Arrow drop shooting up hill

[sproulman]

Brother missed his buck from treestand .His bow is sighted in at 30 yards dead .at 40 yards arrow drop was about 7 inchs or so ..He said buck was at 41 yds...He used 20 yd line sighted in for 30 yards..

he held on top of back and arrow went low under buck..

is there a lot of drop shooting uphill?Using 16.5 inch zombies with 100 gr spitfires....Maybe he moved etc too but he said arrow looked like it dropped at lot ....

[janesy]

Technically the trajectory does not change at all, but the ground come up or down to the line of your arrow. Very layman's terms there.

So if you can imagine shooting at a target that is higher than your level line of site, then the arrow will arrive at its target lower than expected.

Exact opposite is true shooting downhill. The target drops away from the level line of sight. Now obviously changing the angle of your shot up or down will compensate for this. But instead of one level line(ground) and a angled line (trajectory), you be calculating for two angled lines.

Make sense? Tough to type.

[racking up points]

Your brother's scenario is why I hunt with setups that allow me to use a reticle or a dial to compensate for yardage. It's tough to estimate what 7" looks like at 41 yards. It is even harder to estimate 41 yards, but that is a whole 'nother ball game.

As long as you are looking through the scope the same way you were when you sighted-in there wouldn't be any need for compensating for up/downhill shots. But that's easier said than done. My trick is to shoulder the bow as I normally would. To lower or raise my bow to the target, I use my hips and not my bow arm. This allows me to have a more consistent eye alignment.

[Hunt it]

This is why they make rangefinders with arc technology. Takes all the guess work out of it.

[nchunterkw]

Technically the trajectory does not change at all, but the ground come up or down to the line of your arrow. Very layman's terms there.

So if you can imagine shooting at a target that is higher than your level line of site, then the arrow will arrive at its target lower than expected.

Exact opposite is true shooting downhill. The target drops away from the level line of sight. Now obviously changing the angle of your shot up or down will compensate for this. But instead of one level line(ground) and a angled line (trajectory), you be calculating for two angled lines.

Make sense? Tough to type.

No, this does not make sense to me..

Gravity effects the trajectory of your arrow only along the horizontal path of flight. So when you aim uphill, with the bow pointed at an upward angle with respect to horizontal, straight line distance to the target is longer than the horizontal distance, so gravity effects the trajectory less. This holds for uphill and downhill shots.

So if you range the deer as 40 yds, at a 30 degree uphill angle, the horizontal distance is only 34yds. So if you use your 40 yd sight pin, you will hit high. The same exact physics holds if the deer is at a 30 degree angle below you.

Here is a quick link to help.

http://archeryreport.com/2010/06/uphill ... ow-impact/

[newbie]

I am with Keith.
Sproul your brother either greatly underestimated the distance or muffed the shot.

[paulaboutform]

An easy way to think of this is as follows: weather you're shooting up or downhill, imagine your target on the same line as you horizontally. In other words, if you're twenty feet up a tree overlooking a ravine you may range the deer as forty yards away from your line of sight. Now, if you were at the base of the tree and ranged the deer it may only be twenty five yards away. Hence, you always shoot for the horizontal distance to your target. We get a lot of practice with this living in B.C. as most of our 3D shooting is done almost straight up and down. I've shot targets over fifty yards away and used my twenty yard pin. I think, as was mentioned, either your brother miscalculated the yardage or dropped his bow on the shot to watch the arrow hit.

Paul

[Buszone]

I'm with Keith and newbie ... I would guess he either underestimated the distance or blew the shot or combo of both

[WNYBILL]

Think of it this way. If you were shooting straight up in the air, you would not aim high or low. If you were shooting straight down, you would not aim high or low. Shooting up hill or down hill, there is not as much drop as shooting level. Same with a rifle.

If you shoot perfectly level and drop an arrow or bullet at the same instant, the shot item and the dropped item hit the ground at the same time. Basic law of gravity.

[jd4223]

Buy your brother a range finder with an arc compensator(Example:The Truth range finder). He will have no excuse for missing the shot.

[janesy]

Technically the trajectory does not change at all, but the ground come up or down to the line of your arrow. Very layman's terms there.

So if you can imagine shooting at a target that is higher than your level line of site, then the arrow will arrive at its target lower than expected.

Exact opposite is true shooting downhill. The target drops away from the level line of sight. Now obviously changing the angle of your shot up or down will compensate for this. But instead of one level line(ground) and a angled line (trajectory), you be calculating for two angled lines.

Make sense? Tough to type.

No, this does not make sense to me..

Gravity effects the trajectory of your arrow only along the horizontal path of flight. So when you aim uphill, with the bow pointed at an upward angle with respect to horizontal, straight line distance to the target is longer than the horizontal distance, so gravity effects the trajectory less. This holds for uphill and downhill shots.

So if you range the deer as 40 yds, at a 30 degree uphill angle, the horizontal distance is only 34yds. So if you use your 40 yd sight pin, you will hit high. The same exact physics holds if the deer is at a 30 degree angle below you.

Here is a quick link to help.

http://archeryreport.com/2010/06/uphill ... ow-impact/

Yes I am fully aware, that's why I said very layman's terms. But from normal treestand heights, 30-40 yards the difference is negligible compared to say ten. Also gravity does play a different role when further from the surface compared to closer, but again negligible at short distances. It is not as simple as saying gravity only work on a level plane.

This conversation has been beaten to death a million times and everyone takes it a different way. I tried to simplify it as much as possible. Perhaps too much. Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers.

[sproulman]

Thanks for info.....at 40 yards drop on his setup was around 7 inchs when i sighted it in.he said he fell before shot told me that after he got home.

his arrow was hitting 2 inchs low 2 inchs to right..So thats 9 inchs drop ..

he did not range before he shot he knew it was around 40 yards guess so he held at top of back..i bet he looked thru scope wrong than being on table at home ..its hard in stand if you do not practice.but he is shooting uphill fairly steep he hunts sidehills .....

every week i take my Summit and climb the telephone pole and shoot at target...

again thanks for info..