rite in the Rain universal grid pages
Step 1:
Go buy yourself a cheap laminator off of Amazon, as well as some 8.5x11 3MIL laminating pouches.
Step 2:
Get very familiar with JBM or whatever ballistics software you use to compute and verify your data.
Step 3:
For range cards, I make 1 card for each 1k DA step within the range of where you shoot (i.e. if the DA will never go over 5k there, no need to drag a DA card for 11k around). The range cards basically look like this as I export and sort the data into a template I have in excel. This is a super basic one for a 22LR I shoot out to 300 yards; for centerfire you're going to want to actually make this chart for both elevation and wind for every 20 degree temperature change (i.e 60, 80, 100)
| | | | | Wind @ 5 mph | |
| Distance | MILS | | 0mph | Full | Half |
| 25 | 2.2 | | 0.0 | -0.5 | -0.4 |
| 50 | 2.0 | | 0.0 | -0.3 | -0.2 |
| 75 | 1.1 | | 0.0 | -0.2 | -0.1 |
| 100 | ZERO | | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| 125 | -1.2 | | 0.0 | 0.2 | 0.1 |
| 150 | -2.6 | | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.2 |
| 175 | -4.0 | | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.4 |
| 200 | -5.5 | | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.4 |
| 225 | -7.1 | | 0.1 | 0.8 | 0.6 |
| 250 | -8.7 | | 0.2 | 0.9 | 0.6 |
| 275 | -10.4 | | 0.2 | 1.1 | 0.8 |
| 300 | -12.2 | | 0.2 | 1.2 | 0.9 |
| 325 | -14.1 | | 0.2 | 1.4 | 1.0 |
| 350 | -16.0 | | 0.3 | 1.5 | 1.1 |
| 375 | -18.0 | | 0.3 | 1.7 | 1.2 |
| 400 | -20.0 | | 0.3 | 1.8 | 1.3 |
| | | | | | |
| Lapua 22LR | | | | | |
| 40g 1066 fps | | | | | |
| Spin Drift | | | | | |
It's a bit of work up front, but it will be exactly what you want. Format the printouts to fit in your 6 ring binder, print them out, laminate and cut to fit. You can also make changes on the card on the fly with your grease marker if needed; then go home and edit your master file if its confirmed you had some bad data for your gun.
Having the RitR universal grid cards work well for drawing range cards or taking notes/making an organized log of target sizes, measured items that are standard for your AO that you could reticle range if ever needed or make specific target cheat sheets for.
I can go way more in depth with what I do, what I use and how I can make this work just as fast as using a ballistics program. Let me know if you would like more information, detail or just have questions.
