This Long-Range Shooting Game looks like it might be pretty cool. But it’s got a lot of technical stuff about shooting that you apparently need to know to have any success with the game.
I’ve Googled some stuff on “mil dot ranging” but it just makes my eyes glaze over. Can anyone explain this stuff to someone who hasn’t held a gun since an afternoon shooting non-scoped .22 rifles at age 13?
N.B.: Posted here because that seems to be the best spot for time wasting net games.
Okay, short form… the three major things you have to do are determine A) how far away the target is, then using this compute B) how much to correct for distance (by tilting the gun up a bit to make the bullet fly farther) and C) how much to correct for wind (by move the point of aim left and right).
RANGE. Possibly the hardest part. The first thing to know is that the little dots (mil-dots) in the scope each represent a single “minute of arc”. One minute of arc (MOA) is a small fraction of a degree - one 1/60th I think. The rule of thumb is that one minute of arc is approximately one degree per 100 yards of distance. This correspondence between angle width and distance can be used to compute range.
There are some formulas you can access in the game by clicking on the little square to the right of the word “Help” in the little grey oval towards the left of the screen. The formulas let you compute the range of something if you know how wide it is in degrees (or MOA) you can plug the numbers into the formula and find the distance to it. The game also conveniently supplies you with a calculator you can pop up by hitting the “on” and “off” buttons under the word “Calculator” at the bottom of the screen.
So, say you’re looking through the scope. The target thing is, say, 72 inches tall. (You can find this out by either looking at the left side of the screen where the target is shown, or looking in the “Instructions” grey oval to the left, which usually tells you the dimensions of the target.) In the scope, that 72" tall target is, say, 4 mil-dots high. You can figure this out by aligning the horizontal line with the bottom of the target and then counting up the vertical line. Usually, it will not be exactly an even number of dots. You may need to round to the nearest 1/4th of a dot. Now, you know the height of the target. And you know it’s 4 mil-dots high. Flip out the calculator and find the formula for converting inches and mildots into distance. It’s (target inches * 27.778) / mildots. Now you get a number of yards. In this case, 500 yards.
ELEVATION. Now flip open the “Range Card” thing on the left side of the screen. You may need to flip closed the “Instructions” or “Help” things first. Look for 500 yards. It says that there need to be a certain number of MOA height adjustment for the particular kind of bullet you’re shooting, I don’t know what, let’s say 3.5 MOA. Use the up and down arrow keys (this corresponds to twisting the top knob on a real scope) to select 3.5 MOA of elevation. The little numbers at the bottom center of the screen show your elevation and left/right adjustments in both clicks and MOA. I never bother looking at the clicks, just get the MOAs right.
Now, in theory, if you hit the “shoot” button, the bullet should land somewhere along the horizontal line of the scope. This is because you correctly estimated the range and correctly tweaked your scope to compensate. The bullet might still not land at the exact center of the scope, because you haven’t corrected for left-right yet, but it should land somewhere along the horizontal line in the middle of the scope.
I’ve gone through the game a couple of times, and I can almost never get the range exactly right. In general I don’t worry too much unless the spray of dirt that a missed shot kicks up is centered more than one dot above or below the horizontal line. If it is too far off, maybe you want to re-range. Re-eyeball your mildot estimate and rework the formula. Or use the more exact formula for inches instead of the one for yards. The general rule of thumb is that if your bullets are hitting above the horizontal center line, then you’ve corrected too much for distance and pointed the gun too high - turn your elevation down a bit. If the bullets hit below the center line, the target is farther away than you estimated, turn your elevation up to correct.
Don’t be afraid to play around and take test shots. Get a feel for it. One way to get better mil-dot estimates is to switch the scope over to 20x magnification instead of ten, then re-eyball the mildot. But since you’ve magnified and things look twice as big now, you have to divide your new mil-dot estimate by 2 before you plug it into the formula.
WINDAGE. Okay, once you have the range dialed in and bullets are hitting close to the horizontal line in the scope, you have to correct left-right. The same “Range Card” you used for elevation also has a “windage” column. The trick here is that this column is in inches of deflection per mile per hour of wind. So if it says “.5” as the windage for 500 yards, and the wind is 10 MPH, then the bullet is going to be blown off-course by 5 inches.
Look at the windsock/flag at the right of the screen. The instructions for the game say that there are only three wind levels - 5, 10 and 15 mph. A 5mph, the flag hangs droopily. At 10 it hangs almost straight out but the tip goes up and down a bit. At 15 it goes straight out and stays there.
Calculate the inches of deflection for the wind. In this case let’s say it’s a 10 MPH wind, and the deflection for 500 yards is .5 inches per MPH. The bullet deflection is going to be 5 inches.
Now, remember that we know the dimensions of the target. If the target is, say, 12 inches wide, then the deflection is going to be about half the width of the target. You can just eyball this distance and probably get it most of the time if the wind isn’t too bad and the range isn’t too long.
Another somewhat more precise way to do it is to use the mil-dots as a crude ruler. You know the target is, say, 12" across. Let’s say that’s 4 mil-dots across. Then each mil-dot represents 3". The wind deflection is 5". So you should move the scope left or right 5/3rds = 1 2/3rds mildots to compensate.
That looks pretty long and complicated, but try and follow the process a couple of times. The hardest part is estimating the range. It’s easier after that.
First time through I scored a fairly sorry 31. If anyone gets a better score (shouldn’t be hard), I’d love to hear about it.
-Ben
I got a 46. Doesn’t seem like that the mil-dots are all that accurate in this game. I hit most targets by shooting first then adjusting based on the dirt. Coulc easily be that I’m just doing it wrong though.
Pretty cool time waster though.
For starters, the wind doesn’t blow perfectly cross-wise. It blows at an angle and that screws up long shots fairly significantly. Another thing that the program models (they were thorough!) is the air density changes due to changes in altitude and temperature and humidity. With less dense air, bullets fly farther and hit higher. Still, those are fairly small things compared to getting the range, elevation and windage right.
It’s not easy to get the ranging right. Probably I’m doing it wrong somehow; I have no practical experience with mil-dots, not even in video games. Time to go Googling I guess…
Apparently the flaws inherent in using the mil-dot reticle for ranging are well known:
http://www.snipershide.com/tacticalshoot/mildot.html
If there’s a lesson to be learned here, it’s to use the largest dimension of the thing you’re using to range with. If it’s much wider than it is tall, use the width to estimate the range. Etc.
Here’s some more on mil-dot ranging. Turns out that a mil is not 1 MOA. It’s actually 3.5 MOA. A mil is a “milliradian”, or one-onethousandth of a radian. Lots more at the page:
As far as windage goes wind at a 90 degree angle to the direction you are shooting will move your round to about half past one in terms of your target. This is because the round you are firing is spinning. The physics are a bit complicated but I’m sure some one can explain it.
Wind from behind you will make your shot rise (speeding up the round) and from infront of you fall.
This is of course in the real world, I have no idea how this is modeled in the game.
As far as windage goes wind at a 90 degree angle to the direction you are shooting will move your round to about half past one in terms of your target. This is because the round you are firing is spinning. The physics are a bit complicated but I’m sure some one can explain it.
Wind from behind you will make your shot rise (speeding up the round) and from infront of you, fall.
This is of course in the real world, I have no idea how this is modeled in the game.
I created the Long Range Shooting Simulation. In answer to Kipper, the simulation was created to be as close and correct as possible to real world situations.
The actual bullet placement was calculated using ballistic software. A 90 degree (full value) wind actually deflects the bullet. The full version has head and tail winds. The spin on the bullet has little effect because of the shock wave surrounding the bullet in flight. By the way, bullets can spin in either direction depending on the twist of the barrrel.
The velocity of the wind at the muzzle has the most effect on the bullet drift. Ballistic software calculates the wind drift relative to the wind at the muzzle. Of course in real life the wind can be different down range, but the effect on the bullet downrange is less than at the muzzle.
The simulation has a stage with an updraft wind and the classroom section explains why a half value wind is not half of the wind drift value.
The sim is being used as a trainer for many military and law enforcement groups so is considered by many to be about as close as you can get to learning exterior ballistics and mil dot ranging on a computer. Even small things like the time of flight of the bullet and the resulting sound are factored in.
By the way, the mil dots are exactly correct and have been tested on many different systems. It is difficult to get an accurate mil reading but that was one of the reasons the simulation was created. If you work through the many scenarios you should end up being able to get an accurate mil measurement almost automatically.
I’ve had people email me and tell me that they could guage the wind in the field and set the windage much easier after spending time with the simulation.
I would be happy to answer any other questions you have.
Karin
www.shooterready.com
It’s clear that I was not cut out to be a tactical shooter. I can’t even hit the target on the warm-up phase.
OK, the target is 12" square, with a smaller 6" square in the corner. I’ll be happy just hitting the larger target. Following MikeRochenelle’s instructions, here’s what I get:
The target is about 1 mildot high. According to the formula: size in inches27.778/MIL reading = Range in yards, I get the following: 1227.778/1, or 333.336. So my range is 333.335 yards.
OK, so I look at the range card to find elevation. It shows, in relevant part:
Range (yd) Elevation MOA 1 mph Wind
300 4.25 0.70
350 5.75 0.90
So I dutifully set my gun to 5.25 clicks, which I figure is about right (I tried other settings below and above that number, too).
The wind varies, but I figure it’s about 10 mph, so off about 9 inches, and aim to the left accordingly.
No dice. Still hitting dirt.
I’ve tried changing the settings and moving the rifle around, but I can’t hit squat. I suck.
I shoot subsonic round (small bore) which explains the effect I described. I had no idea that supersonic rounds were not effected but this effect. Cheers. 
Welcome to the Straight Dope, ShooterReady! You might be surprised at the breadth of people around here. I’ve got a feeling that if you stick around, you might enjoy yourself.
Shooter, sweet to see you here! I was just marveling at the technical goodness (right down to the sound of the shots) of your sim here. Excellent work. As a programmer, I salute you.
Dewey, a couple of things…
First, your range estimate is off significantly. You’re probably noticing that a second after you fire, the dirt spray kicks up significantly above or below the horizontal line. (Oh yes, you definitely need to keep looking carefully through the scope for several seconds post-trigger to see where the shot went.)
One thing I often do to make my range estimates better is to flip the scope magnification over to 20x, and re-estimate my mildots - but then remember that I have to divide by 2 before I use the range formula. Actually, I tend to keep the mag at 20x almost all the time. Dividing by 2 is easy, and the extra precision in estimates tends to be worth it.
For instance, in the case of the 12x12 target, flip over to 20x magnification and re-estimate your mildots. I think you’ll find that under 20x mag, the 12 target is almost exactly 1.5 mildots tall. This means that under 10x mag it would be half that, or .75 mildots tall. Now rework the formula:
(12" * 27.778) / .75 = 444.4 yards. Round to 450 - close enough for government work. ;] If it were close to 425 I’d probably do some more work with the calculator to estimate a better elevation setting, one halfway inbetween 400 and 450 yards. But in this case I don’t think the 6 yard error is going to be worth the trouble. I mean how far could a bullet going 1200 MPH drop in 6 yards distance anyway??
Range card says elevation for 450 yards = 9.25 MOA. Dial it in with the up arrow key. Then move away from the target (don’t want to hit it in the wrong place by accident) and hit “Shoot.” Now wait and watch for the dirt spray. It should be just a bit less than one mil-dot above the third dot on the right side of the horizontal line. Not bad for a first estimate.
It’s still hitting above the line though, so we’ve overestimated the distance - and/or the wind is coming from behind and helping the bullet, and/or the air is thinner because we’re at a higher altitude and/or it’s a warmer day. I’m not smart enough to compensate for these things by calculation, so I’ll just turn down the elevation setting .5 MOA at a time and re-shoot until I’m happy that the dirt spray is close enough to the horizontal line. (Of course if you were a sniper in real life you’d better not do things this way! The bad guys are not going to sit around doing nothing while you calibrate your scope!) So anyway, I get it down to 8.25 MOA elevation and it’s hitting dead on the horizontal line.
Now windage. I think I’ll just cheat here and notice that the dirt spray kicks up almost exactly at the third mil-dot to the right on the horizontal line. So, we know exactly where the bullet lands - whatever is under that mildot. Put that mildot in the center of the white square. Target in center, pull da switch… bam! Alright, I was a little off to the left. But it still was quite close.
Now, if I were going to do windage right, I’d observe the flag. Consistently flapping straight out. This is a 15mph wind. Range card says that at 450 yards, each mph of wind is worth 1.5 inches of drift. We have a 15 mph wind, and if you do 15 * 1.5 you find you have 22.5 inches of drift. Now, that assumes the wind is perfectly cross-wise, which it may not be. But let’s work with it a bit.
At this point you can work more formulas, or just wing it. First, the wing it approach. You know the target is 12" wide. So you know that your drift is going to be almost twice as wide as your target. You can probably just eyeball this distance (twice as wide as the target is) and move the scope that far left, and get it fairly close. You can also do the “mildots as ruler” thing and notice that the target is so many mildots wide, and that you’ll need to aim twice as many mildots left as that in order to compensate for the wind.
As for the formulas way: We have 22.5 inches of drift to the right. Remember MOAs? One MOA is 1" at 100 yards. We’re at 450 yards. We want to correct for 22.5 inches of drift at 450 yards. Do the math - we need 22.5 / (450 / 100) = exactly 5 MOA of correction. Use left and right to dial it in. Target in center, pull switch! Wow, with 8.25 elevation and 5 MOA drift compensation, the bullet is hitting darn close to the center of the crosshairs isn’t it?
-Ben “I still miss my ex, but my aim is getting better… ;]” Cantrick
Serves me right for trying to shortcut it…instead of actually putting the horizontal line of the scope at the bottom of the target to estimate mildot size, I just eyeballed it. When I did it the proper way, I got a much more accurate mildot estimate.
And I finally plinked the target. Hooray!
This raises an interesting question (it may have an obvious answer): how do real life snipers get their ranging information?
I mean, if you’re sent to kill a specific person, you may know how tall he is, but if you’re just harassing enemy units then you’re shooting at targets of opportunity, targets for which you may not know their height. Ditto police snipers who are used in hostage situations – the bad guys probably weren’t nice enough to send over their measurements before taking hostages.
I assume they work with estimates. But as I’ve just discovered, eyeballing it can throw you off a lot. Are they just a lot better at eyeballing it? It seems like they need to shoot with a lot of precision – the head and heart are pretty small areas, and the phrase is “one shot, one kill,” not “one shot, one really hurt bad guy.”
This raises an interesting question (it may have an obvious answer): how do real life snipers get their ranging information? I mean, if you’re sent to kill a specific person, you may know how tall he is, but if you’re just harassing enemy units then you’re shooting at targets of opportunity, targets for which you may not know their height. Ditto police snipers who are used in hostage situations – the bad guys probably weren’t nice enough to send over their measurements before taking hostages.
Some quotage from the two links I posted earlier:
Knowing the sizes of items being measured is a matter of knowing your prospective area of operation and making a list of the sizes of standard items. Make sure you get both height and width of objects as you can mil both dimensions but the largest dimension mathematically will usually give the most accurate answer. Military snipers should have sizes of enemy vehicles, enemy weapons, average heights of soldiers, etc. An LE sniper should have sizes of traffic signs, bricks, license plates, etc. So carry a tape measure and a notebook with you and prepare to have people look at you funny as you measure curbs, traffic lights, mailboxes and other commonly found objects in your area of operation.
*
*
The greatest limitation of the mil-dot reticle for range determination is that an object of known size must be in the proximity of the target. In training the human silhouette is often used for ranging with much emphasis given to learning average heights or shoulder measurements. The use of a silhouette for range determination was spawned on the range where the iron maidens stand motionless, providing a high contrast target. In the field the enemy will seldom provide themselves for ranging purposes.
*
Another thing to consider is that police snipers, at least, often can work from much closer distances than military ones, since they’re often in urban areas with much better cover. I was watching COPS or something several months back and a police sniper shot a small revolver out of the hand of a suicidal man. Range was about 80 yards. An impressive feat regardless of range. But man I’m glad it wasn’t, say, 300 yards.
I assume they work with estimates. But as I’ve just discovered, eyeballing it can throw you off a lot. Are they just a lot better at eyeballing it? It seems like they need to shoot with a lot of precision – the head and heart are pretty small areas, and the phrase is “one shot, one kill,” not "one shot, one really hurt bad guy."
I think I’ve read somewhere that snipers often work in pairs. The non-shooter has a set of binoculars with mildots in them, or better yet a spotting scope with potentially very fine mildot markings. Maybe even 1/10th of a mildot. The non-shooter estimates range to target with their superior equipment and also does all the math to correct for windage. Then they tell the shooter the correction numbers. The shooter dials in the scope and pulls the trigger. The shooter also watches where the bullet lands and can let the spotter know if it was high or low, left or right, and maybe even how much. Then the spotter can recorrect numbers and re-range or re-drift. Of course, having to readjust the scope and take a followup shot is extremely bad form. But, it’s probably better than not hitting the target at all. And I suppose once in a while you’ll get a stupid target that won’t realize it’s being shot at. A good example of snipers working in pairs was in the last James Bond movie, Die Another Day, when James and Jinx are about to snipe the Korean guy at the airfield. Jinx tells Bond windage and something else, I can’t remember.
As for one shot, one kill… I don’t have any real cite to back it up, but I remember reading in the book Snow Crash that bullets tend to kill by blood loss. So even if your shot doesn’t hit their brain or spine and make them unable to move, unless they get medical attention very soon after being hit, they often bleed to death. Does that count as one shot, one kill? I dunno. I would think that as long as whoever you’re shooting at is incapable of shooting back after the bullet lands, that would be good enough for me. One reason I’d never make a good sniper is that put in a situation like this, I’d almost always be shooting to disable - at a leg or hand. That’s a good way to miss and give away your position. I’d be dead pretty quick in any real combat situation. This explains my extreme peacenik tendencies, despite my phillia of firearms. Video games are fun. Actually shooting someone in real life is not something I ever want to have to do.
-Ben
I was thinking the same thing. Do snipers ever use range finders, parallax or otherwise? Could a laser be used to find range?
Real snipers usually, but not always, get where they need to be early and range out where they’re going to be shooting. They use landmarks and other reference points as range estimators.
They also use either range finders or spotters (who use range finders). I read in one of Stephen Hunter’s books that for many snipers, range estimation is the most difficult part of the whole process.
Personally, being a medium range rifle shooter, I have to agree. I have that problem myself, and I rarely if ever shoot at anything more than 300 yards out. I’m usually spot on at 100, pretty consistent at 200 and not better than 50-50 at 300, all because of the ranging issue.
This is a fascinating thread.
If I ever find employment back home in Texas, I think I might like to try learning to shoot. How does a consummate beginner go about doing that?
This is a fascinating thread.
This stuff is very interesting. I think my favorite place to read about snipers and sniping on the web is probably snipercountry.com. It takes some digging to get the good info out of that site, but there’s a lot of accumulated wisdom there.
I always feel a little weird, as a liberal, talking about guns and shooting with as much enthusiasm and apparent depth as I do. The irony of a being a dedicated peacenik and borderline democrat while still enjoying target shooting is not lost on me. Maybe I’m not in too bad company though. For a long time there was a great website called “Democrats for the Second Amendment”(!) (now defunct, alas).
Mostly I just I wish I had more time to shoot, since I only seem to get around to it like, once a year if I’m lucky. And I wish I had a rifle, since all I’ve ever shot are handguns. I’m, well, really pathetic with a handgun, and I expect I’m a lot worse with a rifle. It’d be fun to learn though, and I will someday, damnit!Which brings us to…
If I ever find employment back home in Texas, I think I might like to try learning to shoot. How does a consummate beginner go about doing that?
I would say an excellent place to start would be to take a gun safety class. These are most commonly given by groups who have been NRA approved, though I hasten to say that one need not share any part of the NRA’s idealogical agenda to take an NRA approved course. When I took my basic safety course, no politics at all was involved. Just “this is a gun. It shoots bullets really, really fast. This is how to avoid it shooting them. This is how to make sure that if it does shoot by accident, no harm will be done.” Etc.
Finding these classes may be easy or may be hard. I didn’t have too tough a time, I just asked at a local gun shop where I could take a gun safety class. That can be a bit intimidating though. The guy behind the gun counter at the local sporting goods store may know where to find classes. The local police precinct office may know as well, since people who want concealed carry permits are generally required to take gun safety class(es) to get the permit.
After you take the class, you may or may not want to buy a rifle for yourself. If there’s a good shooting range around where you live that rents rifles, this may not be worth the trouble. (Keeping a gun is not a trivial thing in my opinion - I’m a BIG believer in really secure locked storage for any gun in the home. Keeps guns out of the hands of both kids and burglars.)
If you do want to buy one, I’m sure you can buy a fancy expensive one first thing if you want. Reading the sniper websites they tend to recommend a Remington model 700 “Police Special” in .308 Winchester. This seems kinda overkill for a beginner, though. Not to mention the price tag, which will be $700 easily, and that’s before you start buying a scope too! You can throw away a serious amount of money on a fancy rifle!
At my class they said that beginning with a .22 is often a good way to go, because the recoil is very gentle and the ammo is so amazingly cheap (shoot for hours and hours on $20 worth of bullets.) I remember shooting Chipmunk rifles at boy scount camp, and they were tons of fun. And you’re going to have a hard time beating the $200 price tag. Certanly nothing wrong with a Ruger 10/22 or even a Kimber 10/22 if you’re feeling spendy. All of these should have the capability to for significantly more accuracy than almost any beginner on the planet can use. My Ruger KMK-7 still is more accurate than I am, though admittedly I don’t get shooting much.
After that? Shoot, shoot, shoot and shoot. This is a practice thing, no doubt about it. The more you shoot the better you get and the more fun it is. Even plinking (cans and bottles) is fun, though please do clean up after yourself. I’ve seen some nice little pieces of national forest ruined by people shooting up and then leaving behind dishwashers, propane tanks (I hope they weren’t full!), and other junk. Try and pick up your brass (spent shells), too.
One thing I’ve done that has been a real kick is to go to the local “machine gun and large caliber” shooting events. The Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (a little radical for my tastes, but they’re good guys) hold one of these each year in the town of “oh my god if we run out of gas we’re going to starve and die here”, Colorado. ;] I’ve gotten to fire uzis and
mp5s
, a
.50 BMG Windrunner
, and several other exotics that I’d never be able to afford myself.