Dope cards

[PantherCity]

So I have been wanting to put together some dope cards for my rifles, I have a Kestrel 5700 and can imagine it is a little slow to get a solution in a hunting scenario. I’m wondering how close a guy could get with a handful of pre printed cards and shuffle through them depending on conditions. If I had 4 cards for a range of conditions for a given hunt, would that cover most of the bases?

What would the biggest variables be? Elevation? Humidity? Pressure?

I put an adhesive backed vinyl business card sleeve on my buttstock, and I’d like the have a small deck of cards that can be slid in for the day’s conditions. Would this work or are there too many variables?

Probably anything longer than “x” yards I would just range and use the kestrel, what that “x” range is I don’t know.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[PantherCity]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[XLR]

A lot of it is going to depend on the caliber but looking at your card there I would have to guess its a 6.5 Creed. Personally, I do 500, and anything after that I am going to the Kestrel. I am sure that you could get away with more but you have the tool so you might as well use it. Another thing to take into consideration is all of them being a little different and stacking "tolerances". If your temperature/ humidity/ pressure is all off by a little bit it could be enough to make a difference. Kestrels are a great assurance to know you have everything correct so when times are right might as well bust it out.

On a side note, you will get funny looks when you are at 13k feet about to shoot a Mountain goat and your shooting illiterate father sees you whip out your kestrel to get a wind call...

 

[PantherCity]

Thanks for the insights.

I was thinking about it as a quick check and hold over, type card and anything over x yards would dial.

I’ve never thought a CDS or custom turret was a good idea, but I’ve often read “they are good to about 500”


Would 1/2/3/4 cards be good out to 500yds for most conditions from 100 degrees at 500’ elevation in north Texas to 8000’ in the Rockies?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Antares]

There are a lot of opinions on this topic and the conversation really changes depending on range. You can get away with a lot of assumptions and guessing inside 500 yards, especially with a fast, high BC bullet. Everything starts to get a lot finickier if your talking about longer ranges.

For starters, I would ignore everything except pressure and temperature. Humidity isn't important (my elevation changes 0.06 inches at 500 yards between 0% and 100% RH). I don't really care what the altitude is, I care what the pressure is, so skip altitude and go straight to pressure (station pressure). I like when my Kestrel gives me a really wonky altitude reading, that means it's giving me station pressure.

You can get away with a roughly 40F swing in temperature and a 3 inHg swing in pressure. I have my cards and turrets set up for 45F and 29.0 inHg. That gets me from 25-65F and from 27.5-30.5 inHg. That covers A LOT of my shooting conditions.

As @TK-421 suggested, play with your calculator and answer some of your own questions. I find it helpful to switch the outputs to inches when I'm trying to decide if a deviation is acceptable.

 

[PantherCity]

Don’t take this the wrong way, but you should use your Kestrel to answer your own question.

Thanks and I’m not going to take it the wrong way. I left my kestrel in my desk today after I used it to make that 1st card. I was just asking in general is it was worth attempting, but I will toy with the inputs and see for myself.

 

[ndayton]

If money isn't an issue, I would buy a range finder with the onboard ballistics and environmental readings to calculate bullet drop. Unless you're amazing at pinpointing exact distances you will be using a range finder anyway to get the distance.
I would check out the Sig 5k as its a lot cheaper than the other options out there
https://www.sportsmans.com/hunting-...uer-kilo5k-7x25mm-laser-rangefinder/p/1701090

 

[PantherCity]

If money isn't an issue…..

If only….



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[hereinaz]

Set dope cards by density altitude. Check your Kestrel in the am and then noon.

I trained with a instructor of SF sniper detachment and record holder in AMU. He runs dope cards on his wrist, and has the Garmin AB watch or Garmin 701. He builds them by density altitude.

CDS turrets are for “lazy” hunters who don’t want to put the time and energy into learning long range. Nothing against them, and no slight. It does work out to 500, but those guys seem to be slinging a lot of lead. I am a one or two shot type of guy.

Dope cards by density altitude will run to 1000 yards plus.

Wind hold formula is another thing. Unless you know how to read wind across the landscape, wind estimation and range estimation are going to be the limiting factors.

I like playing inside JB ballistics the online web app. It’s is easy to play with different factors.

 

[MTNHUNTER76]

The things that will change your dope. Density altitude, extreme angle. Wind is another factor all together.

Run some different scenarios through your kestrel for comparison.

 

[Lawnboi]

Play with the numbers in the area you intend to hunt, at most ranges Im willing to shoot, and have shot, it really dosnt make much of a difference as I change DA through the day, not like it would if I was changing locations.

Not on topic but a bit of a side note, you could really clean those cards up by learning mils and moving to a mph gun wind method. Your chart does not seem too intuitive when it comes to wind. It’s worth trying if you have a rifle with a mil based scope.

 

[PantherCity]

Play with the numbers in the area you intend to hunt, at most ranges Im willing to shoot, and have shot, it really dosnt make much of a difference as I change DA through the day, not like it would if I was changing locations.

Not on topic but a bit of a side note, you could really clean those cards up by learning mils and moving to a mph gun wind method. Your chart does not seem too intuitive when it comes to wind. It’s worth trying if you have a rifle with a mil based scope.

I started MOA and am too deep to change now. I’ve often thought of selling everything and going mils, but I have 3 Nightforces, a Maven and a couple 1-6 Gen 2 PSTs on my ARs and a handful of others.

I put that card together at work today with the intention of making a few more to look at the discrepancies. I thought about rounding to 1/4moa but decided to play with these before I make anymore changes. I have all summer to play with these, next rifle hunt isn’t until antelope in August.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[PantherCity]

The things that will change your dope. Density altitude, extreme angle. Wind is another factor all together.

Run some different scenarios through your kestrel for comparison.

Thank you, that is the kind of info about what the most impactful variables are that I was looking to hear.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[PantherCity]

Set dope cards by density altitude. Check your Kestrel in the am and then noon.

I trained with a instructor of SF sniper detachment and record holder in AMU. He runs dope cards on his wrist, and has the Garmin AB watch or Garmin 701. He builds them by density altitude.

CDS turrets are for “lazy” hunters who don’t want to put the time and energy into learning long range. Nothing against them, and no slight. It does work out to 500, but those guys seem to be slinging a lot of lead. I am a one or two shot type of guy.

Dope cards by density altitude will run to 1000 yards plus.

Wind hold formula is another thing. Unless you know how to read wind across the landscape, wind estimation and range estimation are going to be the limiting factors.

I like playing inside JB ballistics the online web app. It’s is easy to play with different factors.

Thank you, I’m not looking to run a single card (or a CDS for that matter), and hearing about how other successful shooters do things is very helpful.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Lawnboi]

I started MOA and am too deep to change now. I’ve often thought of selling everything and going mils, but I have 3 Nightforces, a Maven and a couple 1-6 Gen 2 PSTs on my ARs and a handful of others.

I put that card together at work today with the intention of making a few more to look at the discrepancies. I thought about rounding to 1/4moa but decided to play with these before I make anymore changes. I have all summer to play with these, next rifle hunt isn’t until antelope in August.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The longer you wait the harder it hurts! Just kidding, I understand. I’m still trying to justify selling moa scopes…. Mils just make it easier for me.

 

[hereinaz]

The longer you wait the harder it hurts! Just kidding, I understand. I’m still trying to justify selling moa scopes…. Mils just make it easier for me.

MPH wind in MILS is so easy. My hunting rifle is .1 mil for every hundred yards for a 7 mph wind.

True, DA doesn’t change enough for most hunting shots, but in extreme circumstances it can.

Running JBM online , play with the “danger space” and you can see the margin of error available for a shot.

 

[crich]

Don’t take this the wrong way, but you should use your Kestrel to answer your own question. Adjust each input and learn what matters and what’s over hyped on the internet.

I’ll say that similar to XLR, I use hard copy data cards and my memory out to about 500 yards (memorized in 50 yard increments).

This 100%. I've sat for probably hours punching in random info into a calculator to see what the outcome was. Altitude vs temp and which one makes the most difference past 400 yards etc.

I would check out the Sig 5k as its a lot cheaper than the other options out there
https://www.sportsmans.com/hunting-...uer-kilo5k-7x25mm-laser-rangefinder/p/1701090

Ill second the sig 5k. I have one and it works well for me.

 

[Antares]

CDS turrets are for “lazy” hunters who don’t want to put the time and energy into learning long range. Nothing against them, and no slight. It does work out to 500, but those guys seem to be slinging a lot of lead. I am a one or two shot type of guy.

I don't understand this. A CDS turret is like having your most commonly used trajectory card built into your turret. You can still have MIL/MOA marks on it. You can still use cards or a solver for different loads or environmentals when you want to, but you also have your most common drops built into the turret. What's the downside?

 

[hereinaz]

It works ok, don’t get me wrong. Some people do think it is an easy button and they have one turret and think just dial and shoot. That is the problem I have, people don’t have all the information with it they need.

I have helped my buddy shoot long range, so he does ok with his CDS dial, but others in the hunting group were slinging lots of lead without much thought. Like dozens of shots.

If you are shooting like I have on a ledge 350+ feet off the valley below and the laser distance is 550 yards, what are you going to dial? If you use angle compensation in your rangefinder for a shoot to distance, then you don’t know the actual distance for your wind call. If you use actual distance you then need to calculate the shoot to distance because of the angle.

Dials aren’t sent with a manual about its limitations. Dope cards have their own limitations, but I use them as backup. And, true they aren’t much different than a dial.

I don’t like to leave anything to hope or guesswork. I like to have exceedingly high levels of confidence. @SkinnerinAZ and I killed our bucks at 575 with one shot in AK. Like this…

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

A “dope card” is nice… But please make sure to verify actual hits in the field at known yardages before printing out a calculated card and slapping it on a rifle and calling it “good”.