Low Trajectory Rifle Shot Calculator

Flat trajectory rifle fire and bullet drop

Flat-trajectory rifle shooting keeps the line of fire nearly horizontal, so the bullet hugs the line of sight out to several hundred meters. Gravity pulls it down, and how fast it falls depends on aerodynamic efficiency, captured by the ballistic coefficient (BC, against a G1 or G7 reference). Take a typical .308 Winchester load (BC ≈ 0.45 G1, muzzle ~830 m/s) zeroed at 100 m: it drops around 50 cm at 500 m. For real numbers, hunters and competitive shooters mostly turn to the reference data and free solvers from JBM Ballistics, which integrate Mach-dependent drag from G7 tables rather than relying on the closed-form parabola.

Applications

Hunting from 100 to 600 m, NRA High Power and PRS competition, military precision marksmanship (US Army SDM, USMC Scout Sniper, SEAL Team sniper), plus the zeroing routines that hunting and tactical optics depend on.

FAQ

What is the ballistic coefficient (BC)? It's a dimensionless number that tells you how well a bullet shrugs off drag. The higher the BC, the flatter the trajectory and the less the wind pushes it around.

Why zero at 100 m rather than 200 m? A 100 m zero gives you a clean baseline. The "maximum point-blank range" zeros, often set at 200–250 m, hold the bullet inside a small vertical window over a longer stretch, but you have to know how far it rises above the line of sight to use them.

How does wind affect drop? Wind drift is mostly a sideways problem, though a quartering wind nudges the vertical impact a little too. At extreme ranges, precision shooters log the whole ballistic solution, air density, humidity and Coriolis included.