What can cause a bullet to impact higher, when moving back to 200 yards, from 100 yards?

What wind conditions did you have when shooting both the 100-yd target and the 200-yd target? Have you checked into how cross winds affect the vertical portion of bullet trajectory? Just a question that I did not see mentioned in this thread so far. If I missed it, I apologize.
 
  • Like
Reactions: yo-yo
Could your buddy have turned your turret while you weren't looking, made a bet with you, & purposely shot his guns high?
That's actually a good question! :). I don't think so. We swap rifles back and forth onto the table when we shoot, so I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have a good opportunity to do that, but that would be funny if he did!! :)
 
there is a 400yd range here ,its not flat . ya start out shooting down ward at 100yd. it go's down from there out to 300 yd then back up to the bench elevation at 400yd . different ones have been confused as to why they were hitting higher on target at 200 an 300 than the numbers say it should.
 
  • Like
Reactions: yo-yo
there is a 400yd range here ,its not flat . ya start out shooting down ward at 100yd. it go's down from there out to 300 yd then back up to the bench elevation at 400yd . different ones have been confused as to why they were hitting higher on target at 200 an 300 than the numbers say it should.
We all know angles make a difference. But with a standard setup with 100 yard zero, a 20 degree slope will still be 1moa low vs 1.2 moa low at flat.
On a 40 degree slope it will be dead on at 200 yards, with 100 yard zero.
So slope or elevation difference are 100% not at all the problem for the op.
 
We all know angles make a difference. But with a standard setup with 100 yard zero, a 20 degree slope will still be 1moa low vs 1.2 moa low at flat.
On a 40 degree slope it will be dead on at 200 yards, with 100 yard zero.
So slope or elevation difference are 100% not at all the problem for the op.
Don’t waste your time on him. He’s just tripling down on his retarded idea the guy is shooting at such a steep angle that this is the answer.
 
Lets face it; there is no way that a normal round from a normal rifle in a reasonable configuration with a safe load in reasonable wind conditions can impact higher at 200 yards than 100 yards without adjusting the scope to do it or using different bullets at 200 than 100.

You need abseiling equipment or a long hike to place and retrieve targets because you are shooting off or up a cliff, or a massively high scope mount, or hurricane winds from behind, or a gale blowing directly up, or bullets accelerating after it leaves the barrel.

Seeing as your buddy bet you, he probably adjusted your scope when you weren't looking; Occam's razor and all.
 
What's your actual angle compensated horizontal distance when you zeroed the rifle and when you shot the 200yd target?

Another 6' in elevation makes it seem like you were already shooting at an angle relative to the 100yd target.

Are we talkin 100yd and 200yd line of sight or horizontal?

Did you end up actually getting some weird battlesight zero effect?
Everything is shooting so flat inside the first 200 or so yards, we pretty much ignore angle at those distances.

Get a ballistic app with easy to use interface (Hornady 4DOF of similar). Put your favorite load into the program and set up a range card for 0 to 200yds. Then go back in and change nothing but angle. Do a range card for 15 degrees and another for 30 degrees, which is getting pretty steep. Look at the actual corrections. The change is there but it is tiny. Nowhere near what the OP is experiencing.
 
Last edited:
Just a little bit I think....I think. I don't know how I can tell my relative distance above or below the target, when moving distance back from the target, as the terrain is uneven on the property. I've also wondered how the apps are suppose to account for this. Should I be using the "Shooting Angle" feature? I tried using that afterward, to see if it changed my "Come Up", but it appeared to have almost no effect. Even at extreme amount of angle, like 45-60deg.
This is correct with most modern cartridges even out to 200yds.

This is why we teach shooters to not worry about the angle inside 200 - 250yds when in urban settings. If you get a vertical miss inside 200yds, it is likely because you had a crappy position or did something stupid on the gun during the shot, which is easy to do.
 
Last edited:
Could your buddy have turned your turret while you weren't looking, made a bet with you, & purposely shot his guns high?
I thought I responded to this, but for some reason it didn't publish. I don't think he did, but that would be a really good prank. We swap rifles, back and forth, from the shooting table, so it would be tough for him to do, but that would be really funny!!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Baron23
What's your actual angle compensated horizontal distance when you zeroed the rifle and when you shot the 200yd target?

Another 6' in elevation makes it seem like you were already shooting at an angle relative to the 100yd target.

Are we talkin 100yd and 200yd line of sight or horizontal?

Did you end up actually getting some weird battlesight zero effect?
Sorry, I missed this comment earlier. I don't know if the barrel was actually higher at 200 yards or not. I'm suspecting it, though to hit 5" (actually 6", compare to the 1" low I expected to hit) is way higher than I would ever be If slightly elevated from 200 yards.
It is also possible I was slightly elevated at 100 yards too...that has crossed my mind. I'll have to try and check this somehow.
These distances would be line of sight from the range finder.
I don't think so...what is a battlesight zero effect?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Marine52
This is correct with most modern cartridges even out to 200yds.

This is why we teach shooters to not worry about the angle inside 200 - 250yds when in urban settings. If you get a vertical miss inside 200yds, it is likely because you had a crappy position or did something stupid on the gun during the shot, which is easy to do.
Thanks for the commnet. Ok, I'll have to get back out and repeat these shots. I was just thrown off by my friend's suggestion the shots were going to hit high, before I ever took the 200 yard shots. I don't see how all of his shots, from all his guns, over all the years, always shoots high from the 200 yard mark. Something odd must be happening here, for all guns to respond this way from multiple guns and multiple shooters.
 
"I zero'd in at 100 yards about week ago, and I didn't move the turrets because we ran out of daylight. Yesterday, I was getting ready to move my turrets up, when my friend told me I would need to move it DOWN. I was confused, but he went on to explain this is the phenomenon he's always experienced when he shoots on this part of the property (with all his guns). I bet him he was wrong."

So, you zero at 100, then your moving the elevation????? Then you wonder why your zero is off????? WTF???

Try this, zero at 100, dont touch the fucken scope AT ALL. Go to 300 shoot, get some data. Go to 200, shoot, get some data. Now, compare all your findings. And most of all, STOP LISTENING TO YOUR BUDDY! You never even established a baseline then started fucking with shit and wondered why shit was fucked up....
 
Sorry, I missed this comment earlier. I don't know if the barrel was actually higher at 200 yards or not. I'm suspecting it, though to hit 5" (actually 6", compare to the 1" low I expected to hit) is way higher than I would ever be If slightly elevated from 200 yards.
It is also possible I was slightly elevated at 100 yards too...that has crossed my mind. I'll have to try and check this somehow.
These distances would be line of sight from the range finder.
I don't think so...what is a battlesight zero effect?
Battle sight zero is a zero distance that is chosen (mostly done on iron sights and optics without a BDC) where bullet trajectory will have acceptable elevation differences in POI (for the ranges) that accounts for max ord and height over bore offset. Sometimes people choose the flattest trajectory based off likely engagement distances (50yd zero), others want the most coverage (25yd if aimed center will cover from 0 to 425yds roughly).

The idea is to eliminate the need for trying to figure out range of target and deciding to hold over or hold under (in combat) and reduce the process to simply hold center mass.

1725380286764.png


My follow up post regarding the angles with possible calculated drop tables basically eliminate any sort of reasonable possibility that this would be elevation differences.

For your 100yd zero, you'd basically have to pretty much being shooting straight up or down or there'd have to be extreme elevation differences between you and the target (around 100yds of elevation difference) for your 100yd zero to even potentially result in a 5" high at 200yd impact.

The only other way this could happen is if you didn't actually shoot at 100yds for your zero or you shot your 100yd zero, you adjusted turrets incorrectly and didn't reconfirm the zero after turret adjustment.

So something is off, very off.
 
What wind conditions did you have when shooting both the 100-yd target and the 200-yd target? Have you checked into how cross winds affect the vertical portion of bullet trajectory? Just a question that I did not see mentioned in this thread so far. If I missed it, I apologize.
Ah, no worries. No, there were no wind corrections made for these shots. There is usually a very light breeze (less than 5mph), but we didn't have the Kestrel available on both the last two outings. I imagine wind could cause a difference in the shot placement, and I haven't done the math, but how much of a downdraft would be necessary to move a shot 6" over 200 yards? I would think that would be a lot.
 
To get strelok to give me a shot roughly 5” high at 200 yards, when zeroed at 100y on flat gorund, I needed to give it a 75 deg downhill shot. That’s a bit more than 6 ft…
Yeah, I was trying to do that math. Is Strelock a program to do that math with? I moved the shooting angle on my phone app to about 60 deg and it still was nowhere near a correction of 6". I'm probably doing something wrong though.
 
Ah, sadly I don't. The targets go home with my friend. I will take some pictures of the next group and post them here. I'm a beginner, but the shots were pretty consistent...just high. So weird.
There you go. You weren't actually zeroed at 100 or even 104 yards
 
there is a 400yd range here ,its not flat . ya start out shooting down ward at 100yd. it go's down from there out to 300 yd then back up to the bench elevation at 400yd . different ones have been confused as to why they were hitting higher on target at 200 an 300 than the numbers say it should.
Wow. Yeah, I'm not skilled enough to tackle elevation changes like that. I think I need a better range finder or something that can help me address target elevation.
 
"I zero'd in at 100 yards about week ago, and I didn't move the turrets because we ran out of daylight. Yesterday, I was getting ready to move my turrets up, when my friend told me I would need to move it DOWN. I was confused, but he went on to explain this is the phenomenon he's always experienced when he shoots on this part of the property (with all his guns). I bet him he was wrong."

So, you zero at 100, then your moving the elevation????? Then you wonder why your zero is off????? WTF???

Try this, zero at 100, dont touch the fucken scope AT ALL. Go to 300 shoot, get some data. Go to 200, shoot, get some data. Now, compare all your findings. And most of all, STOP LISTENING TO YOUR BUDDY! You never even established a baseline then started fucking with shit and wondered why shit was fucked up....
 
We all know angles make a difference. But with a standard setup with 100 yard zero, a 20 degree slope will still be 1moa low vs 1.2 moa low at flat.
On a 40 degree slope it will be dead on at 200 yards, with 100 yard zero.
So slope or elevation difference are 100% not at all the problem for the op.
Thanks for this data. How are you doing that math? I want to be able to estimate these shots before I actually correct them, but I don't seem to have a good calculator to estimate elevation changes between the shooter and the target. Are you using the "shooting angle"? Is there something that I can just enter the elevation change data and see how the shot will be affected?
 
"I zero'd in at 100 yards about week ago, and I didn't move the turrets because we ran out of daylight. Yesterday, I was getting ready to move my turrets up, when my friend told me I would need to move it DOWN. I was confused, but he went on to explain this is the phenomenon he's always experienced when he shoots on this part of the property (with all his guns). I bet him he was wrong."

So, you zero at 100, then your moving the elevation????? Then you wonder why your zero is off????? WTF???

Try this, zero at 100, dont touch the fucken scope AT ALL. Go to 300 shoot, get some data. Go to 200, shoot, get some data. Now, compare all your findings. And most of all, STOP LISTENING TO YOUR BUDDY! You never even established a baseline then started fucking with shit and wondered why shit was fucked up....

What I was trying to say is that I don't know if I changed elevation. If I did, it was nearly indistinguishable to me. I would estimate 6-10 feet change. I didn't touch the scope at all, and then we went back out about a week later to shoot again. In order to increase distance, we move ourselves away from the target, rather than move the target away from us. That's just how the land is there.
I just didn't expect my shots to be high by 6" from where I expected it to fall, after moving back 100 yards.
I didn't want to try 300 yards, until I figured out what was happening at 200 yards, but I do need more data.
 
"I zero'd in at 100 yards about week ago, and I didn't move the turrets because we ran out of daylight. Yesterday, I was getting ready to move my turrets up, when my friend told me I would need to move it DOWN. I was confused, but he went on to explain this is the phenomenon he's always experienced when he shoots on this part of the property (with all his guns). I bet him he was wrong."

So, you zero at 100, then your moving the elevation????? Then you wonder why your zero is off????? WTF???

Try this, zero at 100, dont touch the fucken scope AT ALL. Go to 300 shoot, get some data. Go to 200, shoot, get some data. Now, compare all your findings. And most of all, STOP LISTENING TO YOUR BUDDY! You never even established a baseline then started fucking with shit and wondered why shit was fucked up....
My understanding of what he said was he zero’d at 100 then went to crank up elevation on his turret for a 200 yd shot when his buddy told him he would actually have to dial down…which none of us believe is actually the case…ever.

The OP needs to go out, confirm zero at 100, crank on .3 or .4 mils for 200, take some shots with his best fundamentals, and come back with results and pics of his target.

Cheers
 
  • Like
Reactions: RPN and yo-yo
Battle sight zero is a zero distance that is chosen (mostly done on iron sights and optics without a BDC) where bullet trajectory will have acceptable elevation differences in POI (for the ranges) that accounts for max ord and height over bore offset. Sometimes people choose the flattest trajectory based off likely engagement distances (50yd zero), others want the most coverage (25yd if aimed center will cover from 0 to 425yds roughly).

The idea is to eliminate the need for trying to figure out range of target and deciding to hold over or hold under (in combat) and reduce the process to simply hold center mass.



My follow up post regarding the angles with possible calculated drop tables basically eliminate any sort of reasonable possibility that this would be elevation differences.

For your 100yd zero, you'd basically have to pretty much being shooting straight up or down or there'd have to be extreme elevation differences between you and the target (around 100yds of elevation difference) for your 100yd zero to even potentially result in a 5" high at 200yd impact.

The only other way this could happen is if you didn't actually shoot at 100yds for your zero or you shot your 100yd zero, you adjusted turrets incorrectly and didn't reconfirm the zero after turret adjustment.

So something is off, very off.
Ah, thanks. I'll study this chart and get familiar with this concept.
Yeah, I was doing some math, manually, and I found the same thing, with regard to massive elevation change to hit 5-6" high with the given conditions.
We must have a couple things happening here...I will see if my altimeter an detect the elevation change at these two distances. That would be a start. The, perhaps I need to use the "shooting angle" feature in the app. But, at les than 1 degree, I wouldn't expect much from that.
I would think the most logical issue might be our 100 yard zero. Maybe it's a little less than 100 yards and maybe a bit downhill too??
I'll need to investigate this further.
 
"I didn't want to try 300 yards, until I figured out what was happening at 200 yards"

Thats where you went wrong, dont try to figure ANYTHING out until you get ALL the data, not bits and pieces...
 
My understanding of what he said was he zero’d at 100 then went to crank up elevation on his turret for a 200 yd shot when his buddy told him he would actually have to dial down…which none of us believe is actually the case…ever.

The OP needs to go out, confirm zero at 100, crank on .3 or .4 mils for 200, take some shots with his best fundamentals, and come back with results and pics of his target.

Cheers
Yep. That is what happened. I didn't move the turret for the 200 yard shot, based on hearing his comments. I'll go out again this week and get new data. I'll also use an altimeter or something and see if I can get some data as to elevation change.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Baron23
Problem I've ran into myself is you start trying to match up all the calculated ballistics to your shooting but the reality is you're probably dealing with shit for accuracy equipment and shittier shooting fundamentals.
 
"I didn't want to try 300 yards, until I figured out what was happening at 200 yards"

Thats where you went wrong, dont try to figure ANYTHING out until you get ALL the data, not bits and pieces...
I didn't think I was collecting data. I was shocked, as the 100 yard zero appeared to be accurate (hitting the bullseye and having about 3/4" spread. I thought this info was good enough to move to 200 yards. I'll get some more data this week.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Makinchips208
Problem I've ran into myself is you start trying to match up all the calculated ballistics to your shooting but the reality is you're probably dealing with shit for accuracy equipment and shittier shooting fundamentals.
This could be true. I would have leaned further that direction if I hadn't been so accurate at 100 yards. Perhaps I just got lucky. :)
 
Your making this WAY more difficult than it should be.

Zero at 100 yards. 10 shot group
shoot at 200 yards, 5 shot group
shoot at 300 yards, 5 shot group
go back to 100 yards and shoot a 5 shot group to confirm your zero again.
Now, compare all your data. Throughout this process, DO NOT CHANGE ANYTING ON THE SCOPE!

Use 3 DIFFERENT targets lined up next to eachother, verify the accuraacy of your ranges with a range finder at 100,200,300

Again, dont think, dont be shocked, dont FEEL ANYTHING. JUST GATHER DATA.

Again, your POA and POI need to be the exact same at 100,200,300. DONT hold over DONT hold under and DONT touch anything on the scope throughout this process...
 
Last edited:

Wow! Thank you! I was trying to do the math in all these scenarios, but this is WAY more helpful to visualize this! This might even be enough to convince my friend what is happening here. It was really helpful seeing the net effect from a zero inside the 100 yard mark!
Thank you!
 
Your welcome, its a good video. Please read my post above yours and follow it to a tee. Then and only then, after you accomplish that do you start to take a look at things IF and only IF something is wrong...

Tell your friend to STFU until you have gathered ALL the initial data. Get a baseline established first...
 
Your making this WAY more difficult than it should be.

Zero at 100 yards. 10 shot group
shoot at 200 yards, 5 shot group
shoot at 300 yards, 5 shot group
go back to 100 yards and shoot a 5 shot group to confirm your zero again.
Now, compare all your data. Throughout this process, DO NOT CHANGE ANYTING ON THE SCOPE!

Use 3 DIFFERENT targets lined up next to eachother, verify the accuraacy of your ranges with a range finder at 100,200,300

Again, dont think, dont be shocked, dont FEEL ANYTHING. JUST GATHER DATA.

Again, your POA and POI need to be the exact same at 100,200,300. DONT hold over DONT hold under and DONT touch anything on the scope throughout this process...
Ok, yeah. Thanks. Will do. I will get much more data!
 
Your welcome, its a good video. Please read my post above yours and follow it to a tee. Then and only then, after you accomplish that do you start to take a look at things IF and only IF something is wrong...
Ok. I just saw it. I'll grab some more targets and try again. Thank you!