Shooting down-hill

blujns30

I missed a deer the other day....at only 80 yards. I was way up-hill from him....
the bullet hit the dirt underneath the deer... Was me being at that angle make a difference or did i just mess up this whole thing somehow? 130 grn .270 cal

Thanks., blu in Okc

He Dog

being at an angle makes a difference, because you are essentially shooting the long leg of a triangle. That said at 250 feet a high shoulder aim should have put you in the x-ring.

Joes Custom Guns

YOU JUST MESS UP and need your * kicked HARD.
I sight My .270 in at 100 yds. and can hit a dime any where UP- DOWN- or CROSSWAYS

260

i guess i missed something but............. i always aim a little lower shooting up/down hill. while the line of sight is straight,the trajectory is an arch.

babun

At 80 yards, you messed up, unless you were really at a Hugh angle to the target. Read this...
http://www.millettsights.com/downloads/ShootingUphillAndDownhill.pdf

rong

being at an angle makes a difference, because you are essentially shooting the long leg of a triangle. That said at 250 feet a high shoulder aim should have put you in the x-ring.


When shooting up hill or downhill,one must shoot a bit
low to hit the target.

Tailgunner1954

quote:Originally posted by blujns30
I missed a deer the other day....at only 80 yards. I was way up-hill from him....
the bullet hit the dirt underneath the deer... Was me being at that angle make a difference or did i just mess up this whole thing somehow? 130 grn .270 cal

Thanks., blu in Okc


Blu
At 80yd (line of sight), and assuming a 45^ angle(up or down) you had a equivalent (flat distance) shot of only 56 1/2yd.
On a rifle sighted in for 100yd, you might see as much as 1" of difference between the 2 distances.
IOW you blew the shot.

Bullet drop is based on the horizontal distance, regardless of the sight line distance. Shooting up or down shortens the distance and makes the drop less than would be expected from the line of sight distance.

Riomouse911

As was just posted above, the actual (linear) distance you shot was less than the "line of sight" distance because of the downhill angle, so gravity had less time to affect the bullet.

It sounds like you just missed, however. It happens. [:I]

AJ100

quote:Originally posted by rong
being at an angle makes a difference, because you are essentially shooting the long leg of a triangle. That said at 250 feet a high shoulder aim should have put you in the x-ring.


When shooting up hill or downhill,one must shoot a bit
low to hit the target.


+1
The bullet doesn't know you are shooting up or down hill. The distance is the short leg (Base) of the triangle.

AJ100(Tom Vogt)

guntech59

At that short of a distance there difference is not enough to make you miss the animal. You just pulled the shot.

Welcome to the club.[;)]

charliemeyer007

+1 Buck Fever. It helps a lot to shoot at unknown ranges and positions. I never can seem to find one standing sideways at 100 yards from the bench. The bullet see gravity on the flat distance at reasonable ranges.

rsnyder55

I have my rifle sighted in so that from the muzzle out to 300 yards the bullet neither drops or rises more that 4" from point of aim.

beantownshootah

As mentioned, at only 80 yards, the angle of your shot would barely affect the point of impact, so by itself that isn't enough to explain a clean miss.

You probably just got excited and * the trigger (ie "buck fever"). It happens.

Note that there may be a number of other small contributing factors here.

If the distance was, in fact, longer than 80 yards, and your scope zero was a bit off, each one of these could add a little bit of imprecision to an otherwise bad shot.

Before you go kicking yourself too hard, at least double-check the zero on your scope. If that's way off, then at least you'll have something to blame other than poor marksmanship.