Bullet not dropping enough?

[Colorado S14]

Looking for thoughts as to why you would have significantly less drop than expected from a shot.

Scenario:
Sight in at 100, move out to 300, use no hold (ie. shoot center bulls eye with 100yd zero). Ballistic calculator would suggest a 12" drop, actual drop is only 3.5" Again, not dialing and not holding any elevation. Drop is only 25% of what is expected and clearly these are not coming out of the pipe twice as fast as expected.

What could cause this?

Asking for a friend.

 

[bschneiderheinze]

Somethings not right pulling the shots, not zeroed correctly, loose mounts. I’d like to have a rifle with 3.5” drop at 300

 

[acudaowner]

are you shooting a with sharks with freaking lasers attached to there heads by chance .

 

[phantomskittles]

Barring your velocity being 300 fps faster than expected or an equipment issue like a loose scope/rings/stock/etc. I can think of 2 possibilities. The first is one I am familiar with which for lack of a better name I would call shooter error. Depending on how shoulder/cheek pressure is applied on a rifle you can force shots high. The second I know next to nothing about which is aerodynamic jump. Could be a possibility but I dont know nearly enough about it to say for sure if that is even .

 

[AIAW]

More than likely what was thought to be a 300 yard target was actually a target much closer. Either that, or there is a problem with the rig.

 

[bschneiderheinze]

I don’t think 300fps would get it maybe 1000

 

[PAYDIRT]

Wanna go in halfs on a power ball ticket?

 

[Colorado S14]

Target is 100% at 300. What mechanical issue could cause this?

 

[hlee]

Tell us about the rifle.

Light weight sporter?

Heavy benchrest?

Other?

 

[Colorado S14]

224V AR15, 4-16x44 Viper HS-T. Sub MOA gun.

 

[_Windrider_]

224V AR15, 4-16x44 Viper HS-T. Sub MOA gun.

How did you get your MV?

 

[EchoDeltaSierra]

Have you validated the bore over height entered in the ballistic calculator is correct?

 

[Trappnp]

The Viper HS-t is a second focal plane scope are you shooting on 8x or 4x and holding over? if so then the drop is probably correct as the value for each hash mark changes as you power down.

 

[chevy_man]

Hang tall target, shoot it at 100 and 300 with the crosshairs. Measure your drop.

Take the retical out of the equation. Now it's much harder to screw up.

Here's my HS-T (on a .22lr so drops are wildly fast). Notice the magnification vs yardage. Yardage gets tighter as mag drops.

 

[Geno C.]

He said, he’s not holding and not dialing. That will pretty much eliminate the scope if it still shoots at zero at 100.

 

[Colorado S14]

What Geno said. Listen to the last AAR podcast from Frank. This happened in his class. I was not dialing. I was not holding. This was not shooter error.

 

[Cm308]

Probably not zeroed at 100 but something like an inch high or so at 100

 

[IronOperator87]

I know you said it wasn’t shooter related but Is the rear support tall enough? Was the shooter struggling to get the bag high enough and then taking the shot allowing recoil to push the back of the rifle down? ( been there)

 

[chevy_man]

What did you input for the ballistic program to calculate? They can only be as accurate as the info you've entered.

Scope over bore height is critical.

Although with a 224 in a reasonable bullet weight (55-69 grn, imo) you wouldn't expect to see much more than a few inches different.


I'm not searching through a podcast for info. Want help? Give us all the info you can for the best informed guesses. (As without being there, they're all just best guesses).

 

[Bwells]

One possibility to check. Did you shoot a shot at each distance or did you shoot an actual group at each distance (5 shot )
I know I've been burned by only shooting one shot to confirm a zero.

 

[wade2big]

Impossible. OP for what you are saying to be happennig, you arent zeroed at 100 yds. I sight in my hunting rifles high at 100 yds to get the effect that you are describing.

 

[Eustice]

Did you reset the turrets to zero once you had sighted it in at zero? After you got the strange results at 300 did you shoot at 100 yards again to make sure you were still zeroed at 100 yards?

I recently got my .308 back from being trued and a new barrel put on. I zeroed the rifle at home then set the turrets so they were also zeroed. Went to a longer range and it kept shooting high. Found my hold was 2.5 Mils at almost 600 yards. I was hoping my gunsmith had built me a .308 that shot like a .22-250 but in fact I had dialed down 1.4 Mils when I slipped the scales. Even though I was super careful not to I still did it.

 

[Dthomas3523]

Shooting at an angle could also produce this. Are you shooting a relatively flat angle or shooting at a bit steeper angle?