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Swedish Method ballistic range card


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NO IT IS NOT THE "BEST BALLISTIC CARD EVER".

But that title was a good tabloid eye-catcher wasn't it?

It is however a good freebie.

 

This is a card I made about a decade ago, albeit with a cosmetic upgrade. It was widely distributed maybe 5 or 6 years ago and I think Vapentidningen put out some 50.000+ print copies of it in 2009, so it is a little outdated even though it still seems to be popular in New Zealand. You don't get the 6 page article that goes with it, so I polished it a little today so you can decode it easier. But it is free and available, worth the effort if you're serious about your trajectory and I encourage shooters to modify it to suit their needs. I.e for hunting, CUT IT DOWN to just the essential data for your most relevant conditions.

 

The features of this card:

A one-card solution for all shooting conditions. You can have your zero for any condition you like, just put 0 in the appropriate column.

You have to use an external ballistic program to fill in the values. I recommend free Lapua program if you shoot their bullets or the 6,5mm 140 Amax. Otherwise the free Berger program is easy to use. The card will auto-fill all windvalues.

Will let you correct for temperature and stationpressure to fit your conditions. If you prefer Density altitude, just replace staionpressure. Do not remove temperature as this is tagged to your V0.

Will let you handle angle shooting by helping you gauge the angle as well as give you the correction.

Will help you dope crosswind and tell you what click correction you need. This version is simplified with regards to wind.

Will help you remember to click spindrift correctly.

Will give you a visual indicator of when the bullet goes from transonic to subsonic.

Will give you an indicator of flight time so you can shoot a moving target easier.

Will show you how much one click will move the scope zero so you know EXACTLY what range your POI will be dead on with the crosshairs.

Will help you by showing how large your killing window are. This is especially useful when shooting non-stationary targets, "must I click the scope, hold the reticle or can I just gun it down?".

 

All in all a very handy and unique card. Convert to pdf, take it to a printshop and ask for a laminated vinyl print for a fully waterproof edition that is wear resistant. Will set you back about £15 to 20.

 

LINK TO SWEDISH METHOD RANGE CARD

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Does indeed look interesting Roe ill have a play like Davey tonite, it will be worth making this a syicky as people will be able to make good use of this.

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Don't suppose there's an imperial version for those of us still in the dark ages? :D

 

Just exchange words meters/ hPa/ Celsius with yards/inHg/Fahrenheit.

The card is designed for novice shooters, it works in clicks not any units of measure (allthough MIL/meters is the way to go there...)

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No problem. Once setup you'll find that it knocks any ballistic app on its ass.

Use the bigger card as a storage place for information extracted from your shooting log.

Use the cut-down card for your local condition.

 

How effective is it?

Have a look at this video:

 

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Yes and no. Not really anymore. As one builds these datacards one becomes so familiar with the ballistics that the cards eventually just serve as a reference or log.

 

Same with windcalls, stick to one bullet and one does faster and faster. In the film below you can see how I use a little more than 10 seconds to assess the crosswind, set the value and then reviewing the three range segments and correcting the initial windcall. Result was nailing a 20cm/8" target at appr 700 meters. It's just what the result of building these rangecards and sticking to one load does. (though I am sig-nifi-cantly slower at longer ranges as there's simply more wind to look over)

 

... and I am/was a certified weather observer, so of course that helps as well...

 

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OK I'll clarify exactly :rolleyes:

 

Jedi use cards, not gizmos and gadgets that take too long to tap data into in the field, require both hamds to use, fail or break (or batterires go flat) when needed and are subject to sh1t in and sh1t out user problems both at time of set-up and at time of use.

 

Nitpicking: Bloomin slow calling of corrections in the first vid - would want to hear those almost instantly that the splash is seen :P:)

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I belive the link is fixed now? Put UKV in the comment field if is should fail to work and you need to search it up. If both of these fails, PM an email adress and I'll send it.

 

...use cards, not gizmos and gadgets...

 

If it was possible to agree more than 100% I would. If we were living in a dictatorship I would lobby to have the use of gizmos and gadgets regulated by law and forbidden in certain situations. If my person happened to be the dictator I would offer death or community beneficial slave labour till death for misleading advertisement of said gizmos and gadgets.

 

Said products are great analysis tools for mapping out a trajectory in the office (with the help of your log), for informal plinking on the range or as a conversation piece but I don't think technology is good enough for practical LR yet. By doing the cards you get a much better "ownership" of your own trajectory and free a lot of mental capacity that can go into the shot and not the gadget. I try to point that out as often as socially acceptable, but sometimes misgauge it as owners of those gizmos and gadgets can be very protective :lol:

 

Slow yes, but I'll step to his defence as it is his first time. The shooter/ spotter I brought with me is Ulf Lindroth a nice chap and one of very few who actually makes a living in his business. (Shameless plug, he just made a beautiful film about winter capercaille hunting,

)

 

But past 1000 everything slows down for me as well having to see through all that air and separate a near invisible trace (small bullet, MUCH easier with the 338!)from a sometime misleading bullet/ riccochet splash, not to say the delay when "welding" the picture of the splash and the reticle together. It's easy enough short range, but at longrange where there is no error budget left I can use 2-3x the time to get it absolutely right but still have it before the shooter can do his followup.

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Me too :angry: I will PM you Roe

 

Tony, email sent.

 

It should work. Click on the centre icon when you come to the album and the file should download.

 

Here is 3 pictures from the Swedish Method manual to help you decode. It doesn't perfectly match up with what you downloaded, I'm afraid this is shows the 2005 version and I didn't bother updating it with the cards. The text is in Norwegian, but the pictures will hopefully be enough to let you get the gist of it.

 

normal_Lysbilde1~0.JPG

 

normal_Lysbilde2.JPG

 

normal_Lysbilde3.JPG

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Well shoot me down!!

 

But I carry both cards and a Kestrel Horus with Atrag - I personally find the Horus quicker to use in the field at all ranges upto 1200 yds.

 

Last year I also chornographed a friends 30-06ai, filled in the parameters in the field into the Horus and he was breaking rocks at 900 yards within 15 minutes, then the next day he was hitting gongs at 1000yds. For me I like the Horus system - maybe I have just been lucky??

 

Wouldn't want to be without a laminated paper copy too though, just in case of battery failure.

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normal_Lysbilde3.JPG

 

Ah, the light has come on with that last pic!

 

Just looking at the chart I couldn't see how you were operating temp and pressure. I get it now :)

 

Whats' the other chart visible in the pics?

 

 

(How did you do the instruction pics? I like the format with 'in your hand' images in the foreground and the panorama in the background -might have to steal the idea!)

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Well shoot me down!!

 

No I'm not going to do that, who am I to tell people how LR shooting must be enjoyed?

A ballistic app or computer will work just fine such as you decribe; controlled situations where a miss or hit has no consequence. It all makes for a good learning experience and will evolve you as a shooter.

 

For a rapidly changing situation where you don't know what the world looks like in 3 seconds one cannot do well enough with a gizmo or a rangecard for that matter, but a rangecard will familiarize you well enough with ballistics to make use of that shot. For instance taking a shot at a tree-line browsing deer; you only have the shot for 3-4 seconds as he walks, but a poor shot will certainly ruin your day. By being prepared you can take the shot easily enough, to start your workstream when you see it won't work that well.

 

Put tasks into a limited timeframe and people get stressed and extremely error prone. Most of the errors will be minor, but put enough into a chain and it gets critical. Wrong sausage-finger input on the gizmos, missing vital information from the target area/oops target gone!, not cathing the wind correctly, the evolutionary reaction of raising your shoulders and tightening your muscles all makes for a poor shot. If you where running around doing this and wounding deer I would however like to interfere, but not "shoot you down" but rather show you a better way. (Last course I did on New Zealand this winter had the hunters smacking head sized targets at 7-800 meters within hours - but this was "forced-progression" and sometimes way outside their comfort-zone until we put all the pieces together).

 

 

normal_LR-NZ__2.jpg

 

Brown Dog, use photoshop, work in layers. Import the different pictures into different layers and you can work them independently and fuse them all together. "Magic wand" button is key to working/cutting fast.

 

Very good to do illustrations on abstract subject such as wind, trace and workstreams which can be difficult with words. When you do illustrations think "children's books" and do as much as you can with pictures and as little as possible with text. Very good for showing workstreams.

 

normal_Vindklokke.jpg

 

normal_Tradkors_vind.jpg

 

normal_vind_3_delt.jpg

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Whats' the other chart visible in the pics?

 

Sorry, missed that one.

It is just an early workstream for doing large classes where you can't give one-on-one to everyone.

By using a fill-in-the blanks chart I force the very novice shooters to make an evaluation of ALL the variable I want them to consider and if it goes wrong we have a reference point for backtracking and discussing what he did.

As soon as one is familiar with the workstream, toss the chart.

As soon one have integrated the ballistics in the workstream, toss it all (well, not really - update it if the barrel changes with wear or read it on the potty or as a goodnight story to your kids).

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Greetings Roe, good to see you are letting the rest of the world have a chance to use this method. Been using the cards for some years now and I have to say they are second to none, and as has been mentioned they do not rely on batteries that will always fail when you really need them. Those who take the time to learn to use them in the field will not be disappointed, especially those that shoot for their living.

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