Comments on: Effects of Rifle Cant at Long Range — Tubb Explains

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:30:16 +0000

^Mike,

I think you missed the purpose of the article and need to read it again.

By: mike

mike — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:00:05 +0000

There are four aspects of level that could be considered here.
#1 Gun level, affecting hold, & recoil.
#2 Scope reticle level, affecting holdoff accuracy.
#3 Scope adjustment level, affecting dialed accuracy.
#4 Spindrift countering scope adjustment level.

I dial elevation, hold off for wind, and shoot mid ranges off bipod or rest, so #3 is my priority.
A rail or barrel mounted level don’t get it for this. But a system that can be calibrated to cover all but #1 is a ‘ScopLevel’ http://www.scoplevel.com/

Not that #1 isn’t important. For Mr. Tubb, I’m sure it’s a priority.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:14:20 +0000

I can speak from some real world results this last weekend. My brother and I took my 50 out to the desert and were shooting folding chairs at 1600 yards. We were having trouble with the wicked bad mirage spotting hits so I set up a little closer to spot for him. He was still all over the place. The weekend prior we were nailing the 3’x4′ boulder and chair pretty regularly with a steady 12 mph left to right wind all the way to the target. I was a little baffled that he was struggling so bad this time. I chalked the misses up to the horrible horrible mirage then asked him after if he was paying attention to the bubble level for shot to shot consistency. He was not. It was pretty evident what the problem was at that point. He went from nailing hit after hit with a decent wind to getting skunked with no wind at all just from not paying attention to the cant. Very very important info for those that shoot for distance.

By: Alan Fraser

Alan Fraser — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:29:02 +0000

Shooting F-Class I prefer to line the horizontal cross-hair with the target frames to get a consistent shot to shot cant. Its quicker and easier on older eyes than a level bubble, but I can understand the value of a bubble with iron sights.

By: Bryan Litz

Bryan Litz — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 00:47:32 +0000

To clarify the above rule of thumb (5″ of shot displacement per degree of cant).

That rough rule of thumb applies for a typical trajectory at 1000 yards. Shorter ranges the effect is less, longer ranges it’s worse.

By: Bryan Litz

Bryan Litz — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 00:45:55 +0000

From the video:
“I can’t stress how important a level is to long range shooting”.

Couldn’t agree more. Many people overlook the importance of a level for long range shooting, thinking they can just ‘judge’ when their sights are level. Consider this rule of thumb: At 1000 yards, for every 1 degree of cant (rifle tilt), the shot hits 5″ to the side. So 2 degrees of cant will cause the bullet to hit 10″ to that side, 5 degrees will cause the shot to hit 25″ to the side, etc. [To clarify the above rule of thumb (5″ of shot displacement per degree of cant). That rough rule of thumb applies for a typical trajectory at 1000 yards. Shorter ranges the effect is less, longer ranges it’s worse.]

Now consider that the unaided eye can only resolve within about +/-3 degrees of ‘level’ with no references in the field of view. That’s +/-15″ of miss distance that will appear as ‘mysterious wind’ to the shooter, but is actually the effect of cant.

Levels are essential for accurate long range shooting! — Bryan