Fall Back on Your Training: An Interview with Kristy Titus- By Ashlee Lundvall
September 3, 2019
5th Annual Craig Family Camp
September 3, 2019
In August I had the honor of going to the Hornady Factory in Nebraska to get hands on training for the NEW Hornady 4DOF® Ballistic calculator. The program is relatively simple to use and once all of your data is inputted into the program, you can change out ammunition, add a corresponding muzzle velocity for that bullet and your program will print accurate data. The bonus here is that you do not have to re-zero your rifle for the ammunition change. Read below information from the Hornady website on the 4DOF® Ballistic Calculator.
The Hornady 4DOF® stands for “Degree or Degrees Of Freedom” which is a physics term for actions or responses of an object that are independent of each other. Up to this point, all publicly offered small arms trajectory programs have treated a projectile as an inanimate lump with only three degrees of freedom used to calculate trajectory (windage, elevation, and range); the projectile’s movement in relation to its line of flight isn’t accounted for.
The trajectory solution provided by the Hornady 4DOF® Ballistic Calculator is calculated by incorporating the projectile’s movement in the standard 3 degrees as discussed above, as well as its movement about its center of gravity and subsequent angle relative to its line of flight (angle of attack), aka the 4th Degree Of Freedom. A tremendous amount of the software, as well as projectile properties, goes into the calculation of this simple sounding angle of attack.
Moving Away from the Ballistic Coefficient
Using Doppler radar, Hornady ballisticians have calculated the exact drag versus velocity curve for each projectile in the 4DOF® Bullet Library. Ballistic Coefficient can change as velocity changes. A drag curve doesn’t change; the curve is specific to each projectile and is directly related to its trajectory.
The Hornady 4DOF® Ballistic Calculator accurately calculates the mass properties, aerodynamic properties and the responses of the projectile as it flies downrange as well as the movements of the projectile due to these responses such as spin drift, accurate Gyroscopic Stability (Sg) and Aerodynamic Jump (AJ). There is no Ballistic Coefficient (BC) needed or used in 4DOF®.
Ballistic Calculator Instructions
Stay tuned there will be a full demonstration of how to use the Hornady 4DOF® Ballistic Calculator coning soon from Pursue The Wild, Tips From The Wild.
