Best Ballistic Calculators: Get Dialed In!

1 Hornady Ballistics : Best free ballistic calculator app

Hornady Ballistics

A free ballistics app from Hornady to help get you started with longer ranger shooting.

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Hornady Ballistics Review

The Hornady Ballistics app is a ballistic calculator that you download to your Android through Google Play or to your iPhone through the App Store. According to the company, the app uses 4DOF trajectory and ballistic calculations. The 4DOF stands for Four Degrees of Freedom and, at the time of its launch, it was the first of its kind to offer the calculations for aerodynamic jump (the vertical changes in a bullet caused by a crosswind). It calculates windage, elevation, range, and movement as it relates to line of flight. This is a great app for basic needs and it’s designed to be accurate out to extreme long range distances.

This app is free to download and use, although there are some in-app purchases. To use the app effectively, you need to input the following information:  bullet manufacturer, name, caliber and weight, muzzle velocity, sight height, barrel twist rate, and axial form factor. Information is displayed in standard or metric units and output units can be displayed as MOA, MRADS, inches, or centimeters. There’s also an optional Temperature Sensitivity Factor (TSF) that you can add to further fine-tune results.

You can customize the output to your preferences. Default options include range, total come up, total windage, and gyroscopic stability, while optional options include no wind trajectory, aerodynamic jump, wind drift, spin drift, velocity, energy, and time of flight (TOF). Thanks to the fact that Hornady engineers used Doppler radar to help construct this program, it’s quite accurate. So it might be free, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t well-made and worth using for your ballistic calculations.

Hornady Ballistics Pros and Cons

2 Applied Ballistics : Best paid ballistic calculator app

Applied Ballistics

A premium ballistics app for your phone for those that are very serious about long range shooting.

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Applied Ballistics Review

If you’re in need of extreme precision and a vast array of calculation options, the Applied Ballistics app might be a fantastic fit. This app can be downloaded to your Android through Google Play or to your iPhone through the App Store. At the time of this writing, it costs $29.99 to download. It’s geared toward dedicated long-range shooters and competitors, and the features—and results—prove it. There is an additional benefit of utilizing Applied Ballistics that’s worth mentioning here even though it isn’t for the app. On the company’s website, there’s extensive educational material available for free to teach you about everything from measuring muzzle velocity to weapon employment zone analysis. You can also check out the most recent bullet library, which is currently listing 830 centerfire bullets, 17 rimfire bullets, and 65 PDM bullets. The site is a wealth of information.

This app includes some great features like bullet comparison graphs, reticle output view, and interactive heads-up. Input includes access to a rifle library, ammo library, custom drag curves, environment, and profiles (yes, you can create profiles for specific rifles, ammo, and sights). As for input details, you need to name the profile and add the barrel twist rate, twist direction, sight height, sight offset, reticle, reticle true magnification, reticle high magnification, elevation unit, elevation turret grad, windage unit, windage turret grad, lead unit, elevation correct factor, and windage correction factor. Yes, it’s a lot, and that’s only for the rifle and optic.

For the ammo itself, you name the profile, then add the bullet diameter, weight, and length, along with the muzzle velocity, MV variation, powder temperature, atmosphere standard, and drag model. There’s more, but you get the idea. You have the ability to add an enormous amount of information to the Applied Ballistics app and the more detail you provide, the better the results. This is the same app used for many handhelds, such as the understandably popular Kestrel brand. When you pair it with a handheld device, you’re able to get real-time weather input, which is valuable. The Applied Ballistics app is fantastic.

Applied Ballistics Pros and Cons

3 Kestrel 5700X Elite Weather Meter with Applied Ballistics and LiNK : Best handheld ballistic calculator

Kestrel 5700X Elite Weather Meter with Applied Ballistics and LiNK

Kestrel 5700X Elite Weather Meter with Applied Ballistics and LiNK

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Kestrel 5700X Elite Weather Meter with Applied Ballistics and LiNK Review

For data on the weather where you are at that moment in time, you’re best served by a handheld ballistic calculator. Kestrel brand calculators are inarguably the most widely trusted, and for good reason. They’re well-made, reliable, and produce excellent results. The Kestrel 5700X Elite Weather Meter with Applied Ballistics and LiNK is designed for superior results in the field and can be used for multiple long-range targets. It uses the Applied Ballistics program to make calculations and LiNK for wireless Bluetooth connectivity to Android (at this time it doesn’t connect to iPhone). The unit itself is drop-proof, dust-proof, waterproof, and made to withstand serious use and exposure to the elements. It runs off a single AA battery and has a battery life indicator, so you’re aware of how much life is left.

Features of the Kestrel 5700X Elite Weather Meter include an intuitive, tactical menu, multilingual capabilities, pressure sensor, temperature sensor, aerodynamic jump correct, connectivity with LiNK  compatible range finders, G1/G7 drag models, MV-temp table, spin drift correction, subsonic range drop  scale factor calibration, and target range estimator. Environmental measures include altitude, barometric pressure, crosswind, density altitude, dew point temperature, headwind and tailwind, heat stress index, relative humidity, absolute pressure, temperature, wet bulb temperature, wind chill, wind direction, and wind speed. This handheld offers all the features of the Applied Ballistics app, only better, because it also measures every imaginable aspect of your environment. The pros trust Kestrel.

Kestrel 5700X Elite Weather Meter with Applied Ballistics and LiNK Pros and Cons

4 Shooter’s Calculator Ballistic Trajectory Calculator : Best free web-based ballistic calculator

Shooter’s Calculator Ballistic Trajectory Calculator

A web based ballistics calculator that is free to use.

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Shooter’s Calculator Ballistic Trajectory Calculator Review

If a basic, web-based ballistic calculator is all you need, check out the Shooter’s Calculator Ballistic Trajectory Calculator. Simply visit the Shooter’s Calculator website to access it, and enter in the details. Keep in mind that this calculator is more of an estimation and isn’t going to be as precise in its results as the other programs. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its uses, though. It’s a great basic tool for random queries about ballistics or entry-level information. Using this calculator can be a good starting point to get a feel for how a ballistics calculator works and to get an idea of the general performance of a load.

Input data for the Shooter’s Calculator single trajectory graph and chart includes a profile name, drag function, ballistic coefficient, bullet weight, velocity, zero range, sight height, shooting angle, wind speed, and wind angle. If you have the atmospheric information, you can add altitude, temperature, barometric pressure, and relative humidity. The resulting chart can be set to MOA, MIL, metric units, or a combination. Chart columns include range in yards, elevation in inches, elevation in MOA, elevation in MIL, windage in inches, windage in MOA, windage in MIL, time, energy, and velocity. It’s a fairly comprehensive chart and works fine for estimating ballistic calculations.

Shooter’s Calculator Ballistic Trajectory Calculator Pros and Cons