Ballistic calculators and environmental measuring

[sickles107]

I've been using the strelok pro app for a few years now and really like it, but have always ball parked environmental numbers.

In efforts to manage a few more variables, I'm thinking about getting a kestrel 3000 for the sole purpose of measuring temp, pressure, humidity, and wind, to input into strelok.

Then comes the conundrum of now having to rely on two devices in the field. Not the end of the world. But for $50 more the kestrel 2700 has a built in ballistics calculator (skeptical of its ease of use compared to strelok), and for alot more money they make a few better ones, then throw in the option of range finders with ballistics calculators, and down the rabbit hole we go.

So im curious, what is everyone using for a ballistics calculator and environmental measuring?

 

[z987k]

Unless you're hunting out past something like 2000, the difference between a ballpark temp, pressure and humidity and to the degree/ .01" Hg is beyond irrelevant. Run the ballistics chart, and see how far off you'd be if you guess it's 50*, but it's 53, have the nearby pressure of 29.91 and it's really 29.90 20 miles away where you are.

 

[Gone4Days]

Strelok can pull weather from internet using this button… I know there isn’t always cell service in the field though.

 

[slowelk]

Density altitude is the short cut for environmental inputs and the kestrel 5000 is the lowest model that does density altitude. That’s what I went with.

 

[z987k]

Density altitude is the short cut for environmental inputs and the kestrel 5000 is the lowest model that does density altitude. That’s what I went with.

You can also do with a multitude of apps or the calculator on your phone.
Strelok is in fact doing this for you when you enter the environmentals.

 

[slowelk]

You can also do with a multitude of apps or the calculator on your phone.
Strelok is in fact doing this for you when you enter the environmentals.

You’re not wrong. I wanted a device that read it for me, in real time, and could gauge wind. That’s why I bought the 5000.

 

[sickles107]

Unless you're hunting out past something like 2000, the difference between a ballpark temp, pressure and humidity and to the degree/ .01" Hg is beyond irrelevant. Run the ballistics chart, and see how far off you'd be if you guess it's 50*, but it's 53, have the nearby pressure of 29.91 and it's really 29.90 20 miles away where you are.

Strelok can pull weather from internet using this button… I know there isn’t always cell service in the field though.

I guess I need to clarify. Yes its easy to get rough numbers when in cell service, though when hunting, no cell service is the norm. In rifle season chasing deer and elk across Montana, I could be anywhere from 2000 ft elevation and -10 degrees, to 10,000ft elevation and 70 degrees.

I have ran the numbers enough to know that if you compound the variables at each end of there extremes, the un accounted for drop could put me on the edge of the kill zone of a deer at 500 yds.

Rather than running multiple dope charts, or sticking with a chart in the middle at average conditions, I want to try to better manage the variables, and learn more about environmental effects on bullet drop.

So the question is not should I account for it, but for those that do account for it in the field, what have you found to be the best setup?

 

[Wapiti1]

See that slider that says "use internal barometer"? Click that and the "use density altitude" slider.

Iphones from the 10 and up have an internal barometer (older may as well, I know the 10 did). Android phones may or may not, check the specs on your phone.

I use the internal barometer on my phone. No need for anything else except wind. But I also have Leica HD-B binocs.

Jeremy