Free Ballistics and Reference Tools
Free ballistics tools that show their work. Every calculator runs in your browser, with no account, no sign-up and no result held back.
Seven ballistics tools, and here is what each one is for. One solves a full trajectory from whatever you feed it; five are finished charts for the cartridges people ask about most, already solved so there is nothing to type; the last compares optics. Every number behind them comes from a manufacturer, a standards body or a published dataset, and every one of those is cited on the page where it is used.
| Tool | The question it answers | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Ballistic Calculator | What does my load do at distance? | Full point-mass trajectory from your zero, sight height and conditions: drop, wind, energy and MOA to MRAD. |
| .308 Winchester Ballistics Chart | How do the common .308 loads compare? | Four factory loads solved to 600 yards, two match and two hunting, drop and wind side by side. |
| 6.5 Creedmoor Ballistics Chart | What does the high ballistic coefficient actually buy? | Three factory loads to 600 yards, with the wind column that shows where the advantage really is. |
| .30-06 Springfield Ballistics Chart | Match or hunting load? | Three factory loads to 600 yards so the cost of each choice is visible. |
| .270 Winchester Ballistics Chart | Which .270 load holds up furthest? | Four factory loads to 600 yards, the widest spread of any cartridge on this site. |
| .300 Winchester Magnum Ballistics Chart | How much is left at 600 yards? | Three factory loads, still carrying over 1,200 foot-pounds at 600. |
| Holosun Comparison Chart | Which Holosun fits my gun, and what does it cost? | Every current model with window, reticle, battery, mounting footprint and live pricing. |
| 350 Legend Ballistics | Is 350 Legend enough gun past 200 yards? | Twelve factory loads gathered from every maker publishing one, each coefficient re-derived from the maker’s own velocity table. |
| 22 ARC Ballistics | What does 22 ARC do that 223 will not? | Hornady’s five loads on a common zero, plus a same-bullet comparison against 224 Valkyrie. |
| 6.5 PRC Ballistics | Is PRC worth it over 6.5 Creedmoor? | The same bullets in both cartridges, side by side, so the gain is a number rather than an opinion. |
| 450 Bushmaster Ballistics | Which straight-wall cartridge actually shoots flattest? | Every published load, and an honest answer on which comparisons share a barrel and which do not. |
| Red Dot Footprint Chart | Will this red dot bolt to my pistol? | Every current mounting pattern against the pistols that cut it, including the pairs that look identical and are not. |
| Scope Ring Height Calculator | How tall do my rings need to be? | Ring height and sight height over bore from your objective diameter, worked both ways ring makers measure it. |
| How We Verify Ballistics Data | Why should I trust these numbers? | The four steps, the equations in plain text, the sourcing rules, and what this site will not guess. |
Every one of these ballistics tools, and what it answers
Ballistic Calculator
Bullet drop, wind, muzzle energy, free recoil and MOA to MRAD in one place
Solves a full point-mass trajectory in your browser using the G1 standard drag function. Set your zero, your sight height and the air you are shooting in, and it returns drop, wind deflection, remaining velocity and energy, plus maximum point-blank range. Its muzzle-energy figures reproduce the numbers Federal prints on its own product pages, load for load. Saves your rifles locally and puts your inputs in the web address so a result can be shared.
.308 Winchester Ballistics Chart
Four factory loads, drop and wind to 600 yards
Gold Medal 168 and 175 grain match, the 178 grain ELD-X and the 150 grain Power-Shok, each solved from the muzzle velocity and ballistic coefficient Federal publishes for that catalog number. Drop, energy and wind tables plus a chart, all in plain HTML.
6.5 Creedmoor Ballistics Chart
Three factory loads, and what the high ballistic coefficient actually buys
The 140 grain MatchKing, the 143 grain ELD-X and the 130 grain Terminal Ascent side by side. The wind column is the one worth reading: at 600 yards the spread between these three is larger in wind than it is in drop.
.30-06 Springfield Ballistics Chart
Three factory loads, match and hunting, to 600 yards
The 168 grain Gold Medal match load against the 180 and 150 grain Power-Shok hunting loads, so you can see what the cheap box costs you past 300 yards.
.270 Winchester Ballistics Chart
Four factory loads, and the widest spread on the network
From the 136 grain Terminal Ascent to the 150 grain Power-Shok, this cartridge shows the largest load-to-load difference of any on the site: 54 inches of drop between the best and worst at 600 yards.
.300 Winchester Magnum Ballistics Chart
Three factory loads, still carrying over 1,200 foot-pounds at 600 yards
The 180 grain Power-Shok, the 190 grain Gold Medal match and the 200 grain ELD-X. Every one of the three is still above the commonly quoted elk threshold at 600 yards.
Holosun Comparison Chart
Every current Holosun optic, with specs, footprints and prices as of their check date
Filter the whole current Holosun line by reticle, footprint, battery and price without opening twelve product pages.
350 Legend Ballistics
Twelve factory loads, every coefficient re-derived from the maker’s own table
Straight-wall states get one cartridge choice and a lot of marketing. This gathers every 350 Legend load any maker publishes a table for, re-derives the ballistic coefficient from that maker’s own velocity figures rather than trusting the number on the box, and shows what is actually left at 200 and 300 yards.
22 ARC Ballistics
Hornady’s five loads on one zero, and an honest 224 Valkyrie comparison
22 ARC is new enough that most of what is written about it is repeated from a press release. This puts all five factory loads on a common zero and runs the same bullet in 224 Valkyrie beside it, so the difference is a number you can check.
6.5 PRC Ballistics
The same bullets in PRC and Creedmoor, side by side
The only useful way to answer whether PRC is worth the barrel life is to run the identical bullet in both cartridges. That is what this page does, with the test-barrel lengths named, because a PRC figure from a 26-inch tube against a Creedmoor figure from a 24-inch tube is not a comparison.
450 Bushmaster Ballistics
Every published load, and which straight-wall comparisons are real
Half the straight-wall comparisons online put cartridges side by side that were never fired from comparable barrels. This one says which ones share a barrel and which do not, then charts every 450 Bushmaster load a maker publishes.
Red Dot Footprint Chart
Every current mounting pattern against the pistols that cut it
Footprint names are a mess: the same pattern carries several names and two patterns that look identical are not interchangeable. This chart names the three pairs people most often get wrong, and lists what each pistol is actually cut for.
Scope Ring Height Calculator
Ring height and sight height over bore, both ways makers measure it
Ring makers do not agree on where ring height is measured from, which is why people order twice. Put in your objective diameter and tube size and this gives both figures, plus the sight height over bore that the ballistic calculator asks for.
How We Verify Ballistics Data
The four steps, the equations, and what this site will not guess
Every number on these pages traces back to a maker’s published figure or to arithmetic you can redo. This page sets out the method, writes the equations in plain text, and says plainly where the site refuses to estimate.
The method, the drag functions, every formula written out and a worked example you can check on paper are all on the ballistic calculator page. The short version: a point-mass solver stepping half a thousandth of a second at a time, the G1 standard drag function, the ICAO standard sea-level day, and no figure on any of these pages that we cannot point at a published source for.
Found an error? These pages carry corrections to manufacturers’ own published data, so we take our own mistakes seriously. Tell us what is wrong and where, and if you are right the page changes and the change is dated.
Tools reviewed and data re-checked August 2026.
The flattest load on this site, cartridge by cartridge
Every figure below is read out of the calculator on this site, from a 100-yard zero, 1.5-inch sight height and standard sea-level air. Same conditions for all five, so the columns are comparable. The short version: a .270 Winchester pushing a 136-grain bonded tip at 3,000 fps drops 45.5 inches at 500 yards, the flattest of anything in these tables, and a .308 with a heavy hunting bullet gives up about 15 inches over the same distance.
| Cartridge | Drop at 500 yd (in) | Drop at 600 yd (in) | Flattest load in our table | Muzzle velocity (fps) | Loads covered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| .270 Winchester | −45.5 | −74.1 | 136 gr bonded, polymer-tipped | 3,000 | 4 |
| .300 Win Mag | −48.0 | −77.2 | 200 gr polymer-tipped | 2,860 | 3 |
| 6.5 Creedmoor | −52.3 | −84.5 | 130 gr bonded, polymer-tipped | 2,800 | 3 |
| .30-06 Springfield | −59.9 | −97.7 | 168 gr boat-tail hollow point match | 2,700 | 3 |
| .308 Winchester | −60.9 | −98.2 | 178 gr polymer-tipped | 2,610 | 4 |
Flattest means least drop at 500 yards among the factory loads charted on each cartridge page. A flatter load is not automatically the better one — check the wind and energy columns on the page itself before deciding.
Data updated September 2026